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SamB,

I really enjoyed reading your contribution on Palestine. Needless to say when I read your comment about being a confederate sympathizer I was both heartbroken and confused. I wondered to myself how someone who opposes Israeli racism could bring themselves to support American racism.
Then it dawned upon me. White supremacists hate Israel, not because it is an oppressive colonial state but because they hate Jews. That is the only explanation. Please respond to this and tell me that your confederate comment was a joke. Otherwise, the only other possible conclusion is that you oppose Israel not out of any humanitarianism or support for the self-determination of the Palestinians. You do not oppose Israel out of any Christian virtues of love and compassion for the people they oppress. It leaves the only option that you oppose Israel because you are a raging anti-Semite. If that is so, then it is unfortunate that we have to deal with the likes of you in our ranks. Please clarify your comment and prove me wrong brother Sam B. May God be with you.
Samer has clarified his view and this was a misunderstanding, I thereby add this addition to my old post.

Aklie Semaet

[ 04-29-2002: Message edited by: Aklie Semaet ]

Dear Alkie,

I'll let Samer answer your doubts, but until he gets here, I think you should know that, in my opinion, he is no white supremacist...I can't imagine why he would be. In fact, he's very much an Arab's Arab.

On a lighter note, I'm very glad that the past month or so has seen a Copt join us (he's rather quiet, I wish he'd come out of the woodwork), and now you as an Ethiopian Orthodox. I look forward to learning from you. Now if we could just get an Armenian, we'd be set. In case you haven't figured it out yet, I'm an Indian Syrian. I count twice. :p

Welcome!

Dear Catholicos,

Didn't I count as a representative for the Ethiopian Orthodox?

Alex

If you are trying to convince Muslims that Latin America--especially countries such as Columbia, Mexico, Panama, Argentina, and many others--has such a long, long history of being notoriously corrupt, oppressive, violent, and is the center of the hemispheric drug trade, because Latin America is overwhelmingly Roman Catholic, you are doing a good job.

Analogies can come back to haunt you.

Salaam,

Abdur

[ 04-25-2002: Message edited by: Abdur Islamovic ]

Dear Aklie,

Welcome to this forum, Friend! Salaam!

I am Ukrainian Catholic and have an enduring enthusiasm for the history and traditions of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church!

I hope to learn from you as much as I can.

May I begin by asking a question, even though it is off topic?

What are the 15 Canticles that the Ethiopian Church reads every week along with the Psalter?

Is there an English translation of the Ethiopian Book of Hours or Horologion?

Thank you,

Alex

Aklie Semaet,

Welcome. You will find Orthodox Catholic (Alex) very knowledgable about your Church.

But to the point.

I think it is evident that the state of Israel are human rights violators. I think it is evident that the state of Israel seeks not only to break the spirit of those terrorist outfits within the ranks of the Palestinian peoples, but also that of the Palestinian peoples themselves.

However I truely think it is God given justice for the Jewish people to be reconciled to their native land. We black Americans may not be natives of American soil per se, much of our ancestors may often have come here under conditions other then their free will. But we black Americans still have a homeland in Africa - that is, Africa is still inhabited by black Africans.

It is unjust, that the Jews of the world should be regulated as wondering nomadics (that may be a bit of an exaggeration but you get my point) of the world. Unfortunately like the Roma are - I guess don't to many people of the world like them.

Yes, Israel supported aparthied South Africa. This is unjust, but it goes to show how unjust every government of this world can be and more often then not tends to be. It comes down to nationalisim and this is why the Catholic Church has always sought one world State and one world Church. Nationalisim is nothing but exaggerated tribalisim.

It's good to have another known black person on the forum - adds a little color and flavor to the milk.

But I take a little issue with the light in which you place Catholicism. Outright wrongs committed at times - yes. But evil is a strong word I'm not sure deserving of the Catholic Church. The Church had it's role in the slave trade - yes - in that while it never was directly involved in the trade and shipment per se it was indirectly involved. But then how could it be when that was the state of the world at that time including yours truely St Paul. The Catholic Church was also responsible for (at least partialy) the formation of such men as Jaun Garrido, a man that came over with Hernandez Cortez, and was the first European to plant -- memory fails me, he was the first to plant something though -- Garrido was a free black man, not mulatto. And the Church never sanctioned a genoicide of Native American Indians, it was more missioned to convert them. It was also the Church who produced former soldiers as De Las Casas into great Indian defenders, which resulted in legislation protecting the Indians from genocide.

You might also do well to remember that it was your Ethiopian Church that gave a wink and support to slavery inside Ethiopia up until the 1920's. Dare I say Italy, France, Spain, and even the US were free from slave trade and slave keeping in the 1900's. And Ethiopia is not without it's ethinc feuding and fighting. And as for Musallini, I believe he was ready to kick the Catholic Church in the gut, the Pope I'm sure protected his flock as best he could which meant concordics with Musallini's state, and perhaps even a blessing to do well in battle even in Ethipoia.

There is a dangerous rise in hatred of the Jews these days. And many black Americans share in Jew hatred with white pride men and women. This is probably due to the influince of the Nation of Islam in the black American community. We all tread dangerous ground.

Juan Garrido: First European to plant wheat in Mexico, on a farm he owned.

Dear friends,

We are very blessed in this thread to have contributors from numerous diverse religious traditions. I hope that we can continue to maintain a civil tone, and will avoid placing inflammatory labels on one another's religions. Thus far I have seen two religions called "evil," which is a very loaded term to say the least. Let's try and show the appropriate respect towards one another.

This is just a word of caution, not an intervention.

Thanks,
Anthony

Dear Alkie Semaet:

On Islam as "Evil"--

Your conclusion that "aRomanCatholicGuy" is Roman Catholic is incorrect as he, himself, has admitted that he is now a Byzantine (or Eastern) Catholic.

I have had this lingering doubt when reading his posts in this Forum that "aRomanCatholicGuy" was, in fact, not a "Roman Catholic" guy at all.

Pope John Paul II's "kissing" of the Koran (that's how we Filipinos spell it, so everybody keep quiet!) perhaps best exemplify how we, Roman Catholics, regard Islam.

RCguy's views don't necessarily reflect those of "regular" Roman Catholics like me.


On the Current Plight of Palestinian "Christians"

Your concern for the well-being of the Palestinian Christians, caught in the cross-fire of the Mideast crisis is commendable. However, do you also conveniently omit the Roman Catholics in the equation like brother Thomas did? Are the Orthodox only the Christians suffering in Palestine?

I have been closely following the Church of the Nativity stand-off and how the Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox, and Armenian Orthodox religious men and women are coping with their ordeal.

News beamed worldwide has been featuring the leading role the Roman Catholic Church is acting/doing in the mediation efforts for the benefit of all parties concerned, from the Pope down the Vatican diplomatic corps assigned in the area and to the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem. How could you miss this?

Notwithstanding the above, I, too, welcome you to this enlightening Forum.

AmdG

Dear Professor Roman:

Let me assure you that do count a lot!

You have spoon-fed us with all things Ethiopian in a previous thread and I, personally, feasted on your colorful and instructive recounting of King David's forebears.

With Aklie now aboard, however, you might have met your match on the comings and goings of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church!

AmdG

Dear Amado,

Pope John Paul II's "kissing" of the Koran (that's how we Filipinos spell it, so everybody keep quiet!) perhaps best exemplify how we, Roman Catholics, regard Islam.

This statement troubles me, because the act of kissing the Quran was, to me anyway, not a little confusing. In our liturgical traditions, we often venerate the Gospel, icons, the altar, the cross, etc. with a kiss. And we know what such gestures mean and imply.

But to use these same gestures toward the Quran and implicitly do honour to another religion? I don't recall any statement of clarification coming out of Rome regarding this incident (let me know if there is such), and that just adds to the confusion. We don't know why he did what he did, but the message it sent to us who are used to such gestures and their meanings in our liturgies was not something we (or at least I) expected from the Pope of Rome.

Admittedly those who dislike the Roman Catholic Church might use John Paul II's gesture to criticise the RCC, and there are others who go the other way to prove how it was a legitimate thing to do. But there are many of us out there who don't understand why such was done, and think it at least imprudent for His Holiness to have done. I love the Pope more than a lot of Roman Catholics I know, but this incident just confused me.

And I don't see how His Holiness' deed shows how Roman Catholics view Islam. Last I read, the Catechism of the Catholic Church didn't put the Quran and the Bible on a par, as his kissing of the Quran seemed to have done in the eyes of many. Help me to understand.

However, do you also conveniently omit the Roman Catholics in the equation like brother Thomas did? Are the Orthodox only the Christians suffering in Palestine?

I don't think that we can really say that Thomas and Alkie intentionally ignored the Catholics. But it is troubling for me to read the accounts of what is going on over there written or otherwise communicated by Orthodox people, which somehow seem to skip over the plight of the Catholics living in the area. Just as I would like to see greater representation of the Orthodox position on this crisis on such media outlets as CNN (which has had an Anglican canon on to talk about the situation, and has referred to statements by the Franciscans and the Pope, but no Orthodox statements or guests that I've seen), I would like to be sure that when Orthodox Christians in the Holy Land let us in on what's going on there, that they don't intentionally forget the Catholics and other Christians in the Holy Land who are suffering, that they aren't intentionally leaving them out of the picture for one reason or another.

Brother Maximus,

You raise many interesting points and I will respond to them in the best way I can.

Please understand that it is not my intention to label another Church or religion as evil. I was only cautioning "aRomanCatholicGuy" against judging others with standards that one has not kept them self. If his name was “aOrthodoxguy” and he made the same remark then I would have highlighted history that is relevant to him. The biggest arguments that I have with people over treatment of Muslims are with other Orthodox especially Ethiopian and Serbian. Like I said we should keep our differences on the level of theology and quit searching for a Church that has a spotless history, such does not exist except in the minds of day dreamers. I also know that for every Catholic slave owner there were probably ten that were opposed to slavery.

But in Ethiopia the biggest critics of the Catholic Hierarchy are not Orthodox Christians but Ethiopian Catholics. The Vatican has employed a policy since 1846 to the present in Ethiopia that has divided Ethiopian Catholics along ethnic lines and fostered national division. Father Tekle Haymanot (author of the important Miscellaneous Ethiopica), a Catholic, is the most fierce critic.

As far as the case of slavery you say “it was your Ethiopian Church that gave a wink and support to slavery inside Ethiopia.” That is where I am afraid that you are mistaken. The ecclesiastical and civil code of our Church the Fetha Negast lays down some rules in regard to slavery. For one no Christian was allowed to take part in the slave trade. Slaves could only be taken as war captives, personally and to your own house. They may be passed on to your relatives or friends but God have mercy on you if you sold him to a Muslim or another non-Christian. Slaves had to be freed if they wanted to be a monk or a priest that they may be able to serve God undisturbed. They had to be freed if the master had no male heir in order for the slave to be able to inherit the property. Church law highly recommended masters to free their slaves for the love of God. This was declared by the Fetha Negast as the most perfect form of alms-giving. Let us also remember that this is “African Slavery” which at its very worse consisted of domestic servitude and an extra hand in agriculture (plus dangerous work in mines). It was not the chattel slavery that took place in America.

You can be sure many Orthodox Priests and Bishops did turn their eye on slavery as they did many things, such as the king's practice of polygamy for the purpose of diplomacy and political marriage. The difference Brother Maximus is that the Ethiopian Church never constructed strange theories and theologies to justify these practices. At all times the Fetha Negast acknowledged the humanity of all people and that every human in Gods creation had a soul. This sets them miles apart from the practices of the Protestants who were busy asserting the fraudulent “Curse of Ham.” Nor did they do what one Vatican Pope did in declaring that Black people and Native Americans had no soul and were thus fit for slavery and genocide. The Ethiopian Church declared these things to be wrong and people did them nevertheless.

I do not like to think of colonialism in any form as being “God given justice.” As far as us, as Black Americans, having a home in Africa or Jews returning to their spiritual homeland, I think it is a question of context. Repatriation, resettlement and return. These types of things are o.k. if done with caution, love, collaboration with indigenous people and respect. People who are migrating should gradually integrate and come to terms with their hosts. But to place 35,000,000 African Americans in the middle of Africa with the justification that that is their home would be an appalling prospect. Though I plan to move to Africa eventually, in no manner do I support Black Zionism anymore than I do White Jewish Zionism. The case of Liberia serves as a chilling reminder of what happens when people adopt the Exodus mentality. The Black Americans who created that state were absolutely wrong. For one they abandoned those Black Americans still in slavery instead of using their freedom to fight slavery where it existed (just as Jews leave the struggle against anti-Semitism where it exists and make it the problem of Arabs). Do me a favor. Go get a good book on the settlement of South Africa and another on the settlement of Liberia. Cover the areas where it says "Black American' and "Boer' or "Afrikaans' and just read the content of how both groups treated the natives they encountered. Tell me can you tell the difference, which one was Black and which one was white.

Just as the late Khalid Muhammad made the most disgusting remarks about Jews, many Jews have been the most racist of people. Yes, anti-Semitism in the Black community should be combated, just as racism in the Jewish community should be. We need not portray the Jews (who can and do change their name from Nathaniel Weinstein to Nat West and integrate themselves into White Anglo Protestant culture) as the innocent sufferers besieged by groups of hateful Blacks. American Jews and Jewish groups have done their fare share of dirty work. In the aftermath of September 11th members of the Jewish Defense League were arrested in a plot to blow up a Mosque in Los Angeles. The ADL spying case, when the so-called liberal civil rights organization spied on American anti-Israeli activist and American anti-apartheid activist is a case in point. The ADL then in turn passed names and information to both Israel and South Africa. Please take two minutes of your time and click on this article:
http://www.counterpunch.org/adlspying2.html please read and let me know what you think.

I think this is enough for now, Egzabiher keante gar yehun (May God be with you).

Aklie Semaet

Selam Alex,

I hope to learn from you as well.

Being a layman my typical church attendance is Qedasey (mass; liturgy) and timhert (learning; preacher, etc.). I must admit that the only time I am exposed to the Gibra leliet (night service, but don't let the translation mislead you it is more than that) is during penance or the fasting seasons. It is an extremely complex service with monks, priests and deacons doing one things and debteras (church scholars) doing another thing elsewhere. Once I had a pretty good and clear exposure when I stayed at the Debre Libanos Monastery for a while and attended sa'at (hours) everyday but not enough to be able to answer your question as to what canticles are read after Psalms. I will forward that question to my father confessor and answer you at a later date.

I am afraid there is no English translation of Metsahaf Sa'atat (Book of Hours) that I am aware of. The Metshaf Sa'atat was composed by Father Giyorgis from Gassicha/Segla in the 1400's. You may find something in J.M. Harden's 1926 An Introduction to Ethiopic Christian Literature, but don't put too much hope in it. Even the English translations of our Liturgy are few and far in between. Even the Bible, with a revised translation into simpler Amharic from Ge'ez that is supposed to be better than the current translation, was supposed to become available last year. It was postponed due to "lack of funds' and we are still stuck with the present difficult translation. If even the national language of Ethiopia has to wait for translations you can imagine the case for English.

Also, I do not completely understand how to use this page. I click on your profiles but all I am told is the dates that you joined. I also keep reading references to other “strings” of discussion but I am not sure how to get there or see past discussions. Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.

Selam hun,
Aklie Semaet

Dear Mor Ephrem,

Thank you for your warming invitation. What does the Mor in your name stand for? I am a big fan of the late and great Father V.C. Samuel from India. He was a true servant of Christ. Not only do I believe that he was a genius, he spoke no less than 10 languages, but he was a prolific writer. He was the Dean of our Trinity Theological College in Ethiopia for a few years besides other great accomplishments. I was wondering do you know if, besides his book (The Council of Chalcedon Re-Examined), his many articles have been printed in book form or available?

I also agree with you about the Pope kissing the Quran. While we should respect other religions and stand for tolerance it is an entirely different thing to venerate the Muslim holy book like we venerate the Gospel. It is a quite confusing message to Christians.

God be with you

Aklie Semaet

Dear Abdur,

You fell into right into aRomanCatholicGuy's trap in your last post. I do not think that there is any evidence that the “corrupt, oppressive, [and] violent” governments or the drug trade in Latin America has anything to do with the Catholic Church or the Catholic culture of the Latinos. It is Latin American Studies 101 wisdom that the conditions in Latin America are the result of American imperialist policy in the region. The Catholics have been just as much victims of this as anyone else there. They have had Nuns and an Archbishop assassinated by death squads that were later proven to have connections with the CIA.

Amado,

It is not my intention to ignore Catholics in the crisis in Palestine. If that is the impression I gave I apologize. The Palestinians are suffering be they Muslim, Catholic or Orthodox. None of them can live in any of the “Jewish settlements” in the "occupied territories" which are so racist and exclusionary they make Dixie segregationist look like the NAACP. I think that the only Christians in Israel who have a free ride are American Fundamentalist Protestants (so-called Christian Zionist) who are busy backing the Israeli regime.

God be with you all.

Aklie Semaet

[ 04-25-2002: Message edited by: Aklie Semaet ]