The Rev. William Hogan's "conversion" to the Greek Church

William Hogan

In July of 1824, the following notice appeared in the Baltimore Patriot:

The Rev. William Hogan, in Philadelphia, has published an address to the Congregation of St. Mary's Church, renouncing the Catholic Religion as established by the Church of Rome, and assuming that of the Greek Church for his future guide. We fully agree with Mr. Walsh, who thinks he "has become tired of those parts of the doctrines and discipline of the Roman Catholic Church, which enjoin celibacy and occasional fasting."

Hogan, formerly priest of St. Mary's Catholic Church in Philadelphia, became the object of scandal in the early 1820s, when he removed himself to a private residence and became involved in behavior that was unbecoming of his priestly office. He refused to obey his bishop, and as a result was removed from the priesthood. When he persisted in his behavior, even going so far as to set up his own renegade congregation where he celebrated mass and railed against the priests and bishops who opposed him, he and those who supported him were excommunicated.

The episode is referred to as the "Hogan Schism," and was the cause of a great deal of conflict among Catholics in Philadelphia during the first half of the 1820s. Hogan seems to have been opposed to the practice of celibacy among Catholic priests, among other things. But overall, he seems to have been a deeply troubled, angry man. Hogan was brought up on charges for assault and battery upon a woman in 1822. That year the division between the Hogan party and the Roman Catholic Church led to a riot in which several hundred persons were wounded.

In 1824 Hogan announced that he was converting to Orthodoxy, although it is doubtful that he ever did. In his letter to St. Mary's, reprinted in the Berks and Schuylkill Journal, he wrote of the difference between the Roman Catholic and Greek Orthodox Church, noting that Orthodoxy preserved the doctrines of the early church "in their original purity":

[If you] insist upon the right of electing your own Bishops and Pastors - if you consent to the free circulation of the Scriptures - if you consider yourselves on an exact footing with the Greek Catholics, and will denominate your Church The American Catholic Church, I shall feel a pride in being your Pastor. - I have dwelt in serious meditation on the doctrines and discipline of our Church in those countries, where the jurisdiction of Rome is recognized, and in Greece, where it is rejected; and I have come to the conclusion that Rome sanctions an evident departure from their ancient simplicity; and that the Greek Church preserves them in their original purity.

The Records of the American Catholic Society of Philadelphia note that "He professed to have become a convert to the doctrines of the Greek Church," but there is no evidence that he ever became Orthodox. He published several articles in the National Gazette proposing that an American Catholic Church be formed along the lines of the Greek Church. There was little to no interest in such a proposition. Hogan was merely looking for a means to justify his behavior, and he incorrectly believed that the Orthodox Church would enable him to do so.

Later that year he moved to Wilmington, North Carolina, where he married Henrietta McKay, who came from a prominent propertied family. By all reports the marriage was not a happy one. Hogan was known to neglect his wife, and appropriated her belongings for his own personal use: gambling at the race track. A source records that "Hogan's reputation in Wilmington is that of an unprincipled adventurer." After two years, Henrietta died and Hogan remarried. Adding still further to his suspicious behavior, his bride was once again a wealthy widow, Lydia White Gardner. In the following years Hogan preached in Protestant churches, wrote books denouncing the evils of "popery," edited the Daily American, and served as U.S. Consul to Cuba. From his anti-Catholic writings, we can clearly see that Hogan abandoned any notion of becoming Orthodox. He railed against the Real Presence, the veneration of saints and images, and the erection of monasteries, among other things.

Hogan's attachment to Orthodoxy was not animated by piety, but by both ideology and outright rebellion. When Orthodoxy was no longer useful to him as a prop, he abandoned it and turned to radical anti-Catholicism. Hogan's writings continue to circulate today, as evidenced by their appearance on anti-Catholic websites where they enjoy wider circulation than they would have received when they were first published.

For more on the Hogan Schism, go here.