Bolivar, PA, June 4, 2025
Photo: antiochian.org
On July 18, 2024, the relics of St. Raphael (Hawaweeny), a Holy Hierarch who served in America, were unearthed from his burial place at the Antiochian Village in Bolivar, PA, for the veneration of the faithful.
And last month, a hand-carved wooden reliquary arrived from Lebanon, allowing the relics to be reverently placed in the Sts. Peter and Paul Chapel in the Antiochian Village Conference and Retreat Center by His Eminence Metropolitan Saba. They had temporarily been held in the Village’s St. Ignatius Church, the Antiochian Archdiocese of North America reports.
St. Raphael (†1915) was the first Orthodox bishop consecrated in America, where he faithfully served the mission of the Russian Orthodox Church under St. Tikhon, the future Patriarch of Moscow, together with a number of other saints.
Photo: antiochian.org
Since 1988, his remains were interred at the Antiochian Village. He was glorified by the Orthodox Church in America in 2000.
In addition to his physical remains, the relics also include St. Raphael’s vestments, crown, and a small gold cross. A matching hand-carved kiot displays St. Raphael’s icon above his relics.
The translation of his relics is now celebrated on July 18, in addition to his other feasts on the Saturday closest to his birthday, November 8, 1860, and February 27, the date of his repose in 1915.
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St. Raphael was born in Beirut in 1860. He was educated at the Damascus Patriarchal School, the leading Orthodox institution in the Levant, at the Patriarchal Halki Seminary in Constantinople, and at the Theological Academy in Kiev. He later served as rector of the Antiochian representation church in Moscow and taught at the Theological Academy of Kazan.
He was sent to New York City in by Tsar Nicholas II in 1895 and in 1904 became the first Orthodox bishop to be consecrated in North America. His consecration was celebrated by St. Tikhon, the head of the Church in America at that time.
During the course of his ministry as a bishop of the Russian Church in America, St. Raphael founded the St. Nicholas 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.
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