In 1934, St John Maximovitch was ordained ROCOR bishop of Shanghai and sent to shepherd the Russian exiles in China. Even before his episcopal ordination, when St John was teaching at the Bitol seminary in Serbia, the great Serbian bishop Nicholai Velimirovich famously said, “If you desire to see a living Saint, go to Bitol […]| Orthodox History
In all but one of the world’s Orthodox Churches today, after a fast-free Bright Week, the Wednesday and Friday fasts resume. This happens even though we continue to exclaim “Christ is risen!” until Ascension, and we don’t kneel until Pentecost. The bizarre result of this is that the non-fasting period after Christmas is actually longer […]| Orthodox History
The pontificate of Leo XIII (1878-1903) was marked by a flurry of encyclicals addressing the Christian East, which naturally received a great variety of Orthodox responses. Here on Orthodox History we have already published a response to Urbanitatis Veteris published by the official journal of the Russian Orthodox in America in 1901, and a response […] The post New Translation: St Raphael Against the Papacy appeared first on Orthodox History.| Orthodox History
The Boxer Rebellion was an anti-foreign, anti-Christian uprising in China at the turn of the twentieth century. Its victims included a group of Chinese Orthodox Christians, who were brutally martyred on June 11-12, 1900. The following April, the Russian Orthodox American Messenger — the official magazine of the Russian Church in America, edited by St Alexander […] The post Chinese Orthodox Martyrs: A Firsthand Account of the Boxer Rebellion appeared first on Orthodox History.| Orthodox History
Editor’s note: Last year, Scott Kenworthy (whose landmark biography of St Tikhon comes out in November and is available now for preorder) sent me a remarkable email. He had discovered a letter written by Patriarch Tikhon to Patriarch Gregory IV of Antioch in 1922, dealing with the jurisdiction of Syrians/Antiochians in North America. The letter […]| Orthodox History
The new Pope of Rome, Leo XIV, has made it clear that he chose his name in honor of his predecessor Leo XIII. This is especially interesting to me as an Orthodox historian, since Leo XIII took a particular interest in Orthodoxy, and at the turn of the last century, Orthodox leaders and scholars (including […] The post Pope Leo XIII’s Encyclical to Greece, and an Orthodox Response appeared first on Orthodox History.| Orthodox History
In 1894, Pope Leo XIII issued a papal encyclical on the “Eastern Rites” — that is, the Uniates, those groups who use traditional Orthodox liturgical rites but submit themselves to the Pope of Rome. In 1898, St Raphael Hawaweeny, then an archimandrite in New York, published a response to the papal encyclical in a periodical […]| Orthodox History
“When Hitler invaded the USSR in June 1941,” writes historian Jordan Hupka, “Stalin again changed the Soviet position on religion. All anti-religious publications ceased and some churches in major urban centres were allowed to open.”[1] Stalin was a shrewd man; as Steven Miner writes in Stalin’s Holy War, “Very early in the war, Stalin grasped […]| Orthodox History
The Patriarch Sylvester, who shepherded the Patriarchate of Antioch in the decades following the schism of 1724, is a complex and often-misunderstood figure who was nevertheless pivotal in ensuring the Orthodox Church’s survival during a turbulent period of its history. A recently-published book, Sylvester of Antioch: Life and Achievements of an 18th Century Christian Orthodox […]| Orthodox History
The belief that the Pope of Rome has immediate and universal jurisdiction has been officially part of the Roman Catholic tradition since at least the eleventh century with the proclamations issued in Dictatus Papae. In the the Roman Catholic Church’s current code of law, the 1983 Code of Canon Law (a.k.a the Johanno-Pauline Code), Canon […] The post An 11th Century Challenge to Papal Supremacy appeared first on Orthodox History.| Orthodox History
Most Orthodox accounts, at least in English, of why the Union of Florence was rejected center on St Mark of Ephesus’ singular stand against the council, and the rallying of the laity of Constantinople against the union. Equally important, however, is the response of Orthodoxy outside the Byzantine Empire and the Patriarchate of Constantinople. The […] The post How Did Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem Respond to the Council of Florence? appeared first on Orthodox History.| Orthodox History
This is the third in a series of articles based on my interviews with Fr Alex Karloutsos. You can read the first two articles here: The Father Alex Karloutsos Origin Story Karloutsos and the Rise of Bartholomew The last article ended with the election of Patriarch Bartholomew and Fr Karloutsos’s subsequent “exile” from America to […]| Orthodox History
Earlier this year, I conducted a series of interviews with Fr Alex Karloutsos, and last week, I published my first article based on those interviews, chronicling his rise from relative obscurity to the highest echelons of power in America. Today, I will continue this series based on Fr Karloutsos’s memories, focusing on the early years […]| Orthodox History