Editing Raphael of Brooklyn (section)

== Life ==
He was born in modern-day [[Lebanon]] to [[Damascus|Damascene]] [[Syrians|Syrian Arab]] ([[Antiochian Greek Christians|Antiochian Greek Christian]]) parents of the [[Eastern Orthodoxy in Syria|Orthodox]] faith who had come to Beirut<ref>{{Cite web|title=Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America|url=https://www.antiochian.org/regulararticle/574|access-date=2021-11-04|website=www.antiochian.org}}</ref> fleeing the [[1860 civil conflict in Mount Lebanon and Damascus|1860 Syrian Civil War]] in [[Damascus]].<ref name=Newman>{{cite news|last1=Newman|first1=Andy|title=A Centennial Celebration for Brooklyn's Only Saint|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/06/nyregion/a-centennial-celebration-for-brooklyns-only-saint.html|access-date=6 November 2015|newspaper=[[The New York Times]]|date=5 November 2015}}</ref> He was first educated at the Damascus [[Patriarchy|Patriarchal]] School that had become the leading [[Greek Orthodox Church|Greek Orthodox]] institution of higher learning in the Levant under the leadership of [[Joseph of Damascus]]. He furthered his study of Christian theology at the [[Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople|Patriarchal]] [[Halki seminary]] in [[Constantinople]], and at the Theological Academy in [[Kyiv|Kiev]], [[Russian Empire]] (now [[Kyiv]], [[Ukraine]]).
[[File:Raphael of Brooklyn.jpg|thumb|left|Archimandrite Raphael upon his arrival in America]] 
After having been expelled from the [[Greek Orthodox Church]] when it was discovered that he had written [[polemic]]s under a [[pseudonym]] against the ethnic exclusivism of the Greek clergy in the church of his day,<ref name="youtube.com"/> he was welcomed by the [[Russian Orthodox Church]], where he served as a professor at the [[Kazan Theological Academy]],<ref name="ST. RAPHAEL OF BROOKLYN - LIFE OF THE SAINT">{{cite web|title=St. Tikhon's Monastery|url=https://sttikhonsmonastery.org/st_raphael_life}}</ref> and was commissioned to write [[Criticism of Islam|anti-Islamic]] [[apologetics]].<ref name="youtube.com"/>

Afterwards, Father Raphael was sent to [[New York City]] in 1895 by Tsar [[Nicholas II of Russia]] to administer the local Orthodox Christian community which then included mainly [[Russians|Russian]], [[Greeks|Greek]], [[Romanians|Romanian]] and [[Arabs|Arab]] immigrants, responding specifically to a request by local Arabic-speaking Orthodox Christians for a priest who could minister to them in their own language.

From 1903 onwards, after having been elected the "''Syria-Arabian [[Vicar]]iot of America''", he began his notoriously ambitious [[Missionary work|missionary journey]], wherein he adopted a [[semi-nomadic]] lifestyle, in which he was known to have [[Pedestrian|travelled by foot]], by [[horse]], by [[donkey]] and by [[train]] among [[freighthopping]] [[tramp]]s and [[hobo]]s, even having gone so far as to extend his mission to [[Cuba]] and the [[Caribbean]] towards the end; during his travels, he organized his journey around letters he received from scattered Orthodox Christians in America, and would use them as a guideline for his travels, coming in-and-out of cities to perform spontaneous [[baptism]]s, [[marriage]]s and [[blessing]]s.<ref name="youtube.com"/>

In 1904, he became the first [[Eastern Orthodox Church|Orthodox]] [[bishop]] to be consecrated in [[North America]]; the consecration was performed in [[New York City]] by Archbishop [[Patriarch Tikhon of Moscow|Tikhon (Bellavin)]] and Bishop Innocent (Pustynsky). He served as Bishop of [[Brooklyn]] until his death. During the course of his ministry as an auxiliary bishop of the Russian Orthodox Church in America, Raphael founded the present-day [[St. Nicholas Antiochian Orthodox Cathedral (Brooklyn)]], established thirty parishes, built over 30 Churches and assisted in the founding of St. Tikhon's Orthodox Monastery.

Bishop Raphael founded the official magazine of the Antiochian Orthodox Archdiocese, ''The Word'', in 1905 in Arabic (الكلمة), and wrote many works of his own, most of which remain both untranslated and unpublished.<ref name="The Word magazine">{{cite web|title=The Word Magazine|url=http://www.antiochian.org/theword|website=antiochian.org|access-date=9 November 2015}}</ref>