Matthew Namee talks with His Grace Bishop Basil, the newly elected Secretary of the Episcopal Assemblies. We learn of his impressions of the historic May 26-28 gathering in New York as well as the assignment he has been given to coordinate the work of the committees that will be formed leading up eventually to a Great and Holy Council. Listen here: Transcript: (HT: Orthodox History) Matthew Namee: I’m privileged today to be sitting here with His Grace, Bishop Basil of Wichita, the new Secretary of the Episcopal Assembly. His Grace has graciously agreed to sit down and chat with me a little bit about the Episcopal Assembly, the process, and his own impressions of it. Thank you very much for your time, Sayedna. First of all, could you tell us a little bit about what your impressions were of the meetings? What was it like to be one of the hierarchs there? … [Read more...]
American Orthodox demographics, 1906-1936
HT: OrthodoxHistory.org. This data and chart is from OrthodoxHistory.org. Author: Matthew Namee. Every ten years, from 1906 to 1936, the US Census Bureau compiled a Census of Religious Bodies. These censuses are gold mines of information on early American Orthodoxy. Also, unlike so many of the inflated numbers that you’re likely to see floating around, the census data is reliable. With its considerable resources, the Census Bureau was able not only to work with the jurisdictions themselves, but to contact individual parishes for precise information. The result is a thorough, well-researched, and generally unbiased collection of statistics and other information. What can we learn from the censuses? Loads of things. For instance, we can track the growth of the various Orthodox groups and jurisdictions in the United States: … [Read more...]
The American Orthodox ‘Historiographical Problem’
Each age tries to form its own conception of the past. Each age writes the history of the past anew with reference to the conditions uppermost in its own time. — Frederick Jackson Turner Here's a new site worth a visit. The Society for Orthodox Christian History in the Americas has launched a new blog at OrthodoxHistory.org. The picture here, found in the archives of the Library of Congress, shows a meeting of Orthodox bishops in 1921. But, mysteriously, it's not clear what the meeting was about. As OrthodoxHistory.org explains: Few photos from the early 20th century history of American Orthodoxy are so rich in significance as this one. This was taken during the 1921 visit of then-deposed Abp. Meletios (Metaxakis) of Athens to America, beginning the process of founding the Greek Archdiocese. He came traveling with Bp. Alexander (Demoglou), who would become the first Greek Archbishop of America. Meletios and Alexander did a remarkable amount of work toward uniting the Greek … [Read more...]