Tag: Misael Karydis


This week in American Orthodox history (June 4-10)


June 10, 1870: The Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church created the Diocese of the Aleutian Islands and Alaska. Previously, Alaska -- or, before its 1867 sale to the United States, "Russian America" -- was part of the Diocese of Kamchatka. Making Alaska its own diocese was part of...

The census record of Fr. Misael Karydis


Fr. Misael Karydis is one of many odd, mysterious figures from early American Orthodox history. We've discussed him at length in past articles. He was the longtime pastor of Holy Trinity Church in New Orleans, from 1881 until his suicide in 1901, and besides his pastoral work, he was apparently...

A visit to the New Orleans Greek church in 1885


Editor's note: The following excerpt appeared in the Historical Sketch Book and Guide to New Orleans and Environs, published by Will H. Coleman in 1885. It is a rare firsthand account of Holy Trinity church in New Orleans in the 19th century. The priest at the time was Fr. Misael...

The death of Fr. Misael Karydis


On December 22, I wrote about the tragic death of Fr. Misael Karydis, longtime pastor of the Greek church in New Orleans. You'll want to read that article first, to follow what I'm talking about today. After I published that piece, I unconvered several more reports on Karydis' death, from...

Organs in Greek Orthodox churches


As regular readers of this website know, I am particularly interested in the "Americanization" of Orthodoxy in the New World -- things like clergy appearance (beards vs. shaved faces, cassocks vs. collars), pews, church music (organs and mixed choirs), early converts, the use of English, and so forth. Today, I'm...

Fr. Misael Karydis and his flying machine


Archimandrite Misael Karydis spent twenty years as the priest in New Orleans, from 1881 until 1901. Two decades at a single parish is a long time, especially in the early years of American Orthodox history. Before Karydis, only one priest (that I know of) had ever served such a lengthy...

The First Orthodox Liturgy in Chicago


Fr. Misael Karydis served at Holy Trinity Greek Church in New Orleans from 1881 to 1901. Throughout the 1880s, he was the only Orthodox priest in between the Atlantic and Pacific Coasts, and even in the 1890s, he was basically the only Orthodox priest in the American South. As such,...

Early priests in New Orleans


Holy Trinity Church in New Orleans was the first organized Orthodox parish in the contiguous United States. Despite that fact, precious little is known about its early history. The first priest to visit New Orleans was the infamous Fr. Agapius Honcharenko, but, contrary to popular belief, Honcharenko was not actually...