Raphael of Brooklyn

Raphael of Brooklyn (, born Raphael Hawaweeny; ; November 20, 1860 – February 27, 1915), was bishop of the Russian Orthodox Church, auxiliary bishop of Brooklyn, vicar of the Northern-American diocese, and head of the Antiochian Syrian Christian mission. He is best known for having been first Eastern Orthodox bishop of America, for his staunch critiques of ethnophyletism, exclusivism and Greek nepotism in the Eastern Orthodox Church, as well as being precursor to the Arab Orthodox Movement and being among the first to integrate the Eastern Orthodox Church into multimedia with the first-ever published Eastern Orthodox magazine.

Life He was born in modern-day Lebanon to Damascene Syrian Arab (Antiochian Greek Christian) parents of the Orthodox faith who had come to Beirut fleeing the 1860 Syrian Civil War in Damascus. He was first educated at the Damascus Patriarchal School that had become the leading Greek Orthodox institution of higher learning in the Levant under the leadership of Joseph of Damascus. He furthered his study of Christian theology at the Patriarchal Halki seminary in Constantinople, and at the Theological Academy in Kiev, Russian Empire (now Kyiv, Ukraine). After having been expelled from the Greek Orthodox Church when it was discovered that he had written polemics under a pseudonym against the ethnic exclusivism of the Greek clergy in the church of his day, and was commissioned to write anti-Islamic apologetics.

Glorification and honors

Bishop Raphael was originally buried in New York until August 1988, when his relics were translated to the Antiochian Village Camp in Ligonier, Pennsylvania, on property of the Antiochian Archdiocese, along with several other bishops and clergy.

Raphael was glorified by the Holy Synod of the Orthodox Church in America (OCA) in its March 2000 session. He is commemorated by the OCA on February 27, the anniversary of his death and by the Antiochian Orthodox Church on the first Saturday of November near the Synaxis of the Archangels Michael, Gabriel, Raphael and all the bodiless powers of heaven. His feast days are both a vigil-rank commemoration.

In 2015, the Antiochian Archdiocese, OCA and ROCOR celebrated the 100th Anniversary of the dormition of St. Raphael. and on 27 October - Synaxis of All Saints of Kiev Theological Academy and Kiev Theological Seminary in Ukrainian Orthodox Church.

Works