First African-American Greek Orthodox priest and missionary in America: Very Rev. Fr. Robert Josias Morgan
Robert Josias “Raphael” Morgan
(c. 1866 – July 29, 1922)
Rev. Morgan 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 a “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 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 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 his 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”.
Robert Josias Morgan was born in Chapelton, Clarendon Parish, Jamaica, either in the late 1860s or early 1870s to Robert Josias and Mary Ann (née Johnson) Morgan. He was born six months after his father’s death and named in his honour. He was raised in the Anglican tradition and received elementary schooling locally.
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. He traveled to Germany as a missionary.
Church of England
Morgan went to England, where he joined the established Church of England. He was sent to the colony of Sierra Leone to serve at the Church Missionary Society Grammar School in Freetown. There he studied Greek, Latin, and other higher-level subjects. Morgan also worked in a paid position as a second master at a public school at Freetown. He took courses in the Church Missionary Society College at Fourah Bay in Freetown.
The colony was established in the late eighteenth century as a place for resettlement of the “Black Poor of London” (many of them Black Loyalists of the British colonies, African-American slaves who had been freed by the British during the American Revolutionary War). They were joined by Black Loyalists who voluntarily resettled in Freetown after having first been taken to Nova Scotia, as well as by Jamaican Maroons, and Africans liberated from slave ships by the British navy in the years after the abolition of the Atlantic slave trade.
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. Morgan later said, during a trip to Jamaica in 1901, that he had served five years in West Africa, three years of this time in missionary work Liberia had been set up as a colony for the resettlement of free blacks from the United States and was supported by the American Colonization Society before the American Civil War.
After Morgan returned to England for private study, he traveled to the United States to work as a lay reader in the African-American community. He was accepted as a Postulant and as a candidate for the Episcopal deaconate in the Episcopal Church (United States). During the canonical waiting period before ordination, Morgan again returned to England. He was said to have studied at Saint Aidan’s Theological College in Birkenhead, and completed his studies at King’s College at the University of London, although the colleges do not have records of his attendance.
Episcopal Church (United States)
After Morgan returned to the United States, he was ordained as a deacon on June 20, 1895, [note 2] by the Rt. Rev. Leighton Coleman, bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Delaware, and a well-known opponent of racism. Morgan was appointed honorary curator at St Matthews’ Church in Wilmington, Delaware, serving there from 1896 to 1897. He also taught in public schools in Delaware. From 1897 he served the Episcopal Church in Charleston, West Virginia.
In 1898, Morgan was transferred to the Missionary Jurisdiction of Asheville, North Carolina (now in the Diocese of Western North Carolina). By 1899 he was listed as being assistant minister at St. Stephen’s Chapel in Morganton, North Carolina, and St. Cyprian’s Church in Lincolnton, North Carolina.
In 1901-1902 Morgan visited his homeland, Jamaica. In October 1901 he gave an address to the Jamaica Church Missionary Union on West Africa and mission work. He also gave a lecture in Port Maria in October 1902, entitled “Africa – Its People, Tribes, Idolatry, Customs”.
Between 1900 and 1906, Morgan moved around much of the Eastern seaboard in the US. From 1902 to 1905 he served at Richmond, Virginia, in 1905 at Nashville, Tennessee, and by 1906 at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His address was in the care of the Church of the Crucifixion.
At some point during this period, Morgan joined the American Catholic Church (ACC), a sect of the Episcopal Church founded by Joseph René Vilatte, a former Roman Catholic. 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.
Orthodoxy
Trip to Russia
By the turn of the 20th century, Morgan began to question his faith, and he began intensive study of Anglicanism, Catholicism, and Eastern Orthodoxy over a three-year period. He was in search of what he called the true religion. He concluded that the Eastern Orthodox Church was “the pillar and ground of the truth”, resigned from the Episcopal Church, and embarked on an extensive trip abroad beginning in 1904 in the Russian Empire.
Once there, Morgan visited various monasteries and churches, including sites in Odesa, St. Petersburg, Moscow, and Kiev. As a black American, he attracted attention. Sundry periodicals began publishing pictures and articles on him, and soon Morgan became a special guest of the Tsar. 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.
Leaving Russia, Morgan traveled the Ottoman Empire, Cyprus, and the Holy Land. After he returned to the US, he published an open letter in the Russian-American Orthodox Messenger (Vestnik) in 1904 about his experiences in Russia. He expressed hope that the Episcopal Church could unite with the Orthodox Churches. Morgan continued his spiritual quest.
Study and trip to the Ecumenical Patriarchate
For another three years, Morgan studied under Greek priests in the United States for his baptism, eventually deciding to seek entry and ordination in the Greek Orthodox Church. In January 1906, he is documented as “assisting” in the Christmas liturgy.[note 6] In 1907 the Greek community in Philadelphia referred Morgan to the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Constantinople, along with two letters of support. Fr. 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. The second letter was from the Ecclesiastical Committee of the Philadelphia Greek Orthodox Church, saying that Morgan could serve as an assistant priest if he failed to form a separate Orthodox parish among Black Americans.
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”.He agreed to his baptism.
Baptism and ordination
Recorded as Raffaele Morgan at Ellis Island, he landed in New York in December 1907. Fr. Raphael baptized his wife and children in the Orthodox Church.
The last mention of Fr. 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. Cartier”,[note 9] as a candidate for conversion to Orthodoxy and ordination as a priest. Cartier was rector of the African Episcopal Church of St. Thomas, in Philadelphia, from 1906 to 1912. The church served the African-American elite of Philadelphia and was one of the most prestigious congregations in African-American Christianity. It was started in 1794 by Absalom Jones, who had been an early leader with Richard Allen of the Free African Union. This preceded Allen’s founding of the African Methodist Episcopal Church.
In 1909, Charlotte Morgan filed for divorce alleging physical and verbal abuse, infidelity, and failure to support their children, with the accusations of abuse and neglect corroborated by a witness. Both gave graphic testimony to the court. In a deposition, Fr. Raphael denied any wrongdoing and counter-accused his wife of abuse toward him, but he did not appear at the divorce hearing. The divorce was granted by the court in 1910.
Fr. Raphael retained custody of their 13-year-old daughter, Roberta Viola Morgan.[note 10] Their 9-year-old son Cyril Ignatius lived with his mother in Delaware County, where she remarried.
Monastic tonsure
In 1911 Morgan sailed to Cyprus, presumably to be tonsured a hieromonk. (But, Fr. Oliver Herbel (OCA) has suggested that in 1911 Morgan was tonsured in Athens.)
Possibly at this time, he claimed to have founded what he called the Order of the Cross of Golgotha (O.C.G.). As noted above, the Archives of the Church of Greece contain no information about Morgan.
Lecture tour in Jamaica
According to an April 1913 article in the Jamaica Times, Fr. Raphael was headquartered at Philadelphia where he wanted to build a chapel for his missionary efforts. 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.
Near the end of 1913, Fr. Raphael visited his homeland of Jamaica, staying for several months. While there, he met a group of Syrians, who were complaining of a lack of Orthodox churches on the island. Fr. Raphael did his best to contact the Syrian-American diocese of the Russian church, writing to St. Raphael of Brooklyn. As most descendants of the Syrians in Jamaica are now communicants in the Episcopal Church, the Russian Orthodox Church may have established a mission here; this presumably came to no avail. In December, a Russian warship came to port, and he co-celebrated the Divine Liturgy with the sailors, their chaplain, and his new-found Syrians.
Morgan chiefly conducted a lecture circuit that he ran throughout Jamaica. Given the lack of Orthodox churches, Fr. Raphael gave his talks at churches of other denominations. He discussed his travels, the Holy Land, and Holy Orthodoxy. At some point, he returned to Chapelton, where he told attendees regarding his name change, “I will always be Robert to you”.
According to the Daily Gleaner edition of November 2, 1914, Fr. Raphael had just set sail for America to start mission work under his Faith.
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.”
In 1916 Fr. Raphael was still in Philadelphia, having made the Philadelphia Greek parish his base of operations. The last documentation of Fr. Raphael comes from a letter to the Daily Gleaner on October 4, 1916. Representing a group of about a dozen Jamaican-Americans, he wrote to protest the lectures of Black Nationalist Marcus Garvey. They felt Garvey’s views damaged the reputation of their homeland and its people. They objected to Garvey saying he preferred the prejudice of American whites to that of English whites. Garvey said that the letter was a conspiratorial fabrication meant to undermine the success and favor he had gained while in Jamaica and in the United States.[citation needed] Little is known of Fr. Raphael’s later life. The Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America has records neither of Fr. Raphael Morgan nor of Fr. Demetrios Petrides. Records in the archives for this Philadelphia community did not begin until 1918.
As noted, Morgan’s daughter said on her passport that her father had died between 1916 and 1924. In the 1970s Greek-American historian Paul G. Manolis interviewed surviving members of the Greek Community of the Annunciation in Philadelphia, who recalled the black priest who had been part of their community. Grammatik Kritikos Sherwin said that Fr. Raphael’s daughter left to attend Oxford University. Kyriacos Biniaris said that Morgan spoke broken Greek and served with Fr. Petrides, reciting the liturgy mostly in English. George Liacouras recalled that after serving in Philadelphia for some years, Fr. Raphael left for Jerusalem, never to return.
Fr. 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. He was given a pauper’s funeral, buried in obscurity, and laid to rest by Pro-Royalist Fr. Thomas Daniels.