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Fr. Philip Abo-Assaley of Grand Rapids
Fr. Philipous (or Philip) Abo-Assaley was an early Antiochian priest who served under St. Raphael and, later, Bishop Aftimios Ofiesh. He founded St. George Orthodox Church in Grand Rapids, Mich. and served as its…
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Conference on St. Sergius of Radonezh
One of our SOCHA advisory board members is Deacon Andrei Psarev, church history instructor at Holy Trinity Seminary in Jordanville, NY. He’s asked us to help spread the word about a conference being held…
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The Battle of Pacific Street, Part 4: Did St. Raphael Try to Shoot a Policeman?
In my last article, I wrote about the “Battle of Pacific Street” — the gunfight between Syrian Orthodox and Maronites in Brooklyn on the night of September 18, 1905. As I said before, St.…
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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…
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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…
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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…