Fr. Mark Arey on the Episcopal Assembly

Ancient Faith Radio has just aired a 56-minute long interview with Fr. Mark Arey, General Secretary of SCOBA and a key coordinator of the first meeting of the Episcopal Assembly. I haven't yet listened to the interview, but this is how AFR describes it: In our continuing effort to keep...

Rethinking the Myth of Unity

One year ago, I delivered a paper at St. Vladimir's Seminary entitled, "The Myth of Unity and the Origins of Jurisdictional Pluralism in American Orthodoxy." (Click here for the audio.) My thesis was that, contrary to a widely-held belief, American Orthodoxy was not administratively united prior to the Bolshevik Revolution of...

Fr. Nathaniel Irvine and Bishop Talbot

Over on Frontier Orthodoxy, Fr. Oliver Herbel has just published a post about Fr. Ingram Nathaniel Irvine and his feud with the Episcopalian Bishop Ethelbert Talbot -- a feud which ultimately led Irvine to leave the Episcopal Church and convert to Orthodoxy. To read Fr. Oliver's post, click here. Last August,...

Icons Are Not “Written”

Editor's note: Today, we are pleased to present an article by Dr. John Yiannias, Professor Emeritus of Art History at the University of Virginia. Dr. Yiannias holds a Ph.D. in Early Christian and Byzantine Art from the University of Pittsburgh, and is a leading expert on Orthodox iconography. At the 2008 conference...

A Jewish convert to Orthodoxy in 1897

Leaving aside Native Alaskans and Uniates, conversions to Orthodoxy in America were quite rare at the turn of the last century. Yes, American women occasionally converted when they married cradle Orthodox men, and there was the odd Episcopalian convert, but even taking those into consideration, conversions were very uncommon. And...

Picture of the Week: Episcopal Assembly Enthusiasm

In recently going through the photos I took from the Episcopal Assembly last week, my eye finally studied this one above with more than a cursory glance. It's worth noting that not all of the proceedings of the Assembly were met solely with sober care. I didn't hear any cheering...

Source of the Week: Bob Marley’s funeral program

Journey To Orthodoxy yesterday ran a piece about the conversion of reggae artist Bob Marley to the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church (a non-Chalcedonian church very similar to but not currently in communion with the [Eastern] Orthodox Church). It's worth a read. We thought it might also be of interest to...

The Mysterious Roots of Orthodoxy in Canada

No one knows for certain when and where the first Orthodox Divine Liturgy was served in Canada. The first documented Liturgy was served in June 1897 by the Seattle-based missionary Fr. Dimitri Kamnev (assisted by Vladimir Alexandrov, then a reader) in a field belonging to Theodore Nemirsky at Wostok, Alberta....

More eyewitness accounts from the Episcopal Assembly

The reader may be interested to take a look at some eyewitness accounts of the recent Episcopal Assembly published by the ROCOR from three of the Russian bishops serving in North America, Abp. Justinian (MP USA), Bp. Job (MP Canada) and Bp. Jerome (ROCOR). (One of the more notable elements...

The Odd Adventures of Fr. Philip Sredanovich

Fr. Philip Sredanovich is one of the odder characters in American Orthodox history. Perhaps not as odd as the embellishing Agapius Honcharenko or the wandering Bulgarian Monk, but in all my studies, I've run across few parish priests stranger than Sredanovich. Sredanovich was born in Montenegro in 1881. I read somewhere...