To clarify, I questioned and spoke out against the concept and implementation of a church based on race alone. I never once personally attacked Fr. Moses or accused him of being angry or said derogatory comments about the church personnel, I simply stated that a religious organization based solely on race alone is morally and spiritually wrong which it is. But I am curious about your last statements. I was raised as a Conservative Jew and was repeatedly told in synagogue that Jews are not a race as Jews come in many ethnicities, races and nationalities. There are Asian, Indian, Latin, Black, European, Middle-Eastern, etc. Jews all over the world. As to your reference to “ethno-triumphalists”, let’s be honest, there is plenty of that going on in the Jewish community as you and I both know. In fact, that is one thing that led me away from Judaism, the constant confusion between race, ethnicity, heritage, and religion (which were never clearly defined) yet the perceived ethnic and social superiority over the rest of the world. There has been and still is a great deal of suffering going on all over the world and it’s not confined to any one particular group, religious or otherwise. And really nowhere was it worse than in Stalin’s Russia where Christians experienced their own holocaust in untold millions. Those stories are as heart-breaking as any others in existence. Regardless I feel that I received more than adequate responses from Fr. Johannes Jacobse, appreciate the information given and am pretty much done with this topic.

Len, the rejection of American and even Ethiopian blacks by members of my own commuity is real, present and not ancient history. It is fading, but it is still there. There is a lot of residual prejudice againsts black people in the Arab community as a counter balance to the viscious manner in which they were treated for many years after coming here.

Len, I know these people well. I’ve known Fr. Moses for over 30 years. I’ve seen him upbraided by young blacks on the streets of Detroit for following ‘the white man’s religion’. He approached the young men and had a quite irenic talk with them and we went on our way. Mother Katherine is a deeply commited monastic of marvellous intelligence. Neither has a prejudiced bone in their bodies. Fr. Moses credits his conversion to the Church to an encounter with St. Moses. His Matushka is a former Jew. He lives in the community, Ash Grove, MO where he grew up and did not treat him well. He owns the ancestral fram granted to his great grandmother by Nathan Boone whose slave and mother of his children she had been. His family back in the Reconstuction period established a private cemetary for freed slaves and ‘other undesirables’ (mosly Native Americans) which he has restored and consecrated as an Orthodox Cemetary. He is an Orthodox priest whose congregation (mostly white) pretty much built its own house of worship. His work is one of unity, humility and peace. His family has a long history of that BTW. The concentration on African roots and St. Moses the Black is precisely designed to counter the myth presented by Islam and the racial separation that the Nation of Islam and other such groups preach.

When I was there Fr. Moses was a member of the board of the Nathan Boone Homestead because he is a direct descendant of Mr. Boone. Walking with him in that community and on his own land, I could feel the healing presence of God working. There is no anger. Your attack against him is wrong.

Your suggestion that I would immediately jump on a White European Chrisitan Brotherhood is not a good analogy. Although in my darker moments when my race and heritage is constantly belittled by the Greek, Russian and Arab ethno-triumphalists I can’t say it would be all that bad and idea. Veneration of the saints of this land I find to be a better recourse (Russian and Arab in nationality).

I don’t think a permanent division is going to happen, simply because the people I have contact with in the Brotherhood of St. Moses the Black have never displayed any kind of reverse racism towards me at all. None. It’s not even a question, even a thought actually. I look at them as people qualified to do a particular kind of ministry.

In real life (as opposed to the pundit’s or activist’s life of emphasizing division so he has something to talk about or to do), racism rarely comes into play anymore, in my experience anyway. When I was in my early twenties living in New Orleans and delivering Coca-Cola in the projects it was huge. I always had to detour back to the plant and pick up a black co-worker so my truck wouldn’t get robbed. I don’t think the divisions and hostilities exist to that level anymore, at least in the larger culture.

When I was doing prison work in Duluth, MN my once a month bible study for two Orthodox inmates grew to a weekly study that consistently drew 35 to 50 men. Most of them never stepped into a church in their life but they kept coming to the study (which was more of a discussion, I’d give them reading assignments and their favorite book was Frankl’s “Man Search for Meaning” — they could relate to the dehumanization of being locked up; now I would give them Fr. Arseny). A couple of the young black men really warmed up to me. One of them asked me to be a surrogate dad to him. There was really not much I could do but I did the best I could. But it is also the reason why I respect the work of the man in the video above so much, and why I am very reluctant to criticize the work of the Brotherhood on theoretical grounds alone.

BTW, there is a lot in common between Conservative Judaism and Orthodoxy. When I was in seminary I participated in the inter-seminary dialogues hosted by Jewish Theological Seminary in Manhattan. It became clear early on that the Conservative Jews and Orthodox saw eye to eye on a lot, except of course who the Messiah was. This was particularly true concerning our cultural outlook — family, morality, and so forth. We ended up leaving the Protestants and Catholics in the dust; the Protestants because they were so bound by relativism that they had no confidence in their premises and thus could not build a coherent argument (they sure were quick to moralize to us Orthodox though, especially when we displayed confidence in our ideas), and the Catholics because they had taken defensive refuge in Mariological piety (the sex-abuse scandals were moving into overdrive in those years) that we Orthodox could dimly understand but the Protestants and Jews could not even begin to comprehend. Culture has changed so maybe they have, but since then I got to know a conservative rabbi and we’ve established a friendship that replicates the same experience I had at JTS.

The history of Blacks in America is a sorrowful one that will be healed only by leaders arising among Blacks themselves. Even then, look at the hostility they still face from whites, especially liberal whites, who bring forward the worst sorts of stereotypes that informed and directed that history for several generations. Harper Lee first outlined it in “To Kill a Mockingbird” but we still see today against prominent Blacks like Clarence Thomas and more recently Herman Cain.

Let these leaders do their work. They are calling Blacks back to their Christian roots, and those roots reach deeper than the American conceptions of slavery (with Christians divided on both sides of the issue) that unfortunately inform and thus propagate the racial divides that still exist in the cultural memory. When that call is heard and acted upon will the unity you correctly express is necessary will be fulfilled.

I agree with your implicit premise that the divide has to go. I do not agree that attacking the Brotherhood of St. Moses the Black is the way to achieve it. Who will young men listen to? Someone who understands and challenges them.

What do you call it when a group calls itself a White European Christian Brotherhood Church, Mr. Bauman??? I venture to say that you would call that group racist and take immediate action against it wouldn’t you??? And just what deprivation are you even speaking of as far as black attendance at churches? Ancient history? Really, all peoples have been deprived at some time or another if history serves me correctly so let’s put that weak argument aside. Regarding in this day, which is the issue here, blacks are accepted at any Orthodox church in this country. That statement of yours is ludicrous, ignorant and an insult to the many wonderful Orthodox Christians and America as a nation. However millions of Orthodox Russians were starved/tortured/murdered deprived of their Christianity, in fact, none have been deprived more of their faith or suffered as much as the Russian Christians. Are you also defending to the death all the Russian Christians in the world and their right to have their own church, Mr. Bauman????? And what you are incorrectly referring to as “racism” in the Orthodox Church is nothing more than a little suspicion that some ethnic groups might display when someone new initially attends which is easily understandable given all the persecutions and oppression that Orthodox Christians have experienced in the past as well as presently. Those wounds are still fresh and very deep. As a Jew, I’ve seen plenty of prejudice in synagogues, in fact out and out racism to the point of physically booting out or removing individuals whom were deemed “unworthy” so I know of what I speak. And yes I did attend a meeting at this organization, did you???? And yes, I read the material obviously or I would not have bothered posting here. This group is not just saying it’s a black orthodox Christian group which is not only racist, but goes against Jesus’ own words, and is completely contrary to what other racial groups are allowed in this country, it’s claiming by its very name a “black moses” which is also false, racist and irrelevant regardless. It appears to me that you are here simply to voice your own personal grievances against Orthodox Christians worldwide and besmirch American history rather than defend a self-segregated by choice racial group which is attempting to further divide the Brotherhood of Orthodox Christians. Unity is what heals, not division, as you should well know.

Len,

The Brotherhood of St. Moses the Black is not about segmenting the races within the Church. It is about revealing and explaining to Americans that Christian history, particularly the Orthodox Christian history of blacks in Africa. The extended purpose is to both act as an evangelical platform to American blacks who have been perniciously robbed of their extensive Chrisitan roots and to help heal the racial divide that is an unfortunate but real part of the history of America. A history that includes the rejection of American blacks by Orthodox people and communities. A rejection I have seen with my own eyes in the midst of an otherwise wonderful community.

It does not appear to me that you have read any of the publications inspired by the organization, talked with any of the many people involved or you could not possibly believe what you wrote.

Thanks for pointing this out. Fixed.