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
NOTE: I have continually updated this article as I have received more information or had new thoughts occur to me. For Orthodox Christians, what do California, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Washington DC have in common? They all have major relics of Orthodox saints that American Orthodox Christians largely don’t…| Orthodox History
NOTE: I have continually updated this article as I have received more information or had new thoughts occur to me. For Orthodox Christians, what do California, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Washington DC have in common? They all have major relics of Orthodox saints that American Orthodox Christians largely don’t […]| Orthodox History
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
Last fall, I spoke at a conference at Hellenic College-Holy Cross, commemorating the centennial of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America. I’ve already posted my main paper from that conference, on the “barbarian lands” theory of the Ecumenical Patriarchate. At that conference, I also spoke briefly about Ecumenical Patriarch Athenagoras, who, prior to becoming Patriarch, […]| Orthodox History
Athenagoras Spyrou was elected Ecumenical Patriarch in 1948 thanks largely to the influence of the United States government, particularly Secretary of State George Marshall. At the time, Marshall had consulted the powerful Greek-American businessman Spyros Skouras, and Skouras recommended the Athenagoras, who was then the Archbishop of the Greek Archdiocese of North and South America. […]| Orthodox History
In the mid-20th century, the Skouras brothers — Charles, Spyros, and George — were among the most powerful men in the booming film industry. Charles was president of Fox West Coast and funded the construction of St Sophia Greek Orthodox Cathedral in Los Angeles, using his movie star friends as models for the icons. George […]| Orthodox History
The recent retirement of Metropolitan Joseph has left the Antiochian Archdiocese of North America without a primate. In the coming months, the Archdiocese will undoubtedly hold a special convention to nominate candidates to be the next Metropolitan, and then the Holy Synod of Antioch will elect one of those nominees. Remarkably, this will be just […]| Orthodox History
New Translation: St Raphael Against the Papacy | 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 US Congress imposed immigration quotas in 1924, ending the Ellis Island era of immigration. With no more newcomers, Orthodoxy in America began to assimilate more rapidly into American society, as the children and grandchildren of the original immigrants came to see themselves as Americans, even if they held onto their cultural inheritances (which, in […]| Orthodox History
Last week, we published the story of William Hoskins, an 89-year-old veteran of the American Civil War who traveled from Los Angeles to San Francisco in December 1900 to be baptized into the Orthodox faith by St Sebastian Dabovich. Shortly after this, Fr Kirill Sokolov, dean of Holy Trinity Cathedral (OCA) in San Francisco, sent […] The post The Orthodox Baptism of a Civil War Veteran appeared first on Orthodox History.| Orthodox History
At the beginning of the twentieth century, the number of Orthodox in America had not reached 50,000, but it already had several distinguished converts to the Orthodox Faith from Protestantism and Roman Catholicism: William Hoskins, an eighty-nine-year-old Civil War veteran who was a Baptist from Los Angeles, who traveled to San Francisco to meet a […] The post US Civil War Veteran Baptized by St Sebastian Dabovich appeared first on Orthodox History.| Orthodox History
This is the fifth article in our series on Fr Alex Karloutsos. Here are the first four: The Father Alex Karloutsos Origin Story Karloutsos and the Rise of Bartholomew Father Alex and the Mother Church Karloutsos and 9/11 “I first met Joe Biden in 1987, when he ran for President of the United States,” Fr […] The post Karloutsos and Biden appeared first on Orthodox History.| Orthodox History
This article is the fourth in a series on Fr Alex Karloutsos, based on many hours’ worth of interviews I did with him in 2024. Here are the previous three installments: The Father Alex Karloutsos Origin Story Karloutsos and the Rise of Bartholomew Father Alex and the Mother Church By 2001, the brief tenure of […]| Orthodox History
The article that follows is, as far as I know, the first English-language life of St Herman of Alaska. It originally appeared under the title “Herman — Russian Missionary to America,” in a publication called The Constructive Quarterly 7:1 (March 1919). The author, Vera Johnston, was the Russian-born wife of an Englishman, living in New York. Vera’s […]| Orthodox History
A quick bit of self-promotion: In January, I’ll be teaching a live, 4-week course on American Orthodox History for the Orthodox Studies Institute at Saint Constantine College. I hope many of you can join me — you can learn more and register for the course by clicking here. Lately, a meme has been circulating […]| Orthodox History
Hey everyone – I’ve been writing and talking about American Orthodox history for a long time. We started OrthodoxHistory.org way back in 2009, and earlier this year I published my first book, Lost Histories, on the early years of Orthodoxy in America. Today I’m excited to announce that I’ll be teaching a new Orthodox Studies Institute […]| 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
Father Alex Karloutsos may be the most influential Orthodox priest in modern history. He has spent time in every Oval Office going back to Jimmy Carter, culminating in a Presidential Medal of Freedom from Joe Biden. His connections are extraordinary – the presidents, of course, and every patriarch you can imagine, but also a range […]| Orthodox History
