www.byzcath.org Forums News & Events Church News Does Eastern Christianity exist in Africa?

From the parish's about us [stmaryofegypt.net]
The homepage is here [stmaryofegypt.net] .

Some may be interested in seeing this [rootsweb.com] .

Dear Professor Dan,

I think it is a challenge for every Church to manage the tension between two forces that MUST occur within it at once.

Each Church must incarnate itself into the culture in which it is situated, including developing culturally appropriate theological schools of thought, as Alexandria certainly did.

And it must relate itself to the "oikumene" around it - something Alexandria, the patriarchate of Africa, did as well.

In some eras of church history, we find an emphasis on one or the other.

Hopefully, a balance can be maintained!

Alex

Thanks to Tony for the St. Mary of Egypt link. It's in my backyard (so to speak) and didn't even think of it. Fr. Paisios in Kansas City is married to an African American woman, and has several nuns in the small convent under his spiritual care (a couple of which are African American). We frequent his bookstore and occasionally attend services there. He was a spiritual child of Fr. Seraphim Rose.

His chapel and residence are in the inner city of Kansas City in a low-income neighborhood that is often plagued by gang violence. It is something to see him in riassa or the nuns walking around in habit in that neighborhood.

He has a very active AA and substance abuse recovery ministry which meets at the bookstore as well.

May God grant him many years.

Before the Ethiopian Orthodox (Tewahedo) built their temple in another part of town he allowed them to use his.

I would also mention the Ecumenical Patriarchate has missionary activity in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda which have been successful. The story of the Orthodox movement in Uganda can be found here: http://www.gospelcom.net/dacb/stories/uganda/spartas2_chris.html

And an article about Metropolitan +JONAH and his eparchy in Uganda: http://www.orthodoxresearchinstitut...ndria/current/bio_jonah_metr_kampala.htm

The Orthodox Christian Mission Center has an article about the Uganda mission at http://www.ocmc.org/news.php?sub=news&action=topic&id=80

The OCA mission list is available at http://www.oca.org/pages/min_orgs/Resource-Handbook/Witness-and-Mission/Orthodox-Mission-Teams.html and includes several African missions.

There is a Patriarchal school in Nairobi: http://www.orthodoxresearchinstitute.org/articles/church_history/makarios_patriarchal_school.htm

Another prominent African American convert to Orthodoxy is Reader Michael Bishop.

Dear Diak,

I just ADORE the Ethiopian Orthodox Church and her traditions!

Our priest here is always very welcoming and his assistant, a seminarian, has spent hours explaining their rites and prayers to me!

Their list of Canticles at the end of their Psalter contains 15 Canticles, including the Prayer of Manasses and the Song of Symeon - they divide the Hymn of the Three Children in the Book of Daniel into four parts, each of which is separately called a "Canticle."

They recite the Psalter in six days, beginning with thirty on Monday and so on.

On Sunday, they recite the eight chapters of the Song of Songs (which does not belong to the Psalmic readings).

And they have a rosary of 64 beads on which they recite their version of the Hail Mary 64 times in honour of the same number of years they believe the Mother of God lived on earth.

The priest I have been in touch with has a rosary that is divided up very much like the Old Believer Lestovka is, with seven beads, then 12, then 41, then 64, then the remainder to make up a total of 100.

As you know, they wear prayer shawls and have many Judaic practices, and also venerate Pontius Pilate as a saint, according to their apocryphal scriptures.

They celebrate a form of a Passover meal on Holy Thursday etc.

I gave an Ethiopian mitre to an OCA priest I know who has been receiving Ethiopians into his parish . . . just something to make them feel at home . . .

Alex

Yes, I too dearly love the Ethiopians (my most loyal lamb customers ). Last Pascha after finishing our services at a relatively early time (2:30 a.m. or so) several of us went over to Kidane Mehret, the Tewahedo church, where we stayed until 5:30 or so.

They were still going strong, having started about 10 the previous evening and going on until 7 or so the next morning. Standing room only, leave your shoes by the door, and men and women stand on different sides of the church.

Henry,

The Ethiopian Catholic parish in DC is Kidane Meheret [catholicforum.com] . Daniel mentioned a seminary there, but I'm unaware of the Church having any other than the Ethiopian College at the Vatican and two each in Ethiopia and Eritrea. Since, in his later post, he referred to a "house of studies", it may be that there is a residence for clergy studying in the US, although a CNEWA article last year suggested that their priestly formation was all being accomplished at the seminaries I noted above.

Many years,

Neil

Neil, I believe the house was for students at the various theological schools around CUA. I see they are worshiping at St Vincent de Paul now; when I was there they were in their own church. As that church was small, I assume it could no longer hold the congregation...
-Daniel

Alex,

What is their version of the Hail Mary like? If you know, could you post it?

Thanks much,
Aaron

"good luck reasoning with Dan. He will soon resort to name-calling, I predict, or some other form of insult. It seems clear to me that that other thread was an excuse to bash the French, and strangely, the Muslims.
-Daniel"

:rolleyes: Having fun?

Dan L

Professor Alex,

Indeed you are correct. With this post I'm wondering if the Dhimmi status that Eastern Christians have suffered for so long in North Africa has skewed the sense of mission among the Orthodox. After all it is illegal in many areas to openly evangelize and in some areas even to build a Church.

I'm also concerned about our Western lack of knowledge about our Christian brothers and sisters in Africa.

I am developing a hypothesis based upon a fair amount of research that goes something like this: "Europe went into the Middle East and North Africa during the nineteenth century for two reasons. First, for its resources. Second, to relieve the plight of the Dhimmi. For the last 1/2 century at least the latter reason has receded as Europe itself has rejected Christianity and the former has become about the only reason the European powers stick around. This produces a defacto alliance with radical Islam." Take a look at Bat Ye'or's work and the work of Stephen Schwartz.

Thanks for helping to keep this thread on track.

Dan L

Dan, I think that may be an oversimplification perhaps missing particular historical and sociological facts.

Africa is an extremely complex continent, and not only does every country there have a diverse religious climate, within each country there may be subsections with drastically different "tolerance zones".

Each colonizing country (France, Belgium, Holland, Germany, Italy, etc.) left its cultural marks in very different ways.

Ethiopia is very unique in that milleu, still a Christian majority country and its Alexandrian heritage has been continuous. The Dhimmi scenario just doesn't apply there at all. The last Christian Emperor was, in fact, Haile Selaisse of Ethiopia, and Eastern Christian and an African.

Uganda, Kenya, and Tanzania were all formerly parts of British East Africa, and while all have Muslim populations, especially in Uganda it was never a majority. Idi Amin enforced a type of pseudo-secularism, and many there also retained animist leanings, which perhaps makes the efforts of the Catholic and Greek Churches more succesful than in areas in the north. Jomo Kenyatta in Kenya also advocated a non-religious regime for many years as did his successors.

Western Christianity, especially Catholicism, has been very successful especially in Western Africa. This is apparent in places such as Nigeria and Senegal. It was, in fact, the diocese of Dakar, Senegal that offered Archbishop Marcel Lefevbre free property to build his first Society of St. Pius X seminary there in the 1970s when the order was still in communion with Rome, but he later decided to locate in Econe, Switzerland. He was the former bishop of Dakar.

One can look at Cardinal Arinze (convert from animism) and see the vitality of the Nigerian church, likewise with Cardinal Gantin and his native Benin. 17 million Catholics in Nigeria, 13 million in Uganda, 12 million in Tanzania, 9.5 million in Kenya, 7+ million in Mozambique according to the Catholic African Network, and significant Catholic populations in Burundi, Rwanda, Cameroon, and Ghana.

The largest Catholic (or Christian church of any denomination) church in the world (area-wise) is the cathedral in the Ivory Coast, Our Lady of Peace of Yamoussoukro Basilica.

The Ugandan Church under Metropolitan Jonah has seen some positive growth. I think that will eventually spread.

Diak,

Thank you very much. Could you point me to some sources?

Dan L

The obvious history of Eastern Christianity in Africa is that of the Christianization effected by the Coptic Church, its Ethiopian and Eritrean daughter Churches, and Greek Orthodox, Armenians, and Melkites, all of which were focused in North Africa, the area geographically most proximate to Christianity's origins. In the mid and southern reaches of the continent, Latin Catholic and Protestant missionaries have been a much more visible presence until the Orthodox missions of the past century that have been described by Diak and Anastasios.

Notably, such missions have not been spearheaded by the Eastern Churches of African origin (Copt, Ethiopian, or Eritrean), but chiefly by the Greeks. Anecdotally, it has been speculated that among the factors contributing to this have been a sense of superiority on the part of North African Christians toward their sub-Saharan brethren, as well as a distrust among the latter of other Africans. The distrust being part and parcel of the internecine warfare and tribalism that has marked the continent for centuries.

Interestingly, some of the earliest Eastern Christian activity of an "Orthodox" nature in the sub-Saharan regions was initially home-grown and incubated by a mix of vagante and non-canonical/independent "Orthodox" Churches having their immediate origins in the US. Marcus Garvey, an African-American best remembered for Black political activism in the early 20th century, was also involved with an ecclesiastical entity styled "The African Orthodox Church of America".

The AOCA was originally headquartered in Boston's Roxbury neighborhood and one of its parishes, St. James, was still situated there, only a block from my grammar school, until the 1960s. When my classmate (who was Orthodox) and I, consumed by curiousity (him by the sign that said "Orthodox", though his parents said it wasn't ; me by the fact that it was surmounted by a cross in an era when common wisdom said that only Catholic churches were ), snuck inside in the early 50s, we were certain that we were doomed to Hell - although we weren't sure whether it would be the same Hell . Inside, I got my first glimpse of what I would later understand was a rather rudimentary/primitive iconostasis, peopled solely by Black images. My friend, with all the wisdom of a 3rd grader, opined that the lingering scent of incense didn't "smell right", therefore, the church wasn't really Orthodox :p . We escaped without further ado, sure that if we were caught, we'd be marched up the street to Father (with whom we knew the priest there was friendly) or to Sister Superior, both of whom loomed as a far more immediate and dire threat than Hell's fires .

Joseph Rene Vilatte, whose name is listed somewhere in the episcopal lineage of virtually every vagante and independent "Catholic", "Orthodox", "Anglican/Episcopal" and "Lutheran" Church in North America factored into the AOCA as well, consecrating a Garvey follower, George McGuire, as its first hierarch. A group of African native clergy, with backgrounds principally in the Latin, Anglican, and Methodist Churches, as well as the Ethiopian Catholic Church in Zion (an early African independent church), sought and obtained hierarchical consecration from McGuire for Daniel Alexander, their leader. The resultant body flourished, ultimately more so than did its American step-parent (which still exists, but in relatively small numbers). Many of its clergy and faithful, as well as those of some of its offshoots, inspired decades later to seek canonicity from various Orthodox Churches, including the Copts, Ethiopians, and the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Alexandria, became the nuclei of many of the Orthodox missions that are presently underway in Africa.

There are also some historical ties among these bodies, the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, and the Orthodox community in Jamaica that arose initially from a cult-like fascination with Emperor Haile Selassie.

Some of the history of these bodies can be read at:

African Orthodox Church Archives [pitts.emory.edu]

Orthodox Mission In Tropical Africa [oecumena.com]

History of the Ethiopian Zion Coptic Church [calyx.com]

African Greek Orthodox Autonomous Church [britannica.com]

A Sketch of Rastafarian History [nomadfx.com]

Back to focusing on mainstream Churches, GO Metropolitan Makarios of Kenya and Irinoupolis has compiled a detailed Chronology of Christianity in Africa [orthodoxresearchinstitute.org]

Many years,

Neil

Neil,

Thank you. You have given me much with which to work.

Dan L