He was a high school teacher in Atlanta when he met Kazantks, an immigrant from Greece and former bishop of the Greek Orthodox Church who had been forced out of his native country after coming out.
The congregation celebrated Mass in the meeting room of the hotel, with its rental costs underwritten by the management of the Cotton Blossom Room, a gay bar located within the hotel, until late November when it moved to a large residential building in Atlanta's business district that could house a chapel and living quarters for local clergy.
In 1960, Sherwood designated Hyde as "Bishop of the Western Rite Missions" of the OCCA and charged him with furthering the consolidation of ethnic bishoprics within the church into an indigenous Orthodox tradition.
Hyde retired for health reasons in 1983 and was succeeded by Metropolitan Archbishop Alfred Louis Lankenau as primate of the church.
Hyde led a schism of members from the OCCA (known as the Autocephalous Orthodox Catholic Church of America) while living at his home in Belleair, Florida, a practice which he continued until his death on May 4, 2010.