Grand Duke Alexis in the New York chapel, Thanksgiving 1871

From the New York Times, December 1, 1871: Thanksgiving Day was observed by the Grand Duke Alexis yesterday in a very quiet manner. In the morning he went to the Greek Chapel at No. 951 Second-avenue, accompanied by Minister Catacazy, Admiral Poisset, the Secretary of Legation and Consul-General Bodisco. By...

The founding members of SCOBA

Recently, I happened to look at Fr. Serafim Surrency's 1973 book The Quest for Orthodox Unity in America, an invaluable study of American Orthodoxy from 1794 to 1973. This book is one of the best sources for information on, among other things, Archbishop Aftimios Ofiesh's "American Orthodox Catholic Church," as...

Correcting the record on Bishop Nicholas Ziorov

Bishop Nicholas Ziorov, head of the Russian Mission in America from 1891 to 1898, is one of the most underappreciated people in American Orthodox history. I am afraid that I have done nothing to help this state of affairs. Back in June, I wrote dismissively that Bishop Nicholas "was a...

The Treasure of Archbishop Michael

Editor's note: In its nine decades of existence, the Greek Archdiocese has been served by only six primates -- Alexander, Athenagoras, Michael, Iakovos, Spyridon, and Demetrios. And 55 of those years are covered by just two men, Athenagoras and Iakovos. That pair looms large over American Orthodoxy, and an argument can...

An Orthodox saint from Gary, Indiana

The Northwest Indiana Times recently published an article on St. Varnava Nastic, who was born in Gary, Indiana in 1914. St. Varnava was the first person baptized in St. Sava Orthodox Church, which was originally in Gary and is now located in Merrillville. The Nastic family returned to Yugoslavia when...

Interview with Byzantine, Texas blog

Readers of OrthodoxHistory.org may be interested in a recent interview I did with the "Byzantine, Texas" blog. We discussed the history of SOCHA, our membership drive, and our plans for the future. I'd like to thank the blog's proprietor, "Josephus Flavius," for the opportunity. To read the interview, click here.

An update on the “Most Influential” project

A couple of weeks ago, I introduced an ongoing project to create a list of the most influential people in American Orthodox history. In that article, I laid down some ground rules: The person must have died at least 20 years ago (1990 or earlier). The person must be sufficiently...

US Orthodox memorials for Tsar Alexander III

Tsar Alexander III of Russia died on November 1, 1894. A week later (and 116 years ago today), on November 8, two memorial services for the Tsar were held in America. Both were of note, for various reasons. New York had no Russian church in 1894, so the Russian consul...

Become a member of SOCHA today!

The Society for Orthodox Christian History in the Americas (SOCHA) began last year with a small number of members -- our three directors and the members of our advisory board. Since then, we have been amazed with the level of interest people have shown in American Orthodox history. Today, we...

St. John comes to Chicago, 1895

This article was originally published one year ago, on November 2, 2009.   This past weekend, those of us on the New Calendar celebrated the feast day of St. John Kochurov, the Russian New Martyr and former priest of Holy Trinity Cathedral in Chicago. With that in mind, I thought I'd...