by Nikolaos Asproulis | български | ქართული | Română | Русский | Српски This essay was first published in Greek at Polymeros kai Polytropos, the blog of the Volos Academy for Theological Studies. In our time, racism has many faces. Sometimes it manifests itself in a more visible way and other times in an invisible way. Whether it is racism…
Continue readingBlack Voices in the Orthodox Church
Black Americans make up a tiny percentage of Orthodox Christians in the United States. Considering how difficult it is for someone from our American culture to convert to the Orthodox faith, it makes the stories of the seven Black individuals in the most recent issue of Jacob’s Well—a magazine of the Diocese of New York…
Continue readingJacob Blake and My Struggle with God
Divine Love and the African American Mind
by Alfred D. Turnipseed On the morning of August 24, I was hot! I woke up as I usually do—to the morning’s light, with stares from my cat, awaiting his early meal. I turned on Morning Joe and opened up my iPhone’s newsfeed. This is what I saw: Black man shot multiple times by Wisconsin…
Continue readingThe War on Drugs and Systemic Racism
Why Christians Should Care
by Rico Monge | Ελληνικά The “War on Drugs” has been a bi-partisan effort spanning several decades that is one of the key components of “systemic racism” and anti-blackness in the United States and elsewhere. The roots of the War on Drugs lie in Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s administration and the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937,…
Continue readingA Confession of Racism by a Southerner
by Rev. Dr. Daniel P. Payne | ελληνικά As I sit holding and examining the print of the famous painting “The Last Meeting of Lee & Jackson” by E.B.D. Julio, I reflect on my own racism and prejudices that I grew up with as a Southerner. I feel as Wendell Berry wrote about, The Hidden…
Continue readingFear Then, Action Now: A Response to “Full and Understanding Support”
by Yiorgos Anagnostou It is encouraging to see young scholars and emerging Greek Orthodox leaders entering the conversation about anti-racism. In a posting in this forum, Nikolaos Piperis and Stavros Piperis, scholars at the Creighton University School of Law and Youth Directors at St. John the Baptist Greek Orthodox Church in Omaha, Nebraska, contribute to…
Continue readingDeifying Bodies of Color
Coloniality, Iconography, and the Black Lives Matter Movement
by Luis Josué Salés | Ελληνικά Amid a nationwide BLM movement calling for the removal of statues and monuments that enshrine, even glorify, the genocidal, colonizing, enslaving, and imperialistic past of the United States, well-known BLM activist Shaun King tweeted that “The statues of the white European they claim is Jesus should also come down”…
Continue reading">The Many Faces and the Many Colors of Christ
In Response to "White Jesus and Shaun King"
by Alfred D. Turnipseed I know and am friends with Addison Hodges Hart, author of “‘White Jesus’ and Shaun King,” published at Public Orthodoxy on June 26, 2020. And I should also note that I am in full agreement with Fr. Hart’s main thesis there: Notwithstanding the fact that the historical Yeshua of Nazareth, as a first century,…
Continue readingSt. Tikhon Condemns Racism during Epidemic
by Scott Kenworthy | Română | ру́сский In the midst of pandemic and protests over racial injustice, it is important to remember that the connection between disease and racism in North America is not a new one: Europeans extended their domination over the land and the indigenous populations that lived on it in large part…
Continue reading“White Jesus” and Shaun King
Shaun King, civil rights activist and founder of Real Justice PAC, stirred up controversy this past week by tweeting that images of “white Jesus” should be torn down and trashed. “They are a form of white supremacy,” he opined. “Always have been. In the Bible, when the family of Jesus wanted to hide, and blend…
Continue reading“Full and Understanding Support”: A Response to “The Wrong Side of History”
by Nikolaos Piperis and Stavros Piperis | ελληνικά We are thankful to hear from two distinguished Greek Americans, Dr. Aristotle Papanikolaou and Dr. George Demacopoulos, who recently published an essay about the injustices African Americans face. The authors encourage us to step into their shoes, and we agree that the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese has a…
Continue readingMy Letter to a Young White Friend
by Alfred D. Turnipseed A cherished friend—a religiously unaffiliated but morally earnest young white woman who recently completed her first year at a prestigious American university, where she majors in Astrophysics—recently wrote to me to tell me that, in light of George Floyd’s murder, she is making every effort she can to educate herself about…
Continue readingThe Interfaith Community and the Crisis of Racial Injustice and Inequity
by Fr. Emmanuel Clapsis | ελληνικά On June 4, the leadership of four interfaith organizations—Religions for Peace USA, Parliament of World Religions (PoWR), United Religions Initiative (URI) and the Interfaith Center of New York (ICNY)—issued a statement: “This Perilous Moment: A Statement from Religious Leaders and Communities on the Crisis of Racial Injustice and Inequity…
Continue readingWhat Can Be Done?
A Former Prosecutor on Systemic Injustice
by Martha Coravos | ελληνικά A few years ago, I retired from the Massachusetts criminal justice system. I had worked for twenty years, first as a courtroom clerk in criminal sessions and then, for ten years, as a prosecutor. As a white female, it was my experience that our criminal justice system was stacked against…
Continue readingOrthodox Christianity, Systemic Racism, and the Wrong Side of History
by George Demacopoulos and Aristotle Papanikolaou | ελληνικά | Română | ру́сский | српски When Archbishop Iakovos stood alongside Martin Luther King Jr. in Selma in 1965, he was maligned by many Greek Americans who took offense that their Archbishop would “fraternize with Civil Rights agitators.” Fifty-five years later, opinion has shifted dramatically. Iakovos’ march alongside…
Continue readingRoma Inclusion in Romanian Orthodoxy: Too Little Too Late?
by Maria Alina Asavei April 8 is celebrated worldwide as the International Roma Day. Romani people both honour their culture across the world and commemorate the centuries of persecutions and mistreatment in light of present Romaphobia and persistent discrimination against the most vulnerable ethic group in Europe. On this occasion, the Archbishop Andrei of Cluj-Napoca…
Continue readingRami Malek and Contentions of Coptic Identity
by Candace Lukasik On Sunday February 24, Rami Malek won the Best Actor Academy Award for his role as Freddie Mercury in Bohemian Rhapsody. In his acceptance speech, Malek spoke of his Egyptian heritage and its representative power: “We made a film about a gay man, an immigrant, who lived his life just unapologetically himself….
Continue readingRacism: An Orthodox Perspective
The primary goal of the Orthodox Christian is to struggle toward theosis—deification. The word theosis often conjures up images of a super hero like Thor or a Greek god like Zeus. When St. Athanasius proclaimed that “God became human so that humans can become gods,” he was not envisioning super-human strength, nor was he envisioning…
Continue readingDeafening Silence
Three years ago, a scandal broke out. An outspoken white supremacist by the name of Matthew Heimbach was received into the Orthodox Church on Lazarus Saturday. A few days later, on Bright Monday, Heimbach and his cohorts from the Traditionalist Youth Network (a white supremacist group affiliating itself with Orthodoxy) beat up a protester at…
Continue readingOrthodoxy and Race in Light of Trump’s Inauguration
by Georgia Kasamias On March 15, 1965, something momentous occurred. Martin Luther King Jr. marched down the streets of Selma side by side with various important religious and social leaders to memorialize the deaths of two civil rights heroes. With him marched Archbishop Iakovos—the only white bishop who had responded to the call to march….
Continue readingMartin Luther King, Jr. and the Legacy of the Civil Rights Movement
by Albert J. Raboteau Martin Luther King, Jr., was born in Atlanta, Georgia in 1929, the son of Alberta Williams King and Martin Luther King, Sr., pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church. King’s childhood was happy and secure, though all too early he was made aware of the hurts inflicted by racism. Like his father, grandfather, and…
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