Month: July 2008

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Egypt’s Copts the ‘New Martyrs’?


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Perilous times for Egypt’s Christian community. In “Egypt’s Coptic Christians Are Choosing Isolation,” the Washington Post reports that “the most populous Christian community in the Middle East is seeking safety by turning inward, cutting day-to-day social ties that have bound Muslim to Christian in Egypt for centuries.”

The story notes a dramatic decline in of the Coptic Christian population in Egypt. Violent confrontations between Muslims and Christians are on the upswing. In May, Arab Bedouins attacked monks reclaiming the 1,700-year-old monastery of Abu Fana.

Monks say the attackers fired on them with AK-47 assault rifles and captured some among them to torture. Attackers broke the legs of one monk by pounding them between two rocks. One Muslim man was killed.

A few days earlier, gunmen in Cairo killed four Copts at a jewelry store but left without taking anything. Strife over liaisons between Christian and Muslim men and women led to recent clashes between the communities in Egypt’s countryside.

Egypt’s government invariably denies that sectarian tension lies behind the violence. It blamed the violence at the Abu Fana monastery on a land dispute.

A monk, Brother Shenouda, says: “I believe we will be the new martyrs.”

The Free Copts site has extensive coverage of the violence directed at Christians.

The blog of the Middle East Media Research Institute published a report from Egyptian writer Ahmad Al-Aswani on the escalating series of physical attacks on members of the Coptic minority in Egypt:

What is happening is an attempt to terrorize Egypt’s Copts, and to force them either to emigrate from the homeland once and for all, or to convert to Islam to protect themselves and their families [from harm] and to protect their property from the confiscation mentioned by many Islamic publications.

It causes me regret, and as an Egyptian it makes my heart bleed, to see this farce endlessly repeated, and to see the same prominent individuals say the same words – and [then to see] the matter forgotten a short time later.

Frankly, I blame the Coptic leadership in Egypt, headed by His Eminence Pope [Shenouda III] himself, because it has reached the point where lives and property are taken with impunity, and clearly with the authorities’ collusion – with no fear of effective response, and with the confidence of all that, as always, the matter will end with beard-kissing and forgetting.

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Freedom-Loving Orthodoxy


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In the May 2008 issue of The Word,* published by the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America, Gregory Cook looks at the ways Orthodox Christianity may “transfigure” America. “Orthodoxy has always been open to building on what is true and extant in any nation or culture,” Cook writes. “America should be no different.”

*Also republished here (non .pdf).

He quotes Metropolitan Antony Bashir:

Orthodoxy is a freedom-loving, democratic faith … it is at its best in our free America. If the best of Byzantium has survived, it is in the United States, and if there is an Orthodox political ideal, it is enshrined in the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.

Cook’s article, “Words We Live By: Orthodox and American Ideals in Foundational Texts” is an excellent reflection on what it means to be Orthodox in America and what America has given the Orthodox.

While we’re at it on this Fourth of July, read the Declaration of Independence. Can anyone not be moved by these words?

WHEN in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume, among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that ALL MEN ARE CREATED EQUAL; that they are endowed by their Creator, with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate, that governments, long established, should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to threw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government. The history of the present King of Great Britain, is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object, the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these States. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.

And, finally, here is a collection of quotations on freedom by Russian philosopher Nicholas Berdyaev. One of my favorites:

Man’s freedom is indissolubly linked with his obligations. Man’s freedom is not a claim, but a duty, not so much what he demands as what is demanded of him. Man must be free. God demands and expects this of him.

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A Conversation With Bishop Hilarion Alfeyev


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St. Vladimir’s Seminary recently held a symposium on the state of ecumenical relations between the different Christian communions throughout the world. In attendance was Bp. Hilarion (Alfeyev) of Vienna, a man highly respected at AOI because of his bold and clear testimony to Christ in Europe (see some of his writings on OrthodoxyToday.org). Fr. Chad Hatfield, Chancellor of St. Vladimir’s Seminary, sat down with Bp. Hilarion for a frank discussion on ecumenical relations between Orthodoxy and other Christian communions, as well as tensions between Moscow and Constantinople about the direction some of these discussions are taking.


A Conversation With Bishop Hilarion Alfeyev

Fr. Patrick Henry Reardon, sharpened his focus on bringing the Gospel of Jesus Christ to America during the conference as well. Listen to him explain how the Orthodox lack in their knowledge of scripture and why a recovery of scripture is sorely needed.

Holy Scripture and the Evangelization of America

Ancient Faith Radio recorded all the lectures.

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Bp. Hilarion: Russian Orthodox Must Stay in WCC


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Moscow, June 30, Interfax – Withdrawal of the Russian Orthodox Church from the World Council of Churches should weaken positions of Moscow Patriarchate in the inter-Orthodox dialogue, the representative of Russian Church in European international organizations believes.

“This withdrawal may only weaken our positions today in defending the Church teaching which we consider traditional, which for many centuries was the basis of relations among the Orthodox Churches, and which is now challenged by the Patriarchate of Constantinople,” Bishop Hilarion said Monday to Interfax-Religion.

He also mentioned that the last Bishops’ Council discussed “the claims of the Patriarchate of Constantinople to the jurisdiction of the whole diaspora” and the Patriarch of Constantinople’s seeking to receive the position “which is somewhat equal to that of Pope in the Catholic Church.”

“Today, the Russian Orthodox Church is the major opponent of Constantinople, therefore, the Patriarchate of Constantinople is interested in weakening its influence and participation in any organizations with representatives of other Orthodox Churches, including the World Council of Churches,” Bishop Hilarion said.

“I believe that in this specific situation we should think twice before taking any steps to withdraw from the World Council of Churches and any other organizations representing all Orthodox Churches or their majority,” Bishop Hilarion said, reminding us that the World Council of Churches “is currently one of the few platforms where the representatives of different Orthodox Churches meet.”

According to Bishop Hilarion, “the difference between traditional Christianity and its liberal version becomes increasingly sizeable. Again and again, we address the question of whether or not do we need such dialogue where we express our stand on women’s priesthood or one-sex marriages, and at the same time, Protestant communities in the West and the North encourage such processes which make us sever our relations with them,” Bishop Hilarion said.

According to him, the Russian Orthodox Church “is going to break off relations with those Protestant communities which will decide in favour, for example, of same-sex marriages.”

Bishop Hilarion also mentioned that the last Bishops’ Council had no serious discussion about the participation of the Russian Orthodox Church in WCC, although several participants raised the question of its further presence in the ecumenical movement.

“I, therefore, think that this issue remains open and will depend only on the development of this organization and those Protestant communities which now have the majority in it,” Bishop Hilarion said.

Source: Europaica

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Rebuilding at Ground Zero


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The New York Times has a detailed story about the long-delayed rebuilding of St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church, crushed when the South Tower of the World Trade Center collapsed after the terrorist attack of Sept. 11, 2001. The Times reports that the rebuilding effort is “a microcosm of the seven-year, $16 billion, problem-plagued effort to reconstruct the entire trade center site.”

Summary paragraph:

The church wants the authority to provide roughly $55 million toward the estimated $75 million cost of rebuilding St. Nicholas. The Port Authority in turn wants the church to scale back its plans, move the location slightly and raise more money privately.


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