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  1. Home
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  3. August
  4. 15
  5. Raphael Morgan

Events on August 15 in history

Raphael Morgan
1907Aug, 15

Ordination in Constantinople of Fr. Raphael Morgan, the first African-American Orthodox priest, "Priest-Apostolic" to America and the West Indies.

Robert Josias "Raphael" Morgan (c. 1866 - July 29, 1922) was a Jamaican-American who is believed to be the first Black Eastern Orthodox priest in the United States. After being active in other denominations, including the AME Church, Church of England, and the Episcopal Church, Morgan converted to Orthodoxy. He was ordained as an Orthodox priest of the Ecumenical Patriarchate. He was designated as "Missionary (Greek: Ιεραποστολος) to America and the West Indies." He claimed to have founded the "Order of Golgotha", but the Orthodox Church is not organized into orders.

As a young man he had traveled in the Caribbean and to the United States, where he became a minister in the AME Church, the first independent black denomination in the US. He next traveled to England, and joined the Church of England and began religious studies. He returned to the US, where he was ordained in 1895 after a period as a deacon in the Episcopal Church. He continued studies and worked in several parishes in the US.

Morgan never became fluent in Greek, the traditional language of the Eastern Orthodox Church; he conducted his services mostly in English. Since his life was rediscovered in the late 20th century, he has been the subject of study. But much of his life is not well documented and remains a mystery. According to a 1915 short biography, Morgan had resided all over the world, including: "Palestine, Syria, Joppa, Greece, Cyprus, Mytilene, Chios, Sicily, Crete, Egypt, Russia, Ottoman Turkey, Austria, Germany, England, France, Scandinavia, Belgium, Holland, Italy, Switzerland, Bermuda, and the United States".

References

  • Raphael Morgan
  • Eastern Orthodox Church

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