Month: January 2010
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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 in the city, the exchange…
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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 Missionary to America.” This article…
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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 immigrants. I’m sure we’ll discuss…
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American Orthodox demographics, 1906-1936
Every ten years, from 1906 to 1936, the US Census Bureau compiled a Census of Religious Bodies. These censuses are gold mines of information on early American Orthodoxy. Also, unlike so many of the inflated numbers that you’re likely to see floating around, the census data is reliable. With its considerable resources, the Census Bureau…
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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 Russians, Greeks and Syrians, in…
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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 articles on “Greek” or “Russian”…
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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 of days, I’ve pieced together…
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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 may make a halt and…