Category: Orthodoxy in the Americas
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The Fate of Father Juvenaly: A story from Yup’ik history
Editor’s note: The following article was written by Fr. Michael Oleksa, the foremost historian of Orthodoxy in Alaska, retired dean of St. Herman’s Seminary, and member of SOCHA’s advisory board. The article originally appeared as a chapter in Fr. Michael’s fascinating book, Another Culture / Another World (Association of Alaska School Boards, 2005). Fr. Michael…
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Archimandrite Arseny’s Civil Suit against the Ruthenian Publishing and Exchange Company
As noted already when discussing the criminal libel suit that then-Archimandrite Arseny (Chahovtsov) instigated against Kirczow and Curkowskyz, he had filed a civil suit as well. The civil suit made the newspapers in April and May of 1909 but nothing was mentioned about it in the New York Times again after that. An investigation into…
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Today in history: the death of St. Alexis Toth
101 years ago today, May 7, 1909, Archimandrite Alexis Toth died in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. Here is the obituary that ran in the evening newspaper, the Wilkes-Barre Times Leader: Rt. Rev. Alexis G. Toth, pastor of St. Mary’s Orthodox Greek Catholic Church of North Main street, this city, died at 2 o’clock this afternoon from a…
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Today in history: Church bell stolen in Chicago
As you may have heard, a few weeks ago thieves made off with six church bells from Holy Dormition Church (OCA) in Cumberland, Rhode Island. The bells were soon recovered, albeit in a seriously damaged condition. The whole episode got me thinking about other instances in American history in which valuable church bells were stolen…
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Archbishop Arseny: The Context for Canonization — Part One
(Editor’s note: Today, we are very pleased to introduce a new author here at OrthodoxHistory.org. Deacon Matthew Francis lives in Edmonton, Alberta, and is one of the leading historians of Orthodoxy in Canada. For some time now, he has been conducting independent research into the life of Archbishop Arseny Chagovtsov, among many other aspects of…
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A few good links
On his Frontier Orthodoxy website last week, Fr. Oliver Herbel posted an essay outlining his position on Archbishop Arseny’s canonization. In a follow-up post, Fr. Oliver responded to the charge that he was employing a “hermeneutic of suspicion.” Finally, on his own blog, Gabriel Sanchez used Fr. Oliver’s comments a springboard to reflect upon the…
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New Podcast on Fr. Demetrios Petrides
On today’s episode of my American Orthodox History podcast, I focus on the life of Fr. Demetrios Petrides, a Greek priest in Philadelphia and Atlanta from 1907 to 1917. It was Petrides who, as priest in Philadelphia, wrote a letter to the Ecumenical Patriarchate recommending Robert Morgan for ordination as the first black Orthodox priest…
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OCA Canonization Commission issues statement
This past weekend, the Canonization Commission of the OCA issued a statement at OCA.org. According to Commission secretary (and OCA archivist) Alexis Liberovsky, the Commission will begin detailed studies of the lives of both Metropolitan Leonty Turkevich and Archbishop Arseny Chagovtsov, to determine whether the OCA should canonize them. Canonization obviously has a strongly historical…