Guatemalan Movement in Dialogue with Syriac Orthodox Church

The Syriac Orthodox Archdiocese of the Western United States is reporting that its ruling hierarch, Metropolitan Mor Clement (Kaplan) of Burbank, has made a pastoral visit to Guatemala as part of the Syriac Orthodox Church's dialogue with a Christian movement there wanting to be united with the Orthodox Church. The movement reportedly has 800,000 followers. In addition to meeting with the leadership of the movement Metropolitan Mor Clement also visited the small Syriac Orthodox community already present in the Guatemalan capital. More in Arabic here.

Son of Kenyan PM Baptized in Nairobi

Fidel Castro Odinga, son of Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga, has been made a member of the Alexandrian Orthodox Church by Metropolitan Macarius () of Nairobi. The metropolitan personally served Odinga's baptism and chrismation, giving him the name Macarius. Not long after Odinga's reception into the Church he was married to his Eritrean/Ethiopian fiancee by Metropolitan Macarius in Nairobi's Cathedral of the Holy Unmercenaries. More here.

St. Constantine the New Martyr

Joyous feast! Today we commemorate the New Martyr Constantine. St. Constantine was born to a Muslim family on the Greek island of Mytilene and as a child became sick and lost his sight. Although he expected to die, a Christian took him to a nearby church and washed the Saint with holy water, after which his health and sight were restored.

After searching for a long time St. Constantine took refuge on Mount Athos, where he was baptized and requested a blessing to go and be martyred. (In those times a convert from Islam to another faith in the Ottoman Empire was subject to the death penalty.) After 40 days of fasting and prayer the Saint was blessed to return to the world, where he confessed the Christ before Turkish officials and was martyred for his Lord.

More on St. Constantine's life can be found here. May his blessing and prayers be with us all!

Al-Azhar Announces Guidance Sessions for Copts Converting to Islam

Cairo's famous Al-Azhar University has announced that it will be organizing guidance sessions for Copts wishing to convert to Islam that will include their Coptic Orthodox clergymen and members of their families. It is hoped that the sessions will help avoid the development of situations where Copts seeking to divorce their spouses or avoid other issues convert to Islam and then seek to revert, only to find that they cannot do so legally. More here.

Copt (Turned Muslim?) Turns Herself In

One of the alleged converts from Orthodox Christianity to Islam that Muslim fundamentalists have rioted over in recent days, Abeer Fakhry, has turned herself in to the Egyptian Armed Forces. More here.

Islamists Demonstrate in Cairo

Thousands of Muslim fundamentalists demonstrated today in Cairo for the release of Coptic Orthodox women they claim are being held against their will because of their desire to convert to Islam. The demonstrators do not believe taped interviews with one of the supposed victims that deny any desire to accept Islam. More here.

Convert Murdered in Cairo

A 2005 Muslim convert to Orthodox Christianity, Salwa Atallah, was murdered this past Pascha together with her husband and one of her two children. Her three brothers were responsible for the murders. More here.

Islamists Protest Over Camelia Shehata

In an ironic twist Islamists have organized protests calling for the release of an alleged Coptic Orthodox convert to Islam supposedly being held against her will by the Church. More on that here. The protests are shameful given the long history in Egypt of the killing of Muslim converts to Orthodoxy and the kidnapping and forced marriage to Muslims of Coptic Orthodox women and young girls. Irregardless, the woman in question, Camelia Shehata, has herself repeatedly and publicly confirmed that she never converted to Islam and remains a Coptic Orthodox Christian. God help Egypt...

Converts Versus Cradles?

Whenever I'm reading the crazy comments on websites like OCA News about the supposed clash between "cradles" and converts" I as an adult (or almost adult - whatever high school counts as) convert to Orthodoxy find myself wondering what our children will be in all of this. Will they be "craverts"? "Condles"? Will we make them choose which of these silly camps they join when they come of age?

I've seen cradle/convert conflicts at the parish level and was hit most of all by how unnecessary they were. They were not, in fact, about one side being "cradle" Orthodox and the other being "convert" Orthodox. They were about personalities and disobedience. None of the "cradle" Orthodox from the Old World joined in on 'their' side in the conflicts and the conflicts themselves passed relatively quickly as the parish settled into the changes that generally accompany the arrival of a new priest.

It's sad to see us dividing ourselves even more, beyond "Greek" and Russian" to "convert" and "cradle" or "conservative" and "liberal." All of this violates the Tradition and denies our fundamental belonging to the Church. Like it or not, we are together in all of this. It would be appropriate, I think, were we to figure out how to get past our pet peeves and pet causes so that we can love one another. It would certainly save a lot of unnecessary and unhelpful posts online ;-) (much like this one I'm sure!) and might even get us closer to having our own Orthodox Church of the Americas.

Russian Orthodox Commission Discusses the Reception of Converts

Today a session of the Commission on the Relationship with Non-Orthodox Christians and Other Religions of the Moscow Patriarchate was held under the leadership of Metropolitan Hilarion (Alfeyev) of Volokolamsk. The Commission met to discuss the means by which the Russian Orthodox Church receives converts from the various Christian movements in the West. It was decided at today's session to form a working group to study past norms in receiving converts and the reasoning behind them as well as the various Western Christian organizations' practices and beliefs so that uniform policies regulating the reception of converts from the Adventist, Anglican, Baptist, Lutheran, Old Catholic, Pentecostal, and Reformed Churches and other Western Christian movements can be drafted for consideration at the Commission's next session. More here.

"The Light of Christ Will Also Shine Over Kurdistan"

A fascinating interview with a Kurdish convert from Yazidism (a variant of Zoroastrianism) to Orthodoxy can be found here.

"Shaikh Zekaryas"

A fascinating survey of the life of an Ethiopian Muslim sheikh who led roughly 10,000 Ethiopian Muslims into Orthodoxy during the reign of Emperor Menelik II can be found here.

"Progression of a Convert"

I just discovered this cartoon about the progression of converts on a Roman Catholic blog and thought it was hilarious, sad, and so true all at the same time. I feel like there should be a seventh state though (resignation perhaps? ;-) ).

OCA/ROCOR Joint Statement

The American Orthodox Church and the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad have finally released the November joint statement of their dialogue commissions. The statement reviews the long history of the OCA and the ROCOR both in North America and worldwide and commits both to working together for the sake of unity and Orthodoxy, confirming the restoration of full communion between the two churches as a result of the union of the Moscow Patriarchate and the ROCOR in 2007.

The commissions that drafted the statement were led by Bishops Tikhon (Mollard) of Philadelphia of the OCA and George (Schaefer) of Mayfield of the ROCOR (both converts to Orthodoxy interestingly enough), but the statement itself has been approved by both the Holy Synod of the OCA and the Synod Abroad of the ROCOR. The full statement can be found here.

Orthodox History on St. Alexis (Toth)

Orthodox History has an interesting snippet on St. Alexis (Toth) of Minneapolis and his vision for the Ruthenians in the United States received into the Russian Orthodox Diocese of San Francisco (later New York) and North America from the Unia.

New Western Rites Communities to be Received into the ROCOR

Glory to God for all things! The former exarchate of the Alexandrian Orthodox Church in North America, a Western Orthodox movement following the Roman Rite, is being received into the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad! Their hierarchs will be received as priests, but altogether the churches and missions of the movement will constitute the ROCOR's first Western Rites deanery in North America! (For the time being the Western Rites communities of the ROCOR are stavropeghial under the Metropolitan of New York.) Hat tip to Michael for the good news!