One city, two churches: New York, 1894

The first Greek Orthodox church in New York City -- named for the Holy Trinity -- was formed in January of 1892. It was organized by a group called the Society of Athena, which, as the name suggests, was composed mainly of Greek immigrants from Athens. The community's first priest, Fr. Paisios...

The First Greek Church in New York

From 1870 to 1883, Fr. Nicholas Bjerring operated a Russian chapel in New York City. At the time, there were very few Orthodox Christians in New York, and Bjerring's parish was always small. As we've discussed before, in 1883, the Russian government decided to pull its funding and close the...

Dabovich’s Miter

If you read one of the many articles on the life of Fr. Sebastian Dabovich, you might run across a story about his miter (that is, his archimandrite's crown). Dabovich had been elevated to archimandrite by St. Tikhon in 1905, and Tikhon gave Dabovich a miter on the occasion. According to St....

More on Fr. Vladimir Alexandrov

A few days ago, we discussed the tragic story of Fr. Vladimir Alexandrov, the early 20th century Russian priest whose life reads like (as Fr. Andrew Damick has suggested) a Russian novel. Very briefly: Alexandrov accidentally killed his son; his wife had an affair with his assistant priest (and took...

St. Alexander Hotovitzky on St. John of Kronstadt

  St. Alexander Hotovitzky was the rector of St. Nicholas Church (and then Cathedral) in New York City from his ordination in 1896 until his return to Russia in 1914. For almost all of that time, he was the highest-ranking priest in the Russian Mission. Of course, he was dean...

The first convert priests… or… the first American apostates

On today's American Orthodox History podcast, I discuss the first two convert American Orthodox priests, James Chrystal and Nicholas Bjerring. You can listen to the podcast for the whole story, but I thought I'd give a brief summary here. Chrystal and Bjerring were exact contemporaries, both born in 1831. Chrystal...

The tragic story of Fr. Vladimir Alexandrov

Fr. Vladimir Alexandrov was a priest in the Russian Mission in the late 19th and early 20th century. He began his career in 1896, as the choir director of the multiethnic St. Spiridon Church in Seattle, Washington. After his ordination in 1898 (or '99), he remained in Seattle as the...

Elder Joachim in America

In the 1920s, a young Greek priest named Fr. John Nicolaides served in America -- oddly enough, as a clergyman of the Patriarchate of Jerusalem. In 1930, he left for Mount Athos, where he became Fr. Joachim, now well-known as Elder Joachim of St. Anne's Skete. He is prominently featured...

In Defense of Fr. Irvine

"Self righteousness. Self assuredness. Emphasising unity of administration. Not understanding the importance of Church music. The Freemason Conspiracy Theory. Aggressiveness....." The other day, I happened upon an online discussion of Fr. Ingram Nathaniel Irvine and his dislike of Isabel Hapgood. One commentator, whom I would credit if I knew his/her...

Irvine’s responds to Hapgood’s “Musical heresy”

Last week, I posted Isabel Hapgood's 1915 article in which she begged Archbishop Evdokim, "Please let us have a splendid choir!" She said, in part, "The Cathedral Choir, propertly constituted large enough, is immensely more important to your Church and Mission in this country than twenty little new parishes." The...