A Letter to President McKinley

In my latest American Orthodox History podcast on Ancient Faith Radio, I spoke with Eric Peterson about Alaskan Orthodoxy in the period following the 1867 sale of Alaska by Russia to the United States. This was a tragic period, and for decades, a Presbyterian missionary named Rev. Sheldon Jackson ruled Alaska...

SOCHA on Facebook

The Society now has a "page" on Facebook, adding another outlet to keep folks connected with this site and what's going on in the study of American Orthodox history: Check it out here.

St. Tikhon, the Russian Council of 1917-18, and the Metropolia

The video takes a few minutes to get going, but here is a roughly 80-minute history of the Russian council of 1917-18, bracketed by history of the Russian Metropolia, entitled True Faith and the Ground of Liberty (subtitled St. Tikhon and the 1917-1918 Council: Architect and Blueprint for the Orthodox...

Parish priest stability, 1911-1915

I’ve conducted a little study on parish stability during the 1910s, with some slightly surprising results. I began with a list of the Orthodox parishes that had resident priests in 1911. For each of these, I checked to see whether the same priest was serving the parish four years later,...

St. Vladimir’s lecture

The talks from the recent conference at St. Vladimir's Seminary may now be viewed online, courtesy of St. Andrew House in Detroit. You can also listen to the audio at Ancient Faith Radio. The video of my own talk, "The Myth of Past Unity," can be found here: (A direct link is...

“Bless me then, O Lord, to enter upon my work…”

Continuing the theme from yesterday... After the death of St. Philaret, St. Innocent was chosen to be his replacement as Metropolitan of Moscow. Below is his first pastoral address as Metropolitan, given in Moscow's Dormition (Assumption) Cathedral on May 26, 1868. The address was printed in the English-language Orthodox Catholic Review...

“He kindles its very snows with his warm zeal…”

On my Ancient Faith Radio podcast, I'm in the midst of a three-part interview series with Eric Peterson on the subject of Alaskan Orthodox history. Today, AFR aired Part 2 of that series, focusing on the period from 1824 (St. Innocent) to 1867 (the sale of Alaska to the United...

Chicago, 1888

In 1888, a pan-Orthodox parish was almost established in Chicago. On my Ancient Faith Radio podcast, American Orthodox History, I devoted an episode to that story. I read from a couple of newspaper articles, the most interesting of which is below (Chicago Daily Tribune, May 14, 1888):

Matthew Namee at SVS

At the "Orthodoxy in America: Past, Present and Future" conference at St. Vladimir's Seminary in New York, SOCHA member Matthew Namee presented his paper The Myth of Past Unity, addressing the issue of the character of administrative unity prior to the establishment of the Greek Archdiocese in 1921. You can...

OCANews.org debate

Readers may be interested to take a look at an informal "debate" which took place on the OCANews.org website in April and May of 2009 between SOCHA member Fr. Oliver Herbel and George C. Michalopulos on the subject of the unity of Orthodox administration in America prior to the establishment...