Tag: Serafim Surrency


Met. Leonty: A Life in Moments


As Matthew pointed out in his post yesterday, this week marks the 47th anniversary of the death of one of the truly  great Orthodox churchmen of the 20th century, Metropolitan Leonty Turkevich.  With an ecclesiastical career in the United States spanning from 1906 to 1965, there are few figures in the...

This week in American Orthodox history (February 20-26)


February 20, 1874: The future hieromartyr Vasily Martysz was born in Poland. He served in America -- first in Alaska, and then in Pennsylvania, Connecticut, New York, and Canada -- from 1901 to 1912. He died in 1945 and was canonized by the the Orthodox Church of Poland in 2003....

The founding members of SCOBA


Recently, I happened to look at Fr. Serafim Surrency's 1973 book The Quest for Orthodox Unity in America, an invaluable study of American Orthodoxy from 1794 to 1973. This book is one of the best sources for information on, among other things, Archbishop Aftimios Ofiesh's "American Orthodox Catholic Church," as...