www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall Deacon Andrew Rubis

I have hoped to make contact with Deacon Andrew Rubis. I believe he is serving in an Albanian Orthodox parish in Philadelphia. A group of us clerics here in Indiana County, Pennsylvania, is looking for someone to give a lecture to our youth about missions.

I checked St. John Chrysostom Albanian Orthodox Church in Phila and found no Dn Andrew.

I'm certain he is not in the OCA Albanian diocese. He is in the smaller diocese which belongs to the EP.

If you google his name, it brings up his service both here and in Albania. But it doesn't give contact info.

Fathers: My apologies and confession of not checking our wonderful ByzCath site for some time. I've sent my contact info to Fr. Al via PM. -Dn. A.

Good to see and hear from you again.

Thank you, Fr. Deacon! We'd love a visit from you here in Western PA. I hope someday to go to Albania to Berat. I understand the relics of the first Gorazd of Moravia are there. Of course, I want to visit the Prague Cathedral, seat of the second St. Gorazd, martyred by the Nazis Sept 4, 1942.

Fr. Al, of course it would be an honor to speak concerning the great missionary work being done through the Orthodox Christian Mission Center (OCMC) as well as some of my own personal experiences in Albania and elsewhere. There are other groups also doing excellent Orthodox missionary work locally and around the world but I have been serving on the Board of Directors (BOD) of OCMC since 2009 and would stay focused on those specific efforts while touching upon the broader themes of missiology at the theoretical level and how they are visible in those efforts.

It is an exciting era which we Christians in the Americas from the eastern traditions are entering as we have largely transitioned from an immigrant church (not that we aren't still receiving large numbers of devout immigrants in our parishes) to a successful, established presence with the finances and personal capital to go beyond the boundaries of our parishes and dioceses.

It is such a blessing to share the fascinating accounts from our missionaries as non-Christian peoples entertain for the first time that God, in His love for humanity, may have become incarnate in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, suffered on the cross, and rose from the dead in glory. Many times, these groups in their own pagan/animist/polytheistic belief systems are extremely receptive to the logic of an incarnate god, a god who suffers during His time on earth, much as they themselves suffer through droughts, floods, economic disruption, pestilence, oppression, and disease. At the same time, many traditional cultures around the world are cautious of or are reconsidering ties with Islam as the radicalization of it in many places has brought great strife and even wholescale warfare.

If I continue writing, you won't need to invite me at all, but then you won't get to see my photos from Berat. I'll forward you my contact info and we can talk at your convenience.