Tag: Bulgarian

American Orthodox demographics, 1906-1936

Every ten years, from 1906 to 1936, the US Census Bureau compiled a Census of Religious Bodies. These censuses are gold mines of information on early American Orthodoxy. Also, unlike so many of the inflated numbers that you're likely to see floating around, the census data is reliable. With its...

Language in American Orthodoxy, 1916 (reposted from 8/21/09)

To our New Calendar readers: Christ is born! The following article was originally published on August 21, 2009. If you're interested, you might check out the comments to that original posting. We'll be back with brand-new material on Monday, December 28. As you might expect, most American Orthodox parishes in...

The Bulgarian Diocese in Exile

The longest-serving hierarch in American Orthodox history was Abp. Kyrill Yonchev (1964-2007), until late this past June, when his record tenure of nearly 43 years was exceeded by Metr. Philip Saliba of the Antiochian Archdiocese. Kyrill was well-known and well-loved as the OCA's diocesan bishop for Western Pennsylvania as well...

Fact-checking the Bulgarian Monk

Continuing on the theme of Rev. A.N. Experidon (aka "the Bulgarian Monk") from yesterday, I thought I would check out some of the claims made by our itinerant friend. In the Atlanta Constitution (April 30, 1876) Fr. Experidon is reported to have met Loring and Colston, two former Confederate soldiers,...

The Bulgarian Monk visits San Jose

In the latest episode of my American Orthodox History podcast,  I talk about Rev. A.N. Experidon, better known as "the Bulgarian Monk." He was, without a doubt, the weirdest man in the history of American Orthodoxy. For the whole story, I'd encourage you to listen to the podcast, but below,...

Language in American Orthodoxy, 1916

As you might expect, most American Orthodox parishes in 1916 used foreign languages. From that year's Census of Religious Bodies, conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau, we find the following unsurprising information: Both of the Albanian parishes used exclusively Albanian. The four Bulgarian parishes used Bulgarian and Slavonic. The 87...