FR. RAPHAEL MORGAN AND EARLY AFRICAN AMERICAN ORTHODOXY

ON AUGUST 15/28, 1907, THE Feast of Dormition, a black Jamaican immigrant to the United States was ordained to the Orthodox priesthood in Constantinople.¹⁶⁶ This marked the culmination of a journey in search of the «true church.» On that day, Robert Josias Morgan was ordained as Fr. Raphael and became the first man of African American descent born in the New World to be ordained in the Orthodox Church. One scholar found Morgan’s story so incredible that he wrote, «the Morgan story is so utterly improbable that one tends to dismiss it as a hoax.»¹⁶⁷ On the other hand, the journal Epiphany included a brief summary of Morgan’s story in a special volume dedicated to «African-American Orthodoxy.»¹⁶⁸ In the introduction, the editor noted that while sources for Morgan’s story were not extensive, they were substantial enough to prove his story was no hoax. The editor went on to speculate about possible motives for Morgan’s conversion and how Morgan may have understood his own conversion from the Protestant Episcopal Church to the Greek Orthodox Church.¹⁶⁹

Morgan’s ordination and subsequent ministry within the Orthodox Church was a considered response to the difficult situation black Americans faced, often being viewed as second class even within somewhat integrated churches, as was the case for his own Protestant Episcopal Church. One might expect that Morgan would have turned to one of the historically black churches in America, of which he had knowledge. One might alternatively think that if none of those were appropriate for him, he would seek to establish his own church. As this chapter shows, however, Morgan sought a different solution, one not grounded in the anti-traditional tradition but in the tradition of Orthodox Church, which he entered by the gate of restorationism.

Although he initially considered an independent church, in keeping with American restorationism, and hoped for a furthering of ecumenical relations between Anglicanism and Orthodoxy, Morgan soon decided against such a move. Rather than continue the tradition of breaking from one's previous tradition to join or start another sect in an attempt to restore the early Church, Morgan looked an outside tradition that could serve as a grounding, even critique, of that very anti-traditional tradition. The Orthodox tradition offered Morgan precisely that, for he saw it as a tradition that could stand on its own apart from the racial problems that beset Western Christianity. Indeed, he saw the Orthodox tradition as standing authoritatively prior to Western Christianity.

Morgan’s religious journey is an American one, though it has roots in the Caribbean. Unfortunately, we can only but sketch Morgan’s life prior to his arrival in America, though one early biography does seem based on correspondence with Morgan.¹⁷⁰ The date of his birth is not known, but sometime around 1869 seems likely.¹⁷¹ Morgan was born in Chapelton, Clarendon, Jamaica, to Robert Josias and Mary Ann (Johnson) Morgan, though his father died when Morgan was but six months old.¹⁷² Although he had a dark skin tone (according to both photographs and source descriptions), he was actually of mixed racial heritage.¹⁷³ According to both biographies, Morgan traveled extensively. Eventually, he ended up at Freetown, Sierra Leone, where he became a school teacher and was appointed as a lay-reader under Samuel David Ferguson, the bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church in Liberia.¹⁷⁴ He later went to England, where he possibly studied at King's College, University of London and Saint Aidan's Theological College, Birkenhead.¹⁷⁵

In 1895, he came to America and was ordained a deacon in the diocese of Delaware, by Bishop Leighton Coleman, a bishop known for opposing racism.¹⁷⁶ He was subsequently assigned to be honorary curate at St. Matthews Protestant Episcopal Church in Wilmington, Delaware.¹⁷⁷ Gavin White noted that Morgan served St. Matthew's from 1896 to 1897, subsequently serving in Charleston, West Virginia from 1897 to 1901, in Richmond, Virginia, from 1901 to 1905, in Nashville, Tennessee in 1905, and finally in Philadelphia in 1906 at the Church of the Crucifixion.¹⁷⁸

A close examination of his movements during this time demonstrates that Morgan moved within the same circle of black clergymen that included Rev. George Alexander McGuire (who would later go on to lead the African Orthodox Church, which shall be discussed further below). Morgan may have even known McGuire personally¹⁷⁹ Their points of contact and overlap provide a strong circumstantial case in favor of this. McGuire had been Morgan's predecessor in Richmond, having served until November of 1900. They both served at the Church of the Crucifixion in Philadelphia. McGuire served there in the 1890s, under Rev. Henry L. Phillips while Morgan served the Church of the Crucifixion several years later in 1906.¹⁸⁰ From 1902–1905, McGuire served as rector at St. Thomas's Protestant Episcopal Church in Philadelphia.¹⁸¹ A.C.V. Cartier, a personal friend of Morgan, served as rector of St. Thomas Protestant Episcopal Church after McGuire left. Morgan and McGuire also had an important mutual acquaintance in Rev. George F. Bragg. Bragg included Morgan in his work on African American church leaders. In a letter to the editor of the Living Church, Bragg both referred to himself as a «friend and admirer» of McGuire and raised Morgan as another example of an African American who left the Protestant Episcopal Church in search of Orthodox holy orders.¹⁸² All of these men were serving within African American parishes of the Protestant Episcopal Church.

It was while moving within this very circle that Morgan would have first encountered the idea of turning to Orthodox Christianity. Serving within the Episcopal Church at the time was a difficult undertaking for African Americans inasmuch as ordination to the priesthood was often slow in coming and when it did, they were always under white bishops, even if such bishops were the likes of Leighton Cole-man. In conjunction with the racist context in which he lived, however, Morgan also had some unanswered theological questions. He shared with one of his early biographers that he had doubts concerning his service to the Protestant Episcopal Church (indeed, to the larger Anglican Communion), but doubts that were not (interestingly) primarily racial, but theological:

For many years he maintained serious doubts concerning the teachings of the whole Anglican Communion; the change that came over him resulted in more than three years of special study of Anglicanism;...It was his final conviction that the Holy Greek Church is the pillar and ground of truth.¹⁸³

Much is truncated here, of course, and it is unknown whether that is due to Morgan, his biographer (Mather), or both. What can be known, however, is that these doubts were quite legitimate and carried more than just a racial component. Or, to put it another way, the racism he experienced was about to be addressed fundamentally as a theological problem.

Within his circle of black Episcopalian clergy an Eastern Christian answer came to the fore, being first made in 1898, when Rev. George F. Bragg argued that an Eastern Christian episcopal succession, as exemplified by one Joseph Rene Vilatte's non-Chalcedonian consecration, could well prove important to African American concerns.¹⁸⁴ Vilatte was one of many Episcopi Vagantes, or bishops-at-large, who have characterized a subset of American Christianity. The thinking at the time seemed to be that if African Americans themselves could obtain apostolic succession through the consecration by Vilatte, then perhaps an independent African American church with African American leadership could be established. Vilatte's case suggested to Bragg (and, as we shall, Morgan and McGuire as well) that there might be an opportunity to create a new religious identity that could be authentically African American and fully traditional.

On the face of it, this seems to be a remarkable suggestion, for Vilatte has the dubious distinction of being known as «the direct or indirect progenitor of more than twenty schismatic churches.»¹⁸⁵ A Frenchman who immigrated to Canada, Vilatte fell under the spell of Pastor Chiniquy, a former Roman Catholic priest-turned-Protestant-minister convinced Vilatte to journey to Green Bay, Wisconsin, to minister to Belgian settlers «drifting from Romanism into spiritism and infidelity»¹⁸⁶ Vilatte worked under the auspices of Bishop J. H. Hobart Brown, the Protestant Episcopal bishop of Fond du Lac. Brown soon provided Vilatte with a letter to Bishop Herzog in Berne for the purpose of acquiring Old Catholic succession.¹⁸⁷ Vilatte believed that if he could be ordained by an Old Catholic bishop, he could claim to have apostolic succession. He was subsequently ordained to the Old Catholic priesthood in Switzerland and returned to Wisconsin, serving as the head of a sort of Old Catholic mission of the Protestant Episcopal Church.

Vilatte soon had a falling out with the next bishop of Fond du Lac, Bishop Charles Chapman Grafton, for trying to obtain episcopal consecration in the Old Catholic Church and then in the Russian Orthodox Church through Bishop Vladimir. In 1892, Vilatte was consecrated by a Portuguese group in communion with the non-Chalcedonian patriarch of Antioch, Peter III, though no certificate of ordination exists.¹⁸⁸ Eventually, he would be driven out by his congregants in Wisconsin, travel throughout Europe, and return to America again, all the while trying to join one church after another. He also attempted to found Old Catholic jurisdictions in England and America. He finally died in a monastery in France, a reconciled layman in the Roman Catholic Church, but on the verge of yet another ecclesiological escapade.¹⁸⁹

Although such a career might strike us as merely unstable, what Vilatte brought to the table, and what was attractive to Bragg, was the idea of an apostolic succession beyond the bounds of the local white American church. Bragg was not alone, for Morgan shared this very same outlook, at least for a time. By 1906, Morgan was visiting the Greek Orthodox Church in Philadelphia as a member of Vilatte’s very own church, «the American Catholic Church, an offshoot of the Protestant Episcopal Church.»¹⁹⁰ The American anti-traditional tradition was luring Morgan. Here was the opportunity to break from his current church and join a new, indeed, a radically independent one. Doing so would mean continuing the tradition of anti-tradition and that was a real possibility for Morgan at the time, for by accepting Vilatte’s church, even if but nominally, Morgan had come to act upon what Bragg had merely been willing to suggest. Morgan, however, was still interested in Orthodoxy as a tradition, as something more than merely a certificate of «apostolic succession,» which seemed to be Vilatte’s only concern. Morgan needed to learn more of Orthodox Christianity itself, however, and to do this, he ventured a trip to Russia.

In 1904, Robert Josias Morgan published an open letter in the Russian Orthodox American Messenger as «a legally consecrated cleric of the American Episcopal Church.»¹⁹¹ In this letter, Morgan thanked the Russian Orthodox people for their sincere hospitality during his month-long visit to examine the life of the Orthodox Church in Russia. As he put it:

I came to Russia in no way to represent anything, and I was not sent by anybody. I came as a simple tourist, chiefly with the object to see the churches and the monasteries of this country, to enjoy the ritual and the service of the holy Orthodox Church, about which I heard so much abroad.¹⁹²

We know that Morgan's black Episcopalian circle of friends already considered Orthodox Christianity as an option, but why the Russian Orthodox Church specifically? Aside from any possible knowledge of positive Anglican-Orthodox relations,¹⁹³ he may have had secondhand knowledge of the positive treatment of people of African descent in the Russian Empire.

It may not be common knowledge today, but Russia was, for those of African descent, «a land of opportunity where they could not only survive, but could attain high social position.»¹⁹⁴ Although the Russian Empire contained African settlements in the country of Georgia, the cases of black servants and visitors proves most relevant to Morgan's own journey. It had been common practice for upper-class Russians to give slaves their freedom once arriving in Russia even before other countries had outlawed slavery.¹⁹⁵ Given Morgan's travels and the African American presence in the shipping industry at the time, it would not be at all unusual for Morgan to have learned of Russia's hospitality toward blacks. Morgan was hardly alone in traveling to Russia as one of African descent. What made his journey unique was not that he traveled to Russia nor that he was treated hospitably and kindly, but that he undertook the journey for the purposes of pursuing a religious quest. He may have traveled as a «simple tourist» rather than an official church diplomat, but his purpose was of great importance to him, for not long after, he would become an Orthodox Christian.

According to Morgan, his initial concerns in 1904 centered upon the question of Anglican-Orthodox union, as seen in his message of thanks to the Russian Orthodox for their kindness and hospitality:

I leave your country with a feeling of profound gratitude and take back to North America all the good impressions I received here. And when there I shall speak boldly and loudly about the brotherly feelings entertained here in the bosom of the holy Orthodox Church towards its Anglican sister of North America, and about the prayers which are offered here daily for the union of all Catholic Christendom. My constant humble prayer is for the union of all Churches, and especially for the union of the Anglican faith with the Orthodox Church of Russia. I solicited the Metropolitans and the Bishops to grant me their blessing in regard to this prayer and obtained it. Now I pray daily and eagerly for a better mutual understanding between the character and their union... In conclusion I must say, that my stay in Russia did me personally much good: I feel now much firmer and stronger spiritually than I did before I came¹⁹⁶

It would seem that in 1904, he was hoping that Anglican-Orthodox union might offer some sort of a solution for the African Americans, though he did not specifically state how he thought that might work. Indeed, it is doubtful the readers of the Russian American Messenger would have even been able to appreciate his situation. It is also unclear exactly how the Russian trip fit into his doubts concerning the legitimacy of the Anglican Communion more generally, though he did call the Russian Orthodox Church the «Apostolic» church of Russia.¹⁹⁷

Readers certainly could tell Morgan had found, in Orthodox Christianity, something he believed would benefit the Anglican Communion and the Protestant Episcopal Church in particular. He had discovered a spiritual depth that permeated his own being and one he had seen within the Russian people as a whole. Morgan claimed to feel spiritually «firmer and stronger» and wrote, «it would seem as if the Christian religion penetrated the whole life of the people.»¹⁹⁸ What Morgan had not experienced in America, he had experienced in Russia – a church that truly loved him, a Jamaican immigrant to America of African descent. In the Protestant Episcopal Church in America, he was a second-class citizen who sought a better religious identity. On his trip, he was received by the Russians with «their gentleness, their politeness, their amiability, and kindness,» a reception he linked directly to the Russian Orthodox faith.¹⁹⁹

It is clear that when Morgan left Russia with his personal mission of spreading the good news of the love of Orthodoxy for Anglican Christians, he left with some knowledge of Orthodox Christianity and already demonstrated evidence of one who was likely soon to convert. Concerning a possible Anglican-Orthodox union, Morgan asked his reader to «solicit the prayers of the Saints» and the «intercession of the holy Mother of God» and went so far as to write, «Virgin Mary, pray for us!»²⁰⁰ This does not sound like a typical Protestant. He also asked that God grant Emperor Nicholas II and his family «a long life, peace and prosperity.»²⁰¹ This phrase comes from the beginning of intoning «God grant you many years,» a traditional Orthodox hymn. Although one should not make too much of this, it suggests that Morgan had begun to develop an intimate knowledge of Orthodox traditions and worship.

Following his return from Russia, Morgan began developing a close relationship with the local Greek Orthodox clergy in Philadelphia. The priest mentioned in the 1906 newspaper article noted above was Rev. Theodore Prussianos, who was a missionary priest traveling from parish to parish. His tenure in Philadelphia was short-lived. The subsequent priest, Rev. Demetrios Petrides, developed a relationship with Morgan and went so far as to advocate on Morgan’s behalf before the Ecumenical Patriarch in Constantinople. Morgan's approach to his situation had shifted. No longer was he presenting himself as one interested in unity between Anglicanism and Orthodoxy. He was looking to become Orthodox and, as we shall see, to bring Orthodox Christianity to those of African descent in America, be they from the Caribbean or America proper. The Orthodox tradition was about to provide him with the opportunity for religious identity creation par excellence. By looking to the Orthodox tradition, he was breaking out of the anti-traditional tradition exemplified in Vilatte’s movement and finding a platform from which he could stand over and against the entirety of Western Christianity, whether the Anglo-Catholic tradition or the American anti-traditional tradition, which characterized the likes of both Vilatte and even black Protestant denominations.

In June 1907, the Holy Synod of Constantinople received a letter from Petrides recommending Morgan for ordination and the minutes of the July 1907 meeting contain a discussion of Morgan’s case.²⁰² Documents pertaining to Morgan’s ordination provide a general outline of the events.²⁰³ In July, the synod approved Morgan's request to be baptized and subsequently ordained to the diaconate and priesthood.²⁰⁴ Morgan’s case caused a stir in the local Greek population, as over 3,000 people attended his baptism.²⁰⁵ The synod provided for Morgan’s travel, vestments, liturgical books, a cross, and also granted him the right to hear confessions.²⁰⁶ Despite this, Morgan's request for an antimension (i.e., an altar cloth with a bishop's signature) and holy chrism, for annointing the newly baptized, were denied.²⁰⁷ These were denied because the synod wished for Morgan to serve under Petrides until he was, in fact, ready to open and serve in a separate parish.

Although his request was denied, Morgan's request for these items suggests that Morgan had a larger goal for his own conversion. Becoming Orthodox was not merely a matter of a personal religious journey. His outlook was evangelistic. The goal was to take the Orthodox tradition, which was «apostolic» and yet neither a restorationism such as Vilatte's church,²⁰⁸ nor even Western, nor chained down by a legacy of racial segregation, and bring it to blacks in North America.

In fact, an evangelistic fervor characterized his initial actions upon returning to Philadelphia. According to the minutes from February 1908, Morgan returned and baptized his wife and children, though Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church of Philadelphia contains no records of this.²⁰⁹ Then, in November of 1908, Morgan recommended his old friend Rev. A. C. V. Cartier for ordination into the Orthodox Church, but the request seems to have produced no attempts to pursue Cartier as a candidate for the Orthodox priesthood.²¹⁰ Most likely, the request was misplaced or forgotten because it was made just when the jurisdiction of the Greeks in America had been transferred from Constantinople to the Church of Greece.

For Morgan, there was clarity, and not just from the Orthodox side. For in that same year, the Protestant Episcopal Church announced that he was suspended as a deacon.²¹¹ For Morgan, there would be no turning back as the break with his previous tradition was now clear and obvious to all. He had turned to tradition.

Unfortunately for Morgan and his family, his frequent ministry assignments and marital disputes took its toll, and in 1909 his wife, Charlotte, filed for divorce.²¹² Yet, Morgan did not let this turn of events completely dissuade him. In 1911, he journeyed to Athens, almost certainly to be tonsured a monk. This is suggested by at least two things. First, the Ellis Island ship records list Morgan as single, which fits his divorced status as of 1909, but also displays the name «Father, Raphael,» which was then corrected by someone to «Morgan, Raphael.»²¹³ In addition, Mather, one of his early biographers (and again, who seems to have received his information by way of correspondence with Morgan) noted specifically that «the family name of Morgan has been dropped and should never be used in addressing him.»²¹⁴ The only times Morgan traveled to Greece or Constantinople were at his ordination and his 1911 trip, and since he was still married when ordained, it seems quite likely he was tonsured on his 1911 trip.

Morgan now had more of the authority and freedom that he sought to spread his message of the importance of the Orthodox tradition both as a response to racial inequalities within Western Christianity, especially the Anglican Communion, and as the bearer of the apostolic faith. In 1913, he even returned to Jamaica in order to deliver lectures throughout the country, something he had done on at least two previous occasions prior to becoming Orthodox (once in 1901 and again in 1902).²¹⁵ From the newspaper accounts, it seems that Morgan used the lecture circuit to support himself while he investigated the possibility of establishing an Orthodox Church in Jamaica.²¹⁶

After spending a little over a year in Jamaica, he returned to America, though an article claimed Morgan intended to return to Jamaica to «start mission work under his Faith.»²¹⁷ Morgan had, by this time, been active among a group of Syrian Orthodox Christians in Jamaica. Morgan had even informed the Gleaner that he was in contact with «the Syrian Orthodox Bishop of Brooklyn,» which would have been Bishop Raphael (Hawaweeny), who held the post from 1904 until his death in 1915.²¹⁸ Incidentally, at one point on his Jamaican mission, he was able to rekindle his Russian connection, concelebrating a divine liturgy on board the Russian Warship Rossija, together with the ship's chaplain, with the service «sung in Russian for the benefit... of the Russians and in English for the benefit of the Syrians.»²¹⁹

When Morgan returned to Philadelphia after lecturing and attempting to establish a more permanent mission in Jamaica, his efforts bore some fruit. In 1916, Morgan penned an open letter that directly demonstrate the extent of his efforts and provides us with an important look into how he saw the Orthodox tradition as responding to the racial concerns of his day. Morgan had chosen to argue against Marcus Garvey.²²⁰ Garvey, who was himself from Jamaica, had founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association in 1914 in order to unite all Africans and those of African descent scattered throughout the world. He had arrived in America in March, 1916, in order to go on the lecture circuit and raise money²²¹ Morgan wrote his open letter almost immediately. Allowing himself but a brief introduction, Morgan launched into the central arguments. Thirteen other Jamaican-Americans co-signed Morgan's letter to Garvey.²²² Morgan himself signed as the head of the Order of the Cross of Golgotha, making it likely that the other thirteen Jamaicans were also members.

Two of Morgan’s arguments stand out in particular. First, Morgan objected that Garvey «drew a deplorable picture of the prejudice of the Englishman in Jamaica against the blacks, portraying hypocrisy and deceit of his attitude towards blacks, and stated his preference for the prejudice of the American to that of the Englishman.»²²³ Morgan approached the problem of racial concerns primarily through an ecclesiastical lens. In American church life, Morgan had not found racial harmony, but rather the opportunity to forge and offer a new religious identity to African Americans, one grounded in the Orthodox tradition. Second, Morgan objected to Garvey's rejection of racially mixed marriages. Garvey had pressed for a pan-Africanism with an anti-white tenor, but Morgan did not view race relations in this manner and given his own racially mixed background, Morgan had to have been offended by the comments Garvey made concerning mixed heritage and mixed marriages.

Morgan was as committed to African American concerns as Garvey, but from a specifically religious context. He had placed his hope not in a return to Africa or pan-Africanism, but in Orthodox Christianity, a Christianity that not only ordained him to the priesthood but gave him the charge of reaching out to other African Americans. When he became Orthodox, he forged a new identity and did so with the intention of spreading the Orthodox faith amongst fellow African Americans, going so far as to recommend A. C. V Cartier as a candidate for the Orthodox priesthood. There was no need to unite around Africa, for the answer was theological. The answer was a tradition that could be seen as untainted, as even prior, to the racially segregated Christianity of the West. For as Morgan told his biographer Mather, his initial doubts led him to pursue three years of historical and theological searching, from which he concluded that the «pillar and ground of truth» was the Orthodox Church.²²⁴ That was not something American restorationism, with its independently formed churches, could normally bring, but American restorationism had, in fact, led Morgan to believe that a grounding in an ongoing tradition was precisely what was needed.

This would be the last time the public would hear from Morgan. The last year he appeared in the city directory of Philadelphia was 1916.²²⁵ The 1921–1922 Negro Year Book contains a paragraph dedicated to Morgan, but it reads identically to the 1912 version and therefore does not necessarily indicate that Morgan was still alive. Morgan cannot be found in the U.S. census for 1920, so if he was still living in 1921–1922, he was most likely in Jamaica. Still, there is no further mention made of him in the Kingston Gleaner, suggesting that Morgan died in 1916–1917.

Morgan’s immediate and direct efforts to bring the Orthodox tradition as a solution to black Christians in North America yielded little fruit other than baptizing his own family and establishing a small lay fraternity known as the Cross of Golgotha (about which we know nothing other than that it consisted of a handful of Jamaican immigrants such as himself). Despite this, he had trail-blazed a path that was soon to become popular. In 1921, George Alexander McGuire established the African Orthodox Church, designating himself Patriarch Alexander when he was formally elected to lead the new religious body. Moreover, McGuire would establish the African Orthodox Church, through his consecration at the hands of the wandering bishop noted above, Joseph Rene Vilatte.

McGuire had initially been the chaplain for Garvey's Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) before they had a falling out and McGuire pursued his ecclesiological endeavors independent of Garvey. McGuire patterned the services and church structure of the African Orthodox Church after that of the Anglican Church, but with a theological eye toward the historic Orthodox Church. For example, the African Orthodox Church did not include the filioque clause in the Nicene Creed.²²⁶ Just as the African Methodist Episcopal Church and the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church adapted the Methodist Church, so the African Orthodox Church adapted Anglicanism and Orthodoxy, creating what was to be a Western Rite Orthodoxy for people of African descent. McGuire sought to establish a church with an episcopal structure that would be headed by those of African descent and the African Orthodox Church even established a presence in Africa. For this work, McGuire consecrated Archbishop Daniel William Alexander. The African Orthodox Church grew quickly, establishing a seminary and a journal, The Negro Churchman. Although the African Orthodox Church had grown significantly during his lifetime, after McGuire's death in 1934, the church was unable to continue this momentum and today, the church exists as a small denomination with a presence in America and South Africa.²²⁷

It is McGuire's connection to Marcus Garvey’s UNIA and the early years of the African Orthodox Church that has received the most scholarly attention. What Morgan’s story helps highlight is the extent to which the African Orthodox Church was flanked by the Orthodox Churches themselves, being a factor when the African Orthodox Church began in 1921 and in 1946, when the Kenyan contingency of the African Orthodox Church formally entered the Greek Orthodox Church.

We have already seen that McGuire moved in the same social circles as the first known African American Orthodox priest, Fr. Raphael Morgan. Indeed, when one considers that McGuire was part of a circle that included George F. Bragg and A. C. V. Cartier, both of whom were also interested in Eastern Christian apostolic succession, McGuire proves to be not as unique as is sometimes thought, but rather perhaps just more successful in carrying out the endeavor. Indeed, accounting for this circle of African American members of the Protestant Episcopal Church in America in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries helps avoid the false dichotomy found in the secondary literature that seeks to determine whether the idea of the African Orthodox Church was Garvey’s or McGuire's.²²⁸ In reality, the answer is neither. The answer was a small group dynamic, suggested by George F. Bragg and first enacted by Raphael Morgan.²²⁹

The trailblazer who established the iconic path was not McGuire, as is commonly thought, but Raphael Morgan. Indeed, Morgan went farther than McGuire in one key respect. For McGuire, Eastern Christianity was merely a means to further the American anti-traditional tradition in a particular, African American restorationism. Thus, Eastern Christianity was merely a means to take from one's preceding tradition and establish a new denomination from that, thus perpetuating a tradition of change. When Morgan looked to Eastern Christianity, he may have initially also had eyes guided by a primitivistic pursuit but soon came to see the Orthodox Church as its own tradition. Morgan had considered Vilatte's church and moved on. McGuire thought another denomination was the answer.

One gets a sense for this even in September of 1921, when George Alexander McGuire was elected to head a group of independent black Episcopal parishes. McGuire took the title patriarch and a new name, Alexander, his middle name, being henceforth called Patriarch Alexander (similarly to how Morgan, in following Orthodox tradition, dropped his surname and went only by Fr. Raphael after his monastic tonsure). At McGuire's convention, there was a contingency from the Russian Orthodox Church, which had a well-established presence in North America by 1921, thanks in large part to the conversions of Carpatho-Rusyn immigrants under Alexis Toth, as discussed in the last chapter, and new waves of immigrants and refugees. McGuire had even initially attempted to bring his African Orthodox Church into the Russian Orthodox Church. Ultimately, he did not do so, likely because he would have been placed under the leadership of non-Africans. McGuire wanted the African Orthodox Church to exist as an autonomous or autocephalous church. One of the representatives of the Russian Orthodox Church was one Fr. Anthony (Robert F. Hill) who, shortly after being given the assignment of attending the convention, affiliated himself with the African Orthodox Church and later established an independent church in Harlem. Given that the African Orthodox Church allowed officiating roles exclusively to those of African descent, it would seem that Hill himself was an African American. Hill had been a clergyman at the Holy Transfiguration chapel, a chapel established by the efforts of Fr. Nathaniel (Ingram N. W.) Irvine and included other converts from the Protestant Episcopal Church.²³⁰

Better accounting for the African American circle that looked to the Orthodox tradition (and Raphael Morgan particularly) makes McGuire's own efforts feel less idiosyncratic (though also less original), but it is worth noting that the interest in the Orthodox tradition did not end there. Indeed, the African Orthodox Church itself eventually led thousands of Africans into the Greek Orthodox Church. The establishment of the African Orthodox Church in Africa occurred when Daniel William Alexander was elected bishop of a group of former members of the independent African Church in September 1924 in South Africa.²³¹ Alexander had learned of the African Orthodox Church through Garvey's UNIA journal, Negro World, and within days of becoming the head of a small church, he sent a petition to McGuire on behalf of himself and the four priests and congregations under his supervision.²³² McGuire responded warmly, and by October 1924, Alexander's church was functioning as a member of the African Orthodox Church. Alexander viewed the mission of the African Orthodox Church much in the same light as McGuire, omitting the filioque and noting, «the East and the West have met each other in the African Orthodox Church.»²³³ Alexander pressed to be recognized as a bishop and in 1927, he traveled to Boston, where McGuire, assisted by two of his bishops, consecrated Alexander.²³⁴ Alexander made his headquarters in Kimberley, South Africa, and began the task of evangelization.

Believing that within the African Orthodox Church, the East and West intersected, Alexander contacted Metropolitan Isidore, the Greek Orthodox bishop of Johannesburg:

I herewith take this opportunity in writing to you, and to forward to your Grace the following questionnaire which we hope you will deign to answer, that they may be answered at our recent Synod which meets in December next... The African Orthodox Church having been organized particularly to reach the deepest parts of Africa and its people and implanting the true Orthodox Faith in them... that as much as we desire intercommunion we express the hope that the name African Orthodox be not interfered with, and its principles remain intact... that the control of the African Orthodox Church and its affairs shall always remain in the hands of an African Episcopate, except in complicated matters affecting the teaching and Faith of the Church, when the matter shall be referred to the Orthodox Communities for adjustment and advice. That since our people are not used to the Eastern habit of vesting and worshipping, the African Orthodox Church resolves to gradually introduce the Eastern Church Rituals.²³⁵

Alexander's attempt to facilitate intercommunion ultimately failed. We do not know how Metropolitan Isidore responded at that time, but the synod was held in December without any response from the patriarchate of Alexandria, something that disappointed Alexander and his synod.²³⁶ A year later, in a letter concerning another matter, Metropolitan Isidore noted a defection from the African Orthodox Church that was in progress by stating, «I do not think you forget that your Christians in Uganda in Rhodesia and here applied to us to come in our church and become its members. And our church is oblige [sic] to examine their petitions, and accept them and establish Greek orthodox mission.»²³⁷ The African Orthodox Church was about to lose a significant amount of its membership to the Greek Orthodox Church because of the instigation of Reuben Spartas.

Reuben Spartas established the African Orthodox Church in Uganda after a spiritual journey of his own. Born Reuben Sebbanja Ssedimba in a village near Kampala, Uganda, he later took the name Sparta, and then its masculine form, Spartas, due to his athletic prowess and being complimented by his primary school headmaster.²³⁸ During his time at King's College in Budo, just outside of Kampala, Spartas reacted against the notion of «branch theory» and instead began «inquiring after the true old Church.»²³⁹ Initially, Spartas contacted Archbishop Daniel William Alexander and joined the African Orthodox Church.²⁴⁰ In 1931, Alexander ordained Spartas to the priesthood and established the African Orthodox Church in Kenya.²⁴¹ It was not long, however, before Spartas and others looked to the Orthodox Church in Alexandria in spite of Alexander's desire to see intercommunion between the African Orthodox Church and the Orthodox Church of Alexandria.²⁴² Spartas had questioned the legitimacy of Alexander's episcopal succession.²⁴³ Eventually, the African Orthodox Church of Kenya and many in Uganda would join the Orthodox Church through the patriarchate at Alexandria, though Spartas himself upheld a strong Ugandan nationalism and would later leave.²⁴⁴ The Orthodox Church in Kenya grew rapidly until the 1950s, when it suffered through severe persecution at the hands of the British in Kenya in the 1950s.²⁴⁵ Despite such struggles, the Orthodox Church of the Patriarch of Alexandria has rebuilt itself in Kenya and has approximately 280,000 members currently in Africa.²⁴⁶ The Greek Orthodox Church exists in Africa largely because of the African Orthodox Church and the undertakings of native Africans themselves.

Raphael Morgan’s life and work provide us insight into just how multivalent the Orthodox tradition could become within the American context. Not only could the Orthodox tradition be the «true» tradition of one's ancestors, as in the case with the Carpatho-Rusyn converts beginning at the turn of the twentieth century, but so could the Orthodox tradition offer a tradition unencumbered by the heinous racial segregation of Western Christianity, as found in North America. Indeed, the Orthodox tradition, for Morgan, was prior to that racially segregated tradition, for Orthodoxy offered the «pillar and ground of truth.» The American freedom for forging a religious identity spurred Morgan not to remain content to participate within the American anti-traditional tradition, as represented by Vilatte, nor to do so by creating his own church, but to turn to an established tradition completely outside of that model. Morgan turned to a tradition that could stand in critique of that very anti-traditional tradition model itself, for that model (at least to Morgan) remained largely bound to a highly segregated racist vision. Theologically, as well, the anti-traditional tradition did not seem to satisfy Morgan. Morgan utilized the American restorationist tradition to look to a church that was still in existence but with the ability to claim apostolic heritage.

His would not be the last attempt to bring the Orthodox tradition to African Americans, however. In the next chapter, we turn to a contemporary, Moses Berry, and his efforts to do just that through the Brotherhood of St. Moses the Black. As we shall see, Berry's efforts derive from a different context, answering different questions, but restorationism has a role to play in his conversion as well.