Nicholas Bjerring

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Nicholas Bjerring (1831-1900) was a Danish Catholic who briefly became Orthodox and helped start the first Orthodox church and community in the northeastern United States. He later left Orthodoxy and returned to Catholicism, and he also translated and published English writings about the Orthodox faith.

Bjerring was born in Vejle, Denmark. He studied philosophy and theology at the University of Breslau, worked in Roman Catholic schools in Europe, and did missionary work in Lapland. In 1868 he moved to the United States to teach at St. Alphonsus in Baltimore (he never taught at St. Mary’s Seminary). He married and had three children.

In 1870 he left the Catholic Church in protest of papal infallibility and joined the Orthodox Church. He was received into Orthodoxy on May 3, 1870, ordained a deacon on May 6 and a priest on May 9, and his first liturgy was in German on May 17. He was sent to establish a church in New York City and served at the Holy Trinity chapel there until 1883.

When funding for the New York mission ended in 1883, Bjerring was asked to return to Russia, but he chose to leave Orthodoxy instead and joined the Presbyterian Church, later becoming a pastor. He eventually returned to the Catholic Church in 1899. He wrote about his religious changes in Catholic World in 1899-1900 and discussed labor questions. He died in September 1900 as a Roman Catholic layman.