Archbishop Arseny: The Context for Canonization — Part One

(Editor's note: Today, we are very pleased to introduce a new author here at OrthodoxHistory.org. Deacon Matthew Francis lives in Edmonton, Alberta, and is one of the leading historians of Orthodoxy in Canada. For some time now, he has been conducting independent research into the life of Archbishop Arseny Chagovtsov,...

A few good links

On his Frontier Orthodoxy website last week, Fr. Oliver Herbel posted an essay outlining his position on Archbishop Arseny's canonization. In a follow-up post, Fr. Oliver responded to the charge that he was employing a "hermeneutic of suspicion." Finally, on his own blog, Gabriel Sanchez used Fr. Oliver's comments a...

Guns on Pascha, 1905

I was browsing my newspaper archives recently, and came across an article about a Greek Pascha celebration in New York, exactly 105 years ago today (April 30, 1905). Here's the whole article, from the New York Times: While more than a thousand persons were in front of the Holy Trinity...

New Podcast on Fr. Demetrios Petrides

On today's episode of my American Orthodox History podcast, I focus on the life of Fr. Demetrios Petrides, a Greek priest in Philadelphia and Atlanta from 1907 to 1917. It was Petrides who, as priest in Philadelphia, wrote a letter to the Ecumenical Patriarchate recommending Robert Morgan for ordination as...

OCA Canonization Commission issues statement

This past weekend, the Canonization Commission of the OCA issued a statement at OCA.org. According to Commission secretary (and OCA archivist) Alexis Liberovsky, the Commission will begin detailed studies of the lives of both Metropolitan Leonty Turkevich and Archbishop Arseny Chagovtsov, to determine whether the OCA should canonize them. Canonization...

St. Anatole Kamenskii: A Guest Post by Fr. Andrew Morbey

  Originally, the following was made as a comment over on Frontier Orthodoxy, but I (Fr. Oliver) have asked Fr. Andrew Morbey to write it up as a separate post because I think it is good reading for everyone.  I had forgotten that I had been told that Kamenskii was canonized.  I...

Orthodoxy in Alaska after 1885 and Protestant Missionaries

The Russian Orthodoxy course I am teaching at Concordia College in Moorhead, MN, is drawing to a close.  Since I am the instructor, we devoted part of that course to an introduction to the Russian Mission in North America and another part to Orthodoxy in America more generally.  So, to...

Fr. Antony Hill: the second black Orthodox priest in America

After a week's worth of articles on the Archbishop Arseny criminal libel case, I thought I'd break things up a bit by looking at something completely different -- the story of Fr. Antony Hill, the second black Orthodox priest in America. By now, a lot of people know that Fr....

The Archbishop Arseny Trial Transcript

Last week, Fr. Oliver Herbel wrote a series of articles on the 1909 criminal libel trial involving Archimandrite (later Archbishop) Arseny Chagovtsov, who is currently being considered for canonization by the OCA. Fr. Oliver's summary may be found at the following links: Part 1 - Introduction Part 2 - the...

Archbishop Arseny Addendum

As an addendum, I would like to make a couple notes. First, I should state that there are aspects of the case and testimonies that I have not highlighted that may deserve further scrutiny and there are some details I have examined and/or questioned about which I could be wrong. ...