Category: Early Converts
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Grand Duke Alexis in the New York chapel, Thanksgiving 1871
From the New York Times, December 1, 1871: Thanksgiving Day was observed by the Grand Duke Alexis yesterday in a very quiet manner. In the morning he went to the Greek Chapel at No. 951 Second-avenue, accompanied by Minister Catacazy, Admiral Poisset, the Secretary of Legation and Consul-General Bodisco. By 9 o’clock the privileged few…
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Irvine transferred to St. Raphael’s jurisdiction
The following letter was found in Ingram N.W. Irvine’s file in the OCA Archives in Syosset, New York. The letter is undated (the pre-printed date line “190_” does not have a specific year) and appears under the letterhead of the North American Ecclesiastical Consistory, 15 East 97th Street, New York, N.Y. It is handwritten and…
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Gelsinger on Sunday Schools, Part 4: Children and the Church
Editor’s note: In 1938, Fr. Michael Gelsinger, with his wife Mary, published a Handbook for Orthodox Sunday Schools. Gelsinger was one of the most influential convert clergymen in American Orthodox history. He served in the Antiochian Archdiocese, and this book was published with the blessing of Metropolitan Antony Bashir. We’ve serialized the book’s introduction,…
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Gelsinger on Sunday Schools, Part 3: Teachers and Altar Boys
Editor’s note: In 1938, Fr. Michael Gelsinger, with his wife Mary, published a Handbook for Orthodox Sunday Schools. Gelsinger was one of the most influential convert clergymen in American Orthodox history. He served in the Antiochian Archdiocese, and this book was published with the blessing of Metropolitan Antony Bashir. We’ve serialized the book’s introduction, and…
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Gelsinger on Sunday Schools, Part 2: The Sunday School Session
Editor’s note: In 1938, Fr. Michael Gelsinger, with his wife Mary, published a Handbook for Orthodox Sunday Schools. Gelsinger was one of the most influential convert clergymen in American Orthodox history. He served in the Antiochian Archdiocese, and this book was published with the blessing of Metropolitan Antony Bashir. Last week, we published the first…
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Gelsinger on Sunday Schools, Part 1: Religious Education in Orthodox Parishes
Editor’s note: In 1938, Fr. Michael Gelsinger, with his wife Mary, published a Handbook for Orthodox Sunday Schools. Gelsinger was one of the most influential convert clergymen in American Orthodox history. He served in the Antiochian Archdiocese, and this book was published with the blessing of Metropolitan Antony Bashir. Today, we’re presenting the first of…
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Fr. Kyrill Johnson: Review of a Protestant translation of the Divine Liturgy
Editor’s note: Yesterday, we introduced Fr. Kyrill Johnson (1897-1947), a 1920s convert who spent most of his career in the Antiochian Archdiocese. What follows is an article by Fr. Kyrill which appeared in the Orthodox American (September 1943), which was a sort of forerunner to the modern-day Word Magazine. (Just to clarify: St. Raphael…
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Fr. Kyrill Johnson, 1897-1947
For a while now, I’ve been meaning to introduce Fr. Kyrill Johnson, another of the many fascinating early American converts to Orthodoxy. He was born Arthur Warren Johnson in Roxbury, Massachsetts in 1897. I don’t know what happened to his parents, but Johnson was adopted by an unmarried aunt, who raised him in Ipswich. He…
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The first convert priests… or… the first American apostates
Editor’s note: Last year, on September 30, I aired a podcast on James Chrystal and Nicholas Bjerring, the first two convert priests in American Orthodox history. On the same day, I published an article on the two men, reflecting on their relevance to us today. Given that many of our readers are new to the…