✞ If there were another city or country that should be included with Antioch, Alexandria, Jerusalem, Rome, and Byzantium, Ethiopia, should be right along side them. Today Eusebius of Nicomedia kicks off book 2 of his Church history with some important facts that when taken with Numbers chapter 12, Acts chapter 8, and the history of Ethiopia, reveal it was a much more important Country in the Christian faith.
St. Serapion of Vladimir (†1275) was archimandrite of the Kiev Caves Monastery from 1247 to 1274. He was then consecrated bishop of the Diocese of Vladimir, Suzdal, and Nizhny Novgorod, which he ruled until his repose the following year. At the time, the territory of the diocese consisted of the Grand Duchy of Vladimir and the principalities of Gorodets, Kostroma, Moscow, Pereslavl, Starodub, Suzdal, Nizhny Novgorod, and Yuriev. Five sermons from St. Serapion have been preserved, most believed to date from his time as a hierarch.
Brethren, fear the terrible and dread judgment of God, for that fearful day will come suddenly. If we don’t prepare ourselves with virtues, then naked and destitute we shall be condemned to unquenchable fire.
O brethren, live in the fear of God, for the time of this life is short and vanishes like smoke; and many calamities befall us for our sins, and no small sorrow: invasions of the heathen, agitation between people, the disorder of churches, unrest between princes, the lawlessness of priests who please only the flesh, taking no care for the soul. And abbots too. And the monks start to care about feasts, they become irascible and prone to rivalry, and they lead a life unbecoming of the Holy Fathers. The hierarchs cower before the powerful, they judge based on personal gain, they offend orphans and don’t intercede for widows and the poor. In the laity, there is unbelief and fornication; and abandoning the truth, they begin to create untruth.
But in such days, if anyone so desires, he will be saved and will be called great in the Kingdom of Heaven. For so it was in the days of Noah: They ate, they drank, they married, they fornicated, and the flood came and destroyed everyone for their iniquity. How awful to see such a fearful phenomenon! When Noah was building the ark as the Lord commanded him, then the elephants from India and lions from Persia traveled together with sheep and goats without harming each other; the reptiles and birds headed to where Noah was building the ark. And Noah wept and told the people: “Repent! The flood is coming for you.” And even seeing all this, they didn’t heed his words and didn’t listen to his teachings until the flood waters covered them and they suffered a wretched death. O brethren, let us be afraid, for behold, all that is written is coming to an end and the signs foretold are coming true. And there is already little left of our life and age.
Thus, whoever wants to be saved, let him labor now in humility, abstinence, and alms. For if anyone falls into the hands of robbers, beloved, then see how tenderly he entreats that his life be spared and that they take his property instead. How, brethren, is it not bad that for the sake of a bad life we are divested of everything, but we take no care for our spiritual benefit? Why do we regret giving to the poor? Why don’t we abandon evil deeds and why don’t we incline our hearts towards repentance?
2000 Year Old Ethiopian Christianity With The Dark-Skinned Jesus
Ethiopia’s oldest icon (1370-98) made in Byzantium, or Siena
👉 Courtesy: Associated Press
Harvard art historian claims 150-year-old stained glass window in Rhode Island church depicts Jesus as a person of color
A 150-year-old stained glass window that appears to show Jesus as a person of color has been uncovered in a Rhode Island church
The image is made using brown glass and was first spotted by Harvard art historian Hadley Arnold
Arnold has invited art historians and experts to view the window which is thought to be the first to ever depict Jesus as a person of color
Scholars think the window, commissioned in 1877, could be the first of its kind. ‘It should stand as a landmark in American culture,’ says art historian Virginia Raguin
A nearly 150-year-old stained-glass church window that depicts a dark-skinned Jesus Christ interacting with women in New Testament scenes has stirred up questions about race, Rhode Island’s role in the slave trade and the place of women in 19th century New England society.
The window installed at the long-closed St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Warren in 1878 is the oldest known public example of stained glass on which Christ is depicted as a person of color that one expert has seen.
“This window is unique and highly unusual,” said Virginia Raguin, a professor of humanities emerita at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts, and an expert on the history of stained-glass art. “I have never seen this iconography for that time.”
The 12-foot tall, 5-foot wide window depicts two biblical passages in which women, also painted with dark skin, appear as equals to Christ. One shows Christ in conversation with Martha and Mary, the sisters of Lazarus, from the Gospel of Luke. The other shows Christ speaking to the Samaritan woman at the well from the Gospel of John.
The window made by the Henry E. Sharp studio in New York had largely been forgotten until a few years ago when Hadley Arnold and her family bought the 4,000-square-foot (371-square-meter) Greek Revival church building, which opened in 1830 and closed in 2010, to convert into their home.
When four stained-glass windows were removed in 2020 to be replaced with clear glass, Arnold took a closer look. It was a cold winter’s day with the sunlight shining at just the right angle and she was stunned by what she saw in one of them: The human figures had dark skin.
“The skin tones were nothing like the white Christ you usually see,” said Arnold, who teaches architectural design in California after growing up in Rhode Island and earning an art history degree from Harvard University.
The window has now been scrutinized by scholars, historians and experts trying to determine the motivations of the artist, the church and the woman who commissioned the window in memory of her two aunts, both of whom married into families that had been involved in the slave trade.
“Is this repudiation? Is this congratulations? Is this a secret sign?” said Arnold.
Raguin and other experts confirmed that the skin tones — in black and brown paint on milky white glass that was fired in an oven to set the image — were original and deliberate. The piece shows some signs of aging but remains in very good condition, she said.
But does it depict a Black Jesus? Arnold doesn’t feel comfortable using that term, preferring to say it depicts Christ as a person of color, probably Middle Eastern, which she says would make sense, given where the Galilean Jewish preacher was from.
Others think it’s open to interpretation.
The 12-foot tall, 5-foot wide window depicts two biblical passages in which women, also painted with dark skin, appear as equals to Christ.
“To me, being of African American and Native American heritage, I think that it could represent both people,” said Linda A’Vant-Deishinni, the former executive director of the Rhode Island Black Heritage Society. She now runs the Roman Catholic Diocese of Providence’s St. Martin de Porres Center, which provides services to older residents.
“The first time I saw it, it just kind of just blew me away,” A’Vant-Deishinni said.
Victoria Johnson, a retired educator who was the first Black woman named principal of a Rhode Island high school, thinks the figures in the glass are most certainly Black.
“When I see it, I see Black,” she said. “It was created in an era when at a white church in the North, the only people of color they knew were Black.”
Warren’s economy had been based on the building and outfitting of ships, some used in the slave trade, according to the town history. And although there are records of enslaved people in town before the Civil War, the racial makeup of St. Mark’s was likely mostly if not all white.
The window was commissioned by a Mary P. Carr in honor of two women, apparently her late aunts, whose names appear on the glass, Arnold said. Mrs. H. Gibbs and Mrs. R. B. DeWolf were sisters, and both married into families involved in the slave trade. The DeWolf family made a fortune as one of the nation’s leading slave-trading families; Gibbs married a sea captain who worked for the DeWolfs.
Both women had been listed as donors to the American Colonization Society, founded to support the migration of freed slaves to Liberia in Africa. The controversial effort was overwhelmingly rejected by Black people in America, leading many former supporters to become abolitionists instead. DeWolf also left money in her will to found another church in accord with egalitarian principles, according to the research.
Another clue is the timing, Arnold said. The window was commissioned at a critical juncture of U.S. history when supporters of Republican Rutherford B. Hayes and their Southern Democrat opponents agreed to settle the 1876 presidential election with what is known as the Compromise of 1877, which essentially ended Reconstruction-era efforts to grant and protect the legal rights of formerly enslaved Black people.
What was Carr trying to say about Gibbs’ and DeWolf’s links to slavery?
“We don’t know, but it would appear that she is honoring people of conscience however imperfect their actions or their effectiveness may have been,” Arnold said. “I don’t think it would be there otherwise.”
The window also is remarkable because it shows Christ interacting with woman as equals, Raguin said: “Both stories were selected to profile equality.”
For now, the window remains propped upright in a wooden frame where pews once stood. College classes have come to see it, and on one recent spring afternoon there was a visit from a diverse group of eighth graders from The Nativity School in Worcester, a Jesuit boys’ school.
The boys learned about the window’s history and significance from Raguin.
“When I first brought this up to them in religion class, it was the first time the kids had ever heard of something like this and they were genuinely curious as to what that was all about, why it mattered, why it existed,” religion teacher Bryan Montenegro said. “I thought that it would be very valuable to come and see it, and be so close to it, and really feel the diversity and inclusion that was so different for that time.”
– NBD. There is a famous mountain top cathedral near Avellino, Italy, with a portrait of a black Virgin Mary. The large painting has been there for centuries. It didn’t stop the Italians from doing their annual pilgrimage for the first communion of girls to womanhood. People need to get over themselves as if the world never existed before they got here.
– Who cares what color Jesus was when he was on earth? What matters is that we believe his message. He said the he is the way, the truth, and the life and no one comes to God but by him.
– Well he went to the cross for our sins… the ultimate sacrifice. So, His color is irrelevant. Plus it wouldn’t surprise me considering many Mediterranean Jews were/are of dark complexion.
– Of course Jesus was dark skinned. Everyone around that region was dark skinned 2000 years ago. Is this a real question?
– Every event that took place in the Bible took place in Ethiopia and Egypt (Africa). Which reflects the complexion of the Jesus displayed on the stain glass window. The first image depicting Jesus as non-African was by Leonardo da Vinci, which used a friend by the name of Cesare Borgia.(commision by King Louis XII of France). Do your own research I would start first by visiting the Vatican online and see for yourself all the biblical figures portrayed as white in America are in fact of dark skin complexion. At the end history is only factual when you do the research. If you don’t then, it’s whatever you believe it’s being told to you will be your historical fact but it will be wrong. Enjoy the rest of the year. Truth Serum.
P.S. Egypt is in Africa.
Eden/Africa is Ethiopia
Isreal and Palestine before “divided” are part of Africa.
The land of Canaan is in North Eastern Africa.
Facts are facts. There’s no rewriting history. It’s logical common sense period.
[Isaiah 53:2]
„For he grew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground; he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him.”
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