greetings (inquirer)

hengesthorsa said:

I read that thread. Thanks. While I am not experienced in the intricacies of schism, autocephaly, or whatever this is, my experience of people and organizations makes me guess there is some reason for this that has nothing to do with matters of faith. If that's so, it's definitely sad. I suppose it's sad either way.

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Indeed, it is unpleasant and annoying.

dzheremi said:

It really shouldn't be a top priority. While it's very sad and perplexing that this has happened, the British Orthodox Church was never autocephalous in the first place; they were always a single diocese within the Coptic Orthodox Patriarchate since being received in 1994, and never consisted of very many people to begin with. Apparently as of now, there are something like two priests and something less than 100 people total. I'm having trouble following the timeline or the reasons for any of this, but if you really interested there is a thread on OrthodoxChristianity.net, in which the same Fr. Peter participated, which discusses this sad event: http://www.orthodoxchristianity.net/forum/index.php?topic=66571.0
Truth be told, I only brought them up at all because there are some books on the Oriental Orthodox Library catalogue page that are from the British Orthodox Church, so I figured it would be important to point out why those are there, even though as of last year there is no British Orthodox Church within the OO communion anymore (or any other communion, for that matter). Those books are obviously from the period of time (1994-2015) during which that Church still existed in its OO canonical status.

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The BOC situation should not be understood as a theologically driven schism but rather one driven by ... very dark things. I dont believe anyone in the Coptic church desired the scenario that presented itself.

Hengesthorsa,

I saw in another thread you made that you have something of a Roman Catholic background, so I thought I'd add one book to the earlier recommendations that really helped me understand OO spirituality in a practical sense, written from someone of that same background (since I myself was RC before converting to OO): Journey Back to Eden: My Life and Times Among the Desert Fathers by Fr. Mark Gruber. Fr. Mark is a Benedictine monk who went to Egypt in the 1980s to do anthropology research on modern Coptic monasticism, and the book is an edited collection of the journal he kept during his time there in the monasteries of the Egyptian desert. As such, it is very informal and easy to understand, but contains a lot of wisdom and insight into what it means to be OO, albeit from an outsider's perspective.

As of this posting, it's available used on Amazon.com for 1 cent + shipping. That's as close to being free as something can be! You can preview it on Amazon.com here: https://www.amazon.com/Journey-Back...d=1480373876&sr=1-1&keywords=for.+mark+gruber

hengesthorsa said:

Dear Friends,

I am glad to find this sub-forum here. I am interested in at least visiting an OO church and wonder if anyone here would field a couple questions for me:

-is conversion to OO known and generally accepted?
-is visiting an OO church by someone outside of the central cultural group of that church generally accepted?

Thank you!

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Shalom, hengesthorsa

If may say...

What I've witnessed firsthand is that every OO Parish is different. But the one I went to was VERY welcoming and they did an excellent job clarifying any questions people had. Also, visiting an OO Church and being outside of it is not odd at all. It is in fact a very big learning experience. A lot of my friends in OO grew up in it and it's a very radical difference many times compared to people coming into it from the outside and that makes a difference when knowing some of the cultural differences. Going to conferences with my Egyptian brothers/sister and experiencing the work they do with Ethiopians and other groups is very much a blessing and it takes time. I've been blessed to be there with them when HH Pope Tawadros II (who has worked with the RC Pope Francis) came to my parish - and it was a blessing being able to work with several scholars in the field.

If you'd like some practical encouragement, one of my dear friends spoke on the issue when it came to another who was investigating. He's very involved in the field of scholarship with Coptic Orthodoxy and works with several others there - I think you'd greatly appreciate what was noted there when it came to the experiences discussed. PM me if you want and I'll give you a number of different books priests recommended to me that really helped me out on several levels - but beyond the books, you really have to jump in/see for yourself

• Orthodox Conversion Stories—Why my friend Franny joined the Coptic Orthodox Church (Part 2 of 2)

Others have had the same experience coming in having known no one when it comes to Orthodoxy and had a good experience.

And for other good presentations that help folks to gain some basic understanding:

I don't know them (I'm on the other side of the country), but they appear to have a website: http://www.medhanialem.org/

My browser doesn't like loading its front page, for some reason, but from what does load I can see that they last updated in November of 2016, so I'd be very surprised if they had somehow become defunct in the last year months. Hopefully you can contact them through whatever e-mail address is on the website.

Oh, okay! Good! Glad it's all sorted out.

That's wonderful! I'm so glad that you were able to attend, and were received warmly. Vespers is a good first service to attend, I think, precisely because of its less elaborate structure and smaller attendance, which could make it easier to follow or at least concentrate on.