St Raphael of Brooklyn is a saint of two worlds. Born in Beirut to a Damascene family, educated in Damascus, Halki and Kiev, he spent the last twenty years of his life in America, gathering Arabic-speaking Orthodox immigrants into parishes. In 1904 he became the first Orthodox bishop to be consecrated in North America.
Early life
Rafla Hawaweeny was born on 20 November 1860 in Beirut, to parents from Damascus. He studied at the Patriarchal School in Damascus, at the theological school on the island of Halki near Constantinople, and at the Theological Academy in Kiev. He served the Church of Antioch in Russia before being called to America.
The shepherd of the Syrian Orthodox in America
In the 1890s Raphael came to New York to serve the growing community of Orthodox immigrants from Syria and Lebanon. He founded the parish that became St Nicholas Cathedral in Brooklyn, today the primatial cathedral of the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America. He travelled widely across the United States and Canada visiting scattered families, and he established some thirty parishes.
First bishop consecrated in America
In 1904 Raphael was consecrated bishop in New York by St Tikhon, then archbishop of the Russian Orthodox diocese in North America, together with Bishop Innocent. He was the first Orthodox bishop consecrated on the continent, and he served as Bishop of Brooklyn, responsible for the Arabic-speaking Orthodox within the then single Orthodox jurisdiction in America. He also helped found St Tikhon's Orthodox Monastery in South Canaan, Pennsylvania. He died in Brooklyn on 27 February 1915.
Glorification
In March 2000 the Holy Synod of the Orthodox Church in America numbered Raphael among the saints. The glorification services were held in May 2000 at St Tikhon's Monastery, with bishops of the Antiochian Archdiocese, the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America and the Orthodox Church of Poland taking part. His tomb is at the Antiochian Village in Ligonier, Pennsylvania. The Orthodox Church in America commemorates him on 27 February; the Church of Antioch remembers him on the first Saturday of November.
In icons
St Raphael is commonly shown in a bishop's vestments, blessing with his right hand and holding the Book of the Gospels. Some icons place him among the saints of North America, beside St Tikhon who consecrated him and St Herman of Alaska.
St Raphael's icon belongs equally to this collection and to American Orthodox Icons. He is the clearest link between the ancient Church of Antioch and the Orthodox Church in the New World.