The First Orthodox Liturgy in New York City

Matthew Namee provides an interesting account at Orthodox History about the first Orthodox Divine Liturgy ever held in New York City over a century ago on March 12, 1865 at Trinity Episcopal Church. Some highlights:

• The occasion for the service was the anniversary of Tsar Alexander II’s coronation; this appears to have been suggested not by Honcharenko but by Dr Morgan Dix, the rector of Trinity Episcopal Church.
• There were present upward of fifty clergymen of the city and neighborhood.
• The (New York) Times actually reprinted several sections of the liturgy itself. The Protestants present were especially struck by the absence of the filioque from the Creed.
• The magazine Evangelical Christendom commented, “Some of the religious papers find in it an unbecoming complicity with mischievous superstition and error…

Read more at Orthodox History.