Raphael Morgan

Robert Josias "Raphael" Morgan was a Jamaican-American Orthodox priest of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, designated as the "Priest-Apostolic to America and the West Indies" (Greek: Ιεραποστολος), later the founder and superior of the Order of the Cross of Golgotha, and thought to be the first Black Orthodox cleric in America.

He spoke broken Greek and, therefore, served mostly in English. Having been rediscovered, his life has garnered great interest in recent times, but much of his life still remains shrouded in mystery.

Morgan Raphael is said to have resided all over the world, including: "in Palestine, Syria, Joppa, Greece, Cyprus, Mytilene, Chios, Sicily, Crete, Egypt, Russia, Ottoman Turkey, Austria, Germany, England, France, Scandinavia, Belgium, Holland, Italy, Switzerland, Bermuda, and the United States."

Robert Josias Morgan was born in Chapelton, Clarendon Parish, Jamaica, either in the late 1860s or early 1870s to Robert Josias and Mary Ann (née Johnson) Morgan. He was born six months after his father's death and named in his honour. He was raised in the Anglican tradition and received elementary schooling locally.

In his teenage years he travelled to Colón, Panama, then to British Honduras, back to Jamaica, and then to the United States. He became a minister in the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME) and left as a missionary to Germany.

He then came to England, where he joined the Church of England and was sent to Sierra Leone to the Church Missionary Society Grammar School at Freetown. He studied Greek, Latin, and other higher-level subjects. Being poor, Robert had to work to support himself, and worked as second master of a public school at Freetown. He took course in the Church Missionary Society College at Fourah Bay in Freetown, and was soon appointed a missionary teacher and lay-reader by the Episcopal Bishop of Liberia, the Right Reverend Samuel David Ferguson. Robert later said during a trip to Jamaica in 1901 that he had served five years in West Africa, of which he spent three years in missionary work.

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