Greek Archives - Orthodox History

A Plea for English in Greek Orthodox Services in 1963

The US Congress imposed immigration quotas in 1924, ending the Ellis Island era of immigration. With no more newcomers, Orthodoxy in America began to assimilate more rapidly into American society, as the children and grandchildren of the original immigrants came to see themselves as Americans, even if they held onto...

Karloutsos and Biden

This is the fifth article in our series on Fr Alex Karloutsos. Here are the first four: The Father Alex Karloutsos Origin Story Karloutsos and the Rise of Bartholomew Father Alex and the Mother Church Karloutsos and 9/11 “I first met Joe Biden in 1987, when he ran for President...

Karloutsos and 9/11

This article is the fourth in a series on Fr Alex Karloutsos, based on many hours’ worth of interviews I did with him in 2024. Here are the previous three installments: The Father Alex Karloutsos Origin Story Karloutsos and the Rise of Bartholomew Father Alex and the Mother Church By...

How Did Orthodoxy Get Into This Mess?

It almost goes without saying that the Orthodox world is a mess right now. The situation in Ukraine alone is a disaster: a Russian invasion of the country backed by Patriarch Kirill of Moscow, persecution of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) by the state, and a recognized-by-only-some Orthodox Church of...

The Condemnation of Unauthorized Orthodox Teachers in 19th Century Greece

The history of Orthodoxy in 19th century Greece is extraordinarily complicated. Beginning with the Greek Revolution in 1821, the Church of Greece began to detach itself from the Ecumenical Patriarchate, declaring itself autocephalous in 1833 -- a status that was not recognized by the Ecumenical Patriarchate until 1850. This newly-independent...

The Origins of the ‘Barbarian Lands’ Theory

This paper was originally presented at the conference “The Greek Archdiocese at 100 Years,” Hellenic College-Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology, October 7, 2022. I am indebted to numerous friends and colleagues who reviewed the paper in advance and provided feedback. I am especially grateful to M., who provided...

The Athens Gospel Riots of 1901

At the end of the 19th century, the Russian-born Queen Olga of Greece commissioned her private secretary to translate the four Gospels into Modern Greek to make them more accessible to the ordinary laypeople. In December 1898, the secretary completed this project, and the Queen presented the translation to the...

Autocephaly or Subjugation to the State? The Church of Greece after the Revolution

The Greek War of Independence began 200 years ago, in 1821, and one of the big consequences of the war was the estrangement of the Orthodox Church in revolutionary Greece from its mother church of Constantinople. From the beginning of the revolution until 1833, the ecclesiastical situation in Greece was...

The Forgotten Greek Archbishop

Last week, I wrote about the remarkable pan-Orthodox youth festival in Pittsburgh in 1963. In that article, I mentioned in passing that the youth ministry alliance that put on the festival -- CEOYLA -- was, itself, organized with the blessing of Archbishop Michael, primate of the Greek Archdiocese in from...

The Early History of Orthodoxy in Chicago

In 2011, I gave a talk at Holy Apostles Greek Orthodox Church in Westchester, Illinois, on the early history of Orthodoxy in Chicago. Here's the text of that lecture, basically unedited since I wrote it 7+ years ago. ******* The story of Orthodoxy in Chicago really begins in the 1880s....

Tag: Greek