Raphael Morgan
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.
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.
Morgan never became fluent in Greek, the traditional language of the Eastern Orthodox Church; he conducted his services mostly in English.
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".
[1] In his teenage years Morgan travelled to Colón, Panama, then to British Honduras, back to Jamaica, and then to the United States.
There he became a minister in the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME), the first independent black denomination in the United States.
Morgan was next appointed as a missionary teacher and lay-reader by Samuel David Ferguson, the Episcopal Bishop of Liberia, a country adjacent to Sierra Leone.
After Morgan returned to England for private study, he travelled to the United States to work as a lay reader in the African-American community.
In October 1901 he gave an address to the Jamaica Church Missionary Union on West Africa and mission work.
[note 5] Morgan was listed in the records of the Episcopal Church (United States) as late as 1908, when he was suspended from ministry the result of allegations of abandoning his post.
He was allowed to be present for the anniversary celebrations of Nicholas II's coronation, and the memorial service said for the repose of the soul of the late Emperor Alexander III.
[note 6] In 1907 the Greek community in Philadelphia referred Morgan to the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Constantinople, along with two letters of support.
Demetrios Petrides, the Greek priest serving the Philadelphia community, described Morgan as a man sincerely coming to Orthodoxy after long and diligent study, and recommended his baptism and ordination into the priesthood.
In Constantinople, Morgan was interviewed by Metropolitan Joachim (Phoropoulos) of Pelagonia, one of the few bishops of the Ecumenical Patriarchate who could speak English.
Metropolitan Joachim examined Morgan noting that he had a "deep knowledge of the teachings of the Orthodox Church" and that he also had a certificate from the president of the Methodist Community, duly notarized, stating that he was a man "of high calling and of a religious life".
On August 2, 1907, the Holy Synod approved that the baptism take place the following Sunday in the Church of the Life-giving Source at the Patriarchal Monastery at Balıklı, in Constantinople.
[note 7] Metropolitan Joachim (Phoropoulos) of Pelagonia was to officiate at the sacrament, and the sponsor was to be Bishop Leontios (Liverios) of Theodoroupolis, Abbot of the Monastery at Balıklı.
He was allowed to hear confessions, but denied Holy Chrism and an antimension, presumably to attach his missionary ministry to the Philadelphia church.
Raphael in Patriarchal records is in the minutes of the Holy Synod of November 4, 1908, which cite a letter from him recommending an Anglican priest of Philadelphia, named "A.C.V.
It reported that he had recently visited Europe to collect funds to this end, and had the intention of extending his work to the West Indies.
[note 14] According to a 1915 short biography, Morgan had resided all over the world, including: "in 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.
Representing a group of about a dozen Jamaican-Americans, he wrote to protest the lectures of Black Nationalist Marcus Garvey.
[10] Garvey said that the letter was a conspiratorial fabrication meant to undermine the success and favour he had gained while in Jamaica and in the United States.
Raphael Morgan died on July 29, 1922, aged 56, in Philadelphia and is buried in the Historic Eden Cemetery, 1434 Springfield Road, Collingdale, Pennsylvania, 1902.
[22] During the 16th Annual Ancient Christianity and African-American Conference in 2009, Matthew Namee presented a 23-minute lecture on the heretofore recently discovered life of Fr.
Raphael's missionary efforts failed outside of his immediate family, he may be indirectly responsible for the conversion of thousands, via contact with Episcopal priest George Alexander McGuire (1866–1934), the founder of the non-canonical African Orthodox Church in 1921.
Raphael Morgan and George McGuire have some striking similarities, including the facts that both: Namee concludes that with so many coincidences, it is impossible for these two men to not have known one another; and therefore it must be from some influence — either in conversation with Fr.
One deterrent from this theory comes in the familiarity that McGuire may have had with the Eastern Orthodox Church through his consecrator, Joseph René Vilatte.
[note 18] At various points, Vilatte come into contact with both the Russian and Syriac Orthodox Churches in a move for Catholic-Orthodox reconciliation, having even been accepted for a while by Bishop Vladimir of Alaska in May 1891.
Scholar Gavin White, writing in the 1970s, said that if Morgan tried to organise an African-American Greek Orthodox church in Philadelphia, its memory has vanished.
