Tag: newspapers

Greek Orthodox Opposition to Slavery in 1862

At the close of every year, the Greek newspaper Anatolikos Aster (Eastern Star), published in Constantinople for the local Greek Orthodox community, would write an annual retrospective on events around the globe in the year that had just ended. What follows appeared in the edition of December 31, 1862, which the...

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....

Did an Athonite monk visit President Ulysses S. Grant?

In 1869, a priest from Mount Athos paid a visit to the sitting President of the United States, Ulysses S. Grant. The Aug. 18, 1869 issues of both the North American and United States Gazette (published in Philadelphia) and the Philadelphia Inquirer ran identical blurbs: The Rev. Father Christopher, a Greek priest from...

A more easily pronounced name

The church committee of a Greek orthodox church in New York city are to apply to the Holy Synod in Greece for the appointment of a new pastor to succeed the Rev. Agathodoro A. Papageorgopaulos, who recently resigned the pastorate of that church. If the committee want to “stand in”...

The Battle of Pacific Street, Part 3: Gunshots

As we've been discussing in detail, in September 1905, New York's Syrian community was on the brink of war. On one side were the Orthodox, who rallied around their bishop, St. Raphael Hawaweeny. The saint himself opposed violence -- both violent acts and violent words -- but his attempts to...

The Battle of Pacific Street, Part 2: Eve of the Battle

In our last article, we left the two New York Syrian camps -- Orthodox and Maronite -- on the brink of war. Each side's partisan newspaper attacked the other, and the Maronites took particular aim at St. Raphael, the Orthodox bishop of Brooklyn, accusing him of all sorts of outlandish...

The Battle of Pacific Street, Part 1: Trouble in Syrian New York

Editor's note: This is a slightly revised version of an article that I originally published back in 2010. It's also the first of a series of articles on the "Battle of Pacific Street," and its aftermath. And just in case you're reading this and don't know who St. Raphael Hawaweeny...

Fr. Theoclitos of Galveston on Charity

Recently, I've been working with a group of researchers to document the life of Fr. Theoclitos Triantafilides, the remarkable priest of Galveston, Texas. Fr. Theoclitos was from Greece -- his father had fought in the Greek Revolution -- and as a young man, Fr. Theoclitos lived on Mount Athos and...

HEOCACNA and Bishop Sophronios(us)

Bishop Sophronios/Sophronius (Beshara) was a bishop for the Holy Eastern Orthodox Catholic and Apostolic Church of North America (HEOCACNA), an enterprise started by Bishop Aftimios.  For all intents and purposes, the jurisdictional unity attempt died in 1933.  Bishop Sophronius, however, was the last bishop.  The date of his death has...