Tag: Russian

A Greek church in San Francisco, 1903

  From its founding in 1868, the Russian cathedral in San Francisco was a multiethnic community. In particular, Greeks and Serbs were an integral part of the church, and, at various times, there was an ethnic Greek (Fr. Kallinikos Kanellas) and an ethnic Serb priest (Fr. Sebastian Dabovich) serving the...

Today in history: St. Tikhon on the Sunday of Orthodoxy

St. Tikhon delivered the following address on the Sunday of Orthodoxy, February 23, 1903, in San Francisco. It was reprinted in Holy Trinity Cathedral LIFE (the newsletter of the San Francisco OCA cathedral) in March 1995, and may be found in the fantastic Holy Trinity Cathedral online archives. We are...

The San Francisco Cathedral: Before and After

In its early years, the Russian cathedral in San Francisco had a number of homes, including: 3241 Mission St. (the home of a parishioner named Mr. Seculovich) 509 Greenwich St. 911 Jackson St. 1108 Pierce St. 829 Greenwich St. (owned by a German Lutheran church) 1713 Powell St. Most of...

Source of the Week: the 1877 Holy Synod edict

For months now, I've been posting a new article virtually every weekday. I've got some things coming up in my life that will prevent me from writing quite that often, so in an effort to organize my time a bit more efficiently (and continue to offer new historical information on...

The Mysterious Death of Fr. Paul Kedrolivansky

On today's episode of my American Orthodox History podcast on Ancient Faith Radio, I tell the story of Fr. Paul Kedrolivansky's suspicious death. For the whole story, you'll want to listen to the podcast. There are quite a few characters involved, and I thought it might be helpful to provide...

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,...

A Life of St. Herman from 1919

  Vera Vladimirovna Johnston was born in the Russian Empire, married an Englishman, and eventually moved to New York. Her own story is extremely fascinating, and we will discuss it in detail in the future. Today, however, I am reprinting an article she wrote in 1919, entitled, "Herman -- Russian...

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...

Fr. Jacob Korchinsky: Missionary and Martyr

Recently, on our Facebook page, someone left a comment requesting information on Fr. Jacob Korchinsky, who is apparently being considered for canonization. I was vaguely familiar with Korchinsky; I'd read his name before, but knew next to nothing about him. Obviously, I wanted to learn more. Over the past couple...

St. Alexander Hotovitzky on the New Year

In the January 1902 supplement to the Vestnik (of which he was editor), St. Alexander Hotovitzky wrote a reflection on New Year's Day. It is reprinted in full below. Again I stand on the threshold of a New Year. Again I stand on the crest of a mountain, where I...