Tag: newspapers

The First English-Speaking Parish

For a while now, I have been meaning to write about the first all-English Orthodox parish in America, founded in New York City in 1920. Today, I'm going to give a brief introduction to that parish, and the main characters involved. This is hardly the whole story; it really is...

Theophany in American Orthodox history

The latest episode of my American Orthodox History podcast is up over at Ancient Faith Radio. In it, I discuss the feast of Theophany, focusing on several historical celebrations of the feast, including the famous annual celebration at the Greek cathedral in Tarpon Springs, Florida. In the podcast, I read...

The Forgotten Saint of the Forgotten Church on the Forgotten Island

Archimandrite Theoclitos Triantafilides is one of the most remarkable figures in American Orthodox history. An ethnic Greek, he served as tutor to the future Tsar Nicholas II and went on to establish the multiethnic parish of Ss. Constantine and Helen in Galveston, Texas, under the Russian Mission. His story has been mostly untold,...

Blessing the Kansas River, 1910

    For Orthodox Christians on the Old Calendar, today is the feast of Theophany. I'm hoping to air a whole podcast on Theophany very soon, but in the meantime, I thought I'd reprint an article about a Theophany celebration that took place one hundred years ago.  I live in...

Protestant missions among Syrian Orthodox in Boston

Exactly 100 years ago -- January 15, 1910 -- the following article appeared in the Boston Globe: GREEKS OBSERVE NEW YEAR. Services Held in City Churches and Gifts are Exchanged. The members of the Orthodox Greek church celebrated their new year yesterday. The observation of the day included prayers in the two churches...

Fraudulent “Chaldean” fundraisers in America

As I've probably said a hundred times now, America is a frontier region for Orthodoxy. This was especially the case at the turn of the last century, when the chaotic nature of the American Orthodox scene provided ample opportunity for imposter priests to make a good living on unwitting Orthodox...

The First Orthodox Liturgy in Boston

Not too long ago, I wrote about Fr. Christopher Jabara, an Antiochian priest who visited America in 1893-94. Jabara preceded St. Raphael Hawaweeny, but he wasn't the first Antiochian priest to come to the United States. That title, I believe, belongs to Fr. Constantine Tarazy. Tarazy was a celibate priest...

100 Years Ago Today: January 8, 1910

If you were living in New York City exactly one hundred years ago, you could have read the following article in the Tribune, one of New York's many newspapers: GREEK CHRISTMAS Prayers Offered for Czar at Cathedral of St. Nicholas. Christmas was celebrated in New York yesterday by ten thousand...

Old Calendar Christmas

Today, of course, is Christmas for those Orthodox Christians on the Old (Julian) Calendar. Until the 1920s, all of Orthodoxy used the Old Calendar, and of course that included all the Orthodox in America. As we've discussed, the American media thought that this was thoroughly fascinating, and newspapers often ran...

The Trial of St. Raphael, Part 1

It's a funny thing -- slander, that is. Once it's out there, you can't take it back. Good men -- saints -- have been accused of the most heinous crimes imaginable, and been completely innocent. At the same time, bad men have been accused of the same crimes, and been...