Faith of the African slaves

[Kyra]

Hello fellow forum members.

I recently read an article about Fr Moses Berry, who from what I understand is a fairly well known individual in Orthodox circles within America, as a result of his work in the area of African - American history. I was wondering if there are any individuals out there, who can direct me toward any literature, research papers, documentaries etc, specifically on the subject of slaves from Orthodox regions such as Ethiopia etc . .

My greatest fascination is to find any observations/documents pertaining to the worship, spiritual and cultural traditions of these people within the first couple of generations of their presence in America. This ofcourse would be a historians dream come true :)
I would greatly appreciate any information on this subject.

Many thanks to all.

Kyra (new member from Melbourne, Australia)

[Scott Pierson]

An Unbroken Circle: Linking Ancient African Christianity to the African-American Experience by Paisius Altschu is a good book you might find interesting. Some of the stories of the African American Passionbearers where very inspiring. He also wrote another book but I havent read it yet so I cant say how good it is: "Wade in the River: The Story of the African Christian Faith"

http://www.stmaryofegypt.net/
Here is website dealing with Orthodoxy and the African American people and such ( You can buy those two books here as well)... good web page.

The Brotherhood of Saint Moses the Black recentally had a meeting here in the Detroit area some folks from my Parish went but I didnt get to. I heard it was good.

oh yeah this book is awsome too :" Apostle To Zaire: The Life and Legacy of Blessed Fr. Cosmas of Grigoriou
by Demetrios Aslanidis and Monk Damascene Grigoriatis " Its not about African slaves but it is an awsome book about Orthodoxy in modern day Africa.

[Fr Raphael Vereshack]

Hello fellow forum members.

I recently read an article about Fr Moses Berry, who from what I understand is a fairly well known individual in Orthodox circles within America, as a result of his work in the area of African - American history. I was wondering if there are any individuals out there, who can direct me toward any literature, research papers, documentaries etc, specifically on the subject of slaves from Orthodox regions such as Ethiopia etc . .

My greatest fascination is to find any observations/documents pertaining to the worship, spiritual and cultural traditions of these people within the first couple of generations of their presence in America. This ofcourse would be a historians dream come true :)
I would greatly appreciate any information on this subject.

Many thanks to all.

Kyra (new member from Melbourne, Australia)

I think most of the slaves brought to the western hemisphere were from the non-Christian west coast of Africa and not from the eastern parts. This was simply due to shipping routes to North & South America during the times when slaves were brought from Africa. Perhaps however in much earlier times there was some exposure of African cultures to Orthodoxy through the trading routes from Roman/Byzantine world. These travel routes however ran down the east coast of Africa not the west & despite some searching no trace of ancient Christianity has been found south of about Yemen.

Interestingly however recent genetic research to test the claims of a black tribe in South Africa or Zimbabwe (can't remember exactly which) to be Jewish came up positive(!). As can be imagined there's a real mystery here except that this suggests a link again to the ancient trading route from the Roman/Byzantine world. A last interesting point here is that to my knowledge there is no hint of black slaves in Byzantium even though the opportunity may have been present.

It could be however that Islamic slave traders did use Ethiopian Christians as slaves. Certainly we know of many other Christians who were Greek, Balkan or Slavic as well as those from western Europe who were captured and sold into slavery by Islamic traders.

This last subject is even more unknown to us than that of our own slave trading past. From what I have heard Islamists were still capturing Sudanese Christians during the recent conflict there for use as slaves.

In Christ- Fr Raphael