Posted on 01/21/2005 9:43:41 PM PST by Destro
AFRICAN-AMERICAN ORTHODOXY
By Albert P. Raboteau
When I was considering becoming Orthodox, a friend and fellow historian of African-American religion asked me if I understood how much Orthodoxy fit the aspects of African-American religion that had most personally interested me over the years. Several months earlier, an Orthodox monk had remarked to me how attuned he thought Orthodoxy was to the traditional spirituality of black people. Both comments took me by surprise. I had been so absorbed in the details of my own individual path toward Orthodoxy that I had failed to notice the forest for the trees, to discern the overall pattern my life was taking.
Gradually after my chrismation, I began to reflect more generally upon the relationship between the faith of Ancient Christianity that had claimed me and the religious traditions of my people whose history I had been researching, writing, and teaching for the past twenty-five years. Since there are so few black Orthodox, it seemed like a lonely task. Providentially, a friend informed me of the conferences on Ancient Christianity and African-Americans, the purpose of which is to gather people from around the country to discover - in the context of prayer and the Divine Liturgy - the deep affinities and resonances between Orthodoxy and African-American spirituality.
The resonances or points of convergence between Orthodoxy and African-American spirituality are profound. The first resonance is historical. Ancient Christianity is not, as many think, a European religion. Christian communities were well established in Africa by the third and fourth centuries. In Egypt and Ethiopia, Coptic traditions of worship, monasticism, and spirituality have remained authentically African and authentically Christian down to the present day.
The second resonance is spiritual: there are important analogies between African traditional religions and Orthodox Christianity. In classical theological terms, these analogies constitute a protoevangelion: a preparation for the Gospel based on God's natural revelation to all peoples through nature and conscience. I would distinguish eight principal areas of convergence between African spirituality and Ancient Christianity.
Traditionally, African spirituality has emphasized the close relationship, the "coinherence" of the other world and this world, the realm of the divine and the realm of the human. The French poet, Paul Eluard expressed this insight concisely when he said, "There is another world, but it is within this one." Orthodoxy also emphasizes the reality and the closeness of the kingdom of God, following the words of Jesus, "The kingdom of God is within [or amongst] you." Indeed, the closeness of the heavenly dimension is graphically symbolized in Orthodox churches by the iconostasis, the screen which stands for the invisibility that keeps our visible eyes from perceiving the heavenly kingdom already present among us behind the royal doors. The icons hanging upon the iconostasis serve as so many windows upon this invisible, but ever present world, as do the lives of the saints that the icons represent. In both traditions, ritual is understood to be the door that allows passage between the two worlds to take place.
Traditional African religions depicted the other world as the dwelling place of God and of a host of supernatural spirits (some of them ancestors) who mediated between the divine and the human and watched over the lives of men and women, offering, when asked, to protect people from harm or to provide favor on their behalf. Orthodox Christians believe in the power of saints, ancestors in the faith, to intercede with God for us and to protect and help us in time of distress.
African spirituality values the material world as enlivened with spirit and makes use of material objects that have been imbued with spiritual power. Orthodoxy sees the world as charged with the glory of God and celebrates in the feast of Theophany the renewal of the entire creation through God becoming flesh in the person of Jesus. Orthodoxy also appreciates the holiness of blessed matter, and uses water, chrism, candles, icons, crosses, and incense in the celebration of the Divine Liturgy and the Holy Mysteries (Sacraments).
The person in traditional African spirituality is conceived not as an individualized self, but as a web of relationships. Interrelatedness with the community, past as well as present, constitutes the person. Orthodox theologians speak of the person as being radically interpersonal, a being in communion, ultimately reflecting the interpersonal nature of the Divine Trinity. And the corporate character of Christian identity is grounded in the reality of the Mystical Body of Christ.
African religions speak of human beings as the children of God, who carry within a spark of God or "chi," a bit of God's soul that animates the spirit of each man and woman. Orthodoxy, following Genesis, teaches that we are created in the image and likeness of God and that it is our basic vocation to be "divinized," becoming more and more like the image in which we are created. African spirituality does not dichotomize body and spirit, but views the human being as embodied spirit and inspirited body, so that the whole person body and spirit is involved in the worship of God. Orthodoxy also recognizes the person as embodied spirit and stresses the importance of bodily gestures, such as signing the cross, bowing, and prostrating, in the act of private and public prayer.
Worship in African-American tradition is supposed to make the divine present and effective. In ceremonies of spirit-entranced dance, the human person became the representation of the divine;. And divine power heals and transforms. In Orthodox worship, God becomes present to His people, most powerfully in the Eucharist as the Holy Spirit changes bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ and as those receiving Christ in Communion become more and more healed and transformed. The African-American spirituals placed a strong emphasis on a tone of sad joyfulness that reflected African-Americans' experience and their perspective on life. In Orthodoxy, the sad joyfulness of the liturgical chant tones poignantly expresses the attitude of penthos or repentance which characterizes the Orthodox Christian's attitude toward life. This tone of sad joyfulness relates directly to the third major area of analogy between African-American spirituality and Orthodox, the experience of suffering Christianity.
Ancient Christianity prized the gift of martyrdom, the witness through suffering even death itself for the truth of the Christian gospel. Paradoxically, Christians throughout history have seen periods of martyrdom as periods of spiritual vitality and growth. "The blood of martyrs is the seed of faith." Suffering Christianity, following in the pattern of Christ and the saints, has been for Orthodoxy a mark of the authenticity of faith. African-American Christians have offered a prime example of suffering Christianity in this nation and have understood their own tradition as an extension of the line of martyrs from the days of the ancient Church.
One of the classical liturgical expressions of African-American religions is the "ring shout," a counterclockwise, shuffling movement in which the shouters move round in a circle to the driving rhythms of counter-clapping and steadily repeated song which bring all present into one accord. The style of movement and the religious impulse behind the ring shout go back to the ancestral homelands of those Africans carried to America by the Atlantic trade in slaves. The danced circle may stand for us as a symbol of the steadfast faith of African peoples - through slavery and oppression - that all human beings are created in the image and likeness of God. Ancient Christianity does not break that circle, but brings it to amazing fulfillment in the endless circle of love flowing continuously between the divine persons of the all-merciful Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Reprinted From SOLIA - THE HERALD Diocesan Newspaper, issued by The Romanian Orthodox Episcopate of America.
ABOUT ST. MARY OF EGYPT ORTHODOX CHURCH
In November 1987, a group of interdenominational and multiracial Christians formed a ministry called "Reconciliation Ministries" in the "inner-city" of Kansas City, Missouri. What began as an outreach to help the physical needs of the neighborhood gradually emerged into an Eastern Orthodox Christian community, known as St. Mary of Egypt Orthodox Church.
Recently, Professor Cornel West wrote in his best-selling Race Matters that: "The genius of our black foremothers and forefathers was to create powerful buffers to ward off the nihilistic threat, to equip black folk with cultural armor to beat back the demons of hopelessness, meaninglessness, and lovelessness. These buffers consisted of cultural structures of meaning and feeling that created and sustained communities; this armor constituted ways of life and struggle that embodied values of service and sacrifice, love and care, discipline and excellence... These traditions consist primarily of black religious and civic institutions that sustained familial and communal networks of support."
Creating such a buffer has been the byproduct of this group seeking to simply put into practice the teachings of Jesus. Despair, violence, chemical dependency, abuse of all kinds had touched the lives of both those they were serving, as well as some of the volunteers. As these issues surfaced, they began to search for deeper answers. It resulted in discovering for themselves the ancient wisdom of the African desert fathers and mothers. They began to apply their advice on prayer, how to deal with one's own spiritual blindness, and how to be restored when one's emotions and desires were disordered. The community little by little was being led to the path of the ancient Orthodox Church. They drew inspiration from the ancient Egyptian monastics, the writings of The Philokalia, and the lives of the holy ones from the Northern Russian forests. In addition, the many saints in urban areas that had combined inner prayer with works of mercy provided models for the kind of Orthodox community they were seeking to become.
St. Moses the Black was a 4th century gang-leader along the Nile that had become one of the desert fathers. St. Mary of Egypt was a 6th century prostitute that left her way of life to spend 47 years in the same desert where St. John the Baptist lived. These radical transformations are but two examples of the deep changes wrought through this ancient path. As the group continued to search through the lives of African saints, they were introduced to hundreds of other examples of inspiration. In 1993, their core community became Orthodox. Each year more and more have been baptized and chrismated.
LIFE AT ST. MARY'S
Since then, they have sponsored ten conferences on Ancient Christianity and African America. A book was published from various lectures after the fifth of these conferences, entitled An Unbroken Circle. The conferences have pulled from the depth of faith derived from the African-American experience of suffering and sanctity and linked it with the suffering of the early Christians. The result has been to show the place of Orthodox Christianity in African America today and the wealth of heritage waiting to be tapped from the Church in Africa.
The church operates a bookstore called Desert Wisdom Bookstore, specializing in ancient Christian texts and books on African Christianity. A book and price list is available upon request. During the day, free daily bread, soup and tea is served to those that drop by the bookstore.
The life at St. Mary's is centered on the daily cycle of Orthodox prayer and Church services. The church is on the third floor of their four-story building. The daily prayer life is indeed the cement that binds the works and individuals together.
Classes are held on Friday evenings at 8:00 P.M. followed by the Coffee House at 9:00 P.M. Themes vary from Bible Study, based on the perspective of the ancient Fathers or introductory topics to ancient, Orthodox Christianity. To see the entire schedule of classes and services, click here.
St. Mary of Egypt Orthodox Church is under HH Patriarch PAVLE of the Serbian Orthodox Church. Its bishop is HG Bishop LONGIN of new Gracanica Metropolitanate of U.S.A. and Canada.
orthodox ping
Thank-you so much for this. I'm sending it off to the school minister at my old prep school, a black man, with whom I had a conversation along these lines recently. As I think I have said before, African spirituality and phronema fit with Orthodoxy and truth be told, outside of deeply religious "cultural" Orthodox in Orthodox countries, I have never seen such an understanding and living acceptance of the connectedness between this world we "live in" and the Divine World we are "of".
very interesting article. A friend once remarked to me that in this country, Protestant African-Americans are actually closer in their beliefs to the early Church (ie Orthodox/Catholic) than they are to the beliefs of the Reformers. This might be another explanation for why Orthodoxy resonates so well with African-Americans.
Additional pings
D: I'm sorry I didn't thank you for this thread. The Church is alive, well and growing mightily in Africa. The enthusiasm and joyous Orthodox Faith of the people there is beyond nearly anything I have ever seen.
We traditionalists within the Episcopal Church, USA, have noticed an outstanding propensity of African bishops to champion our faith. Recently I have been increasingly contemplative of the fortuitous circumstances surrounding the history of Anglicanism in the third world, which I believe will presently redeem the carcass of first world Anglicanism through evangelism and faithful confession of the unadulterated Christianity which we, the first world, previously delivered to them, the third world, as part of what we must admit was at times an otherwise less than benevolent programme of social development.
Our own bishop, here in the Diocese of New Jersey, Bp. Councell, remarked upon receiving Bp. Tutu at his Cathedral in Trenton, "While no Anglican is average, the average Anglican is African."
For this reason I am joyous and hopeful that the influence of such faithful apostles as Bp. Akinola and his type will penetrate the demonic web of deception which is increasingly threatening ECUSA and the C of E. I also feel the passing of our common cultural prejudices has been occuring at just the right time to allow African Bishops to exercise the spiritual authority they warrant as bishops. In yet another irony so called enlightened bishops, advocates of "gay rights" and debasers of the faith of our fathers, of the western cultures are today exercising an unparalleled model of white supremacy. Bp. Spong remarked that the african bishops had in general "moved out of animism into a very superstitious form of Christianity". And a liberal Anglican dismissed the place of the worldwide majority of third world bishops to me personally by saying that ( colored people ) were incapable of understanding what Christianity was all about. To hear a prelate of Anglicanism speak in such terms opened my eyes to the fact that racism has seemingly come full circle and now will enjoy its day within the libertine sexual revolution in ECUSA.
But I for one will thank God for raising up a generation of African Christians who may very well save the relavency of the Anglican Communion.
Beautiful article. Thanks for the ping :-)
See my link @ #5.
I have been wondering what the future holds for Anglicanism in Africa once it either straightens out ECUSA and its hierarchal fellow travelers or ditches them. Orthodoxy? When I read +Akinola's writings, he sounds like one of the Desert Fathers come to town to clean out the pest hole, or a fiery hierarch like +Athanasius thundering at heretics.
I heard that too in catechism class, some 40+ years ago. "The average Anglican is an African woman."
But I for one will thank God for raising up a generation of African Christians who may very well save the relavency of the Anglican Communion.
And I do too.
Funny that, seeing as how the founder of the Anglican Church treated his many wives - - -
Well the church you read about in Missouri is almost certainly St. Mary of Egypt. (I think there's something absolutely delicious about the fact that there's a majority African-American Serbian Orthodox parish in the American heartland.)
"(I think there's something absolutely delicious about the fact that there's a majority African-American Serbian Orthodox parish in the American heartland.)"
Very "American" Orthodox, wouldn't you say?
Yes there is. :-)
koloko, thanks also for your input. I would love to hear more from you, elaborating on your post.
I have wondered myself why the Ethiopian Copts aren't held forward as a shining example of sub-Saharan African Christianity. Almost no one knows of it.
One question though...is the Ethiopian Church Orthodox or Monophysite?
The Ethiopians are monophysites, though it is unclear whether out of conviction or simply out of the historical circumstance of being outside the Empire and stranded with contacts only with the Copts after the rise of Islam.
There were Orthodox churches in Upper Egypt, what is now the Sudan, as testified by icons of St. John Chrysostom, who until recently had been under anathema from the monophysites.
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