New York, June 2, 2021
Photo: obitel-minsk.com
St. Raphael of Brooklyn, one of the great saints to have served in America, will soon be honored with a city block in his name.
According to an announcement from Fr. Thomas Zain of the St. Nicholas Antiochian Orthodox Cathedral in New York, this coming Sunday, the city block on which the cathedral sits will be renamed “St. Raphael of Brooklyn Place.”
His Eminence Metropolitan Joseph will preside at the Sunday Divine Liturgy, after which the street naming ceremony will be held at 1:00 PM. City Council representatives and other dignitaries will also attend the ceremony.
St. Nicholas Cathedral was founded by St. Raphael himself, who was sent to the American mission field by Tsar Nicholas II in 1895. In 1904, he became the first Orthodox bishop to be consecrated in North America.
During the course of his ministry as a bishop of the Russian Church in America, St. Raphael founded the cathedral in New York and 29 other parishes, and assisted in the founding of St. Tikhon’s Monastery in Pennsylvania, where his glorification was celebrated in 2000 with the participation of hierarchs of the Antiochian Archdiocese, the Greek Archdiocese of America, and the Church of Poland.
He is buried at the Antiochian Village in Ligonier, Pennsylvania.
The 125th anniversary of his mission to America was festively celebrated by Antiochian and Russian hierarchs in October 2019.
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