Half a million Guatemalan Indians accept Orthodoxy / Orthodoxy in Guatemala

[podkarpatska]

Augustin717 has a point.... at least since Archbishop Macarios III of Cyprus, the Greek Orthodox have a pretty good track-record of supporting anti-colonial struggles. One might be able to draw parallels between these Mayans and the groups in Kenya who found Orthodoxy out of a desire to find an authentic Christianity with no colonialist associations (well, at least in their region...). If Orthodoxy and the Mau Mau can work well together, there's pretty good precedent for Orthodox cooperation with indigenous and land reform movements in Latin America.

Indeed, we have to look at these issues not just from our typical American myopia.

[Fabio Leite]

By class bias, you mean my upbringing in a low-to-middle class district over an hour and a half from the wealthy districts of Rio de Janeiro people see in movies? Ah, you're talking about some of the privileges I had growning up such as walking back from school as a child in streets flooded with sewer water during summer floods, having a relative murdered for not accepting to condone with with traffic of goods? Maybe "class" is a family thing. Which side of the family would it be? My mother's side of the family who fled the even poorer Northeast of the country to Rio, or my father's side who literaly were peasants in the Northern country-side of Portugal?

Sure my childhood and youth were not like of the children in the slums, but you bet it was no California.

Marxist assumptions fail again. People are individuals, not hypostasis of their classes. And you know what? The main places where I have seen liberal ideas thrive the most were among the rich elite of Rio, the same who brought the commerce of cocaine to the city in the 70s and 80s to supply their parties, thus being partially responsible for the takeover of the city by drug dealers sinking it into a silent civil war. The top wealthiest in the word always support liberal campaigns and institutions. They sure know what they are doing and which initiatives favour them in the end of the day.

has happened. But I saw it too many times to believe it. The worst that could happen is that the sheer size of the group had an active corrupting impact in the Church with their radical leftist leanings. All that I do not want to see in the Orthodox Church is the disgrace that Liberation Theology caused in the Roman Church.

Your class bias is showing mister. But, in a way, you are in the wrong place if you think the orthodox have anything compared to the organized reaction to leftist politics the upper class Catholics in Latin America or USA have. Nada, I'll tell you. So it is a smart move for those Mayans. it probably gives them more wiggle room as we are not bound by Leo the thirteen's dogmatic teachings about "class harmony' and all that reactionary nonsense.

[ialmisry]

People are individuals, not hypostasis of their classes.

I shall have to remember that. Well put.

And you know what? The main places where I have seen liberal ideas thrive the most were among the rich elite of Rio, the same who brought the commerce of cocaine to the city in the 70s and 80s to supply their parties, thus being partially responsible for the takeover of the city by drug dealers sinking it into a silent civil war. The top wealthiest in the word always support liberal campaigns and institutions. They sure know what they are doing and which initiatives favour them in the end of the day.

True Liberalism means isolation from the dire consequences of libertine actions.

[ialmisry]

I forgot the maps

Just for you, Father.

[serb1389]

^ I'm assuming you know about all of these areas? 

p.s., could you dig up a map of where these churches that "jumped ship" came from?  What areas?  Or what demographics? 

[podkarpatska]

^ I'm assuming you know about all of these areas? 

p.s., could you dig up a map of where these churches that "jumped ship" came from?  What areas?  Or what demographics? 

I don't know for sure, but that last map sure looks like the map on the back cover pages of Game of Thrones....... just sayin....

[dzheremi]

^ I'm assuming you know about all of these areas? 

p.s., could you dig up a map of where these churches that "jumped ship" came from?  What areas?  Or what demographics? 

This might not matter as much as it seems. The majority of Guatemalans are ethnically mixed (what others would probably call mestizo, though there they're called "Ladino", not to be confused with the Judaeo-Spanish language commonly called that), regardless of what language they speak (though the majority of Ladinos speak Spanish as a mother tongue, just like in Mexico where most people are mestizo but only speak Spanish). I think that map might be a little bit deceiving because you'd think from the size of the territory, for instance, that Mam people would be more than about 8% of the population (about 650,000 if I remember correctly; I studied Mam language as an undergraduate...it's pretty wild; gave me a big headache). Q'eqchi', believe it or not, has even fewer speakers in Guatemala proper (400K, but total in all countries is several thousand more), despite being spread out over a much larger area, if you believe the map.

So chances are that the people who jumped ship are probably Spanish-speakers and very likely Ladino identifying, no matter where they are. And, if my informal survey of the three little old Guatemalan ladies I used to live next to in California is anything to go by, even people who are very obviously less European than Indigenous are unlikely to have 'asserting indigenous cultural identity/bucking colonialism' high on the list of reasons for leaving one church for another, though I don't doubt that this does happen. Many years ago, I had a class with a professor who had worked in Guatemala in the 1970s, doing language documentation work among one of the highland Mayan peoples (I don't remember which one), and he said that the people he talked to had great respect for the Mormon missionaries that would frequently visit their villages. My professor was confused until one of the Mayans told him "the missionaries are the only ones who actually learn our language and can speak it. Everybody else talks to us in Spanish, and we don't like that."

A more colonially-minded/"white" (ah, heck, why all the euphemisms!) religion than Mormonism, I can't imagine...what with all the "Adam and Eve lived in Missouri", "upstate New York is holy ground", and other odd ideas in it...it's very far from being an ideal vehicle for asserting or preserving native Mayan culture, and yet here was a place and time when Mayans found it very attractive, because the missionaries who were sent there met them on their own terms. Something to think about, perhaps, in our rush to believe the best of these Orthodox conversions stories.

[Father H]

I forgot the maps

Just for you, Father.

I see nothing but a right angle.  It is late, so I recognize this could be a joke of which I am not aware

[Father H]

You know true Christians first kill their kings etc and then might put them up in the calendar if they were somehow churchy.

I like beef hotdogs.  But only if I am aristocratically starving and they are slow-cooked, really. 

[Father H]

By class bias, you mean my upbringing in a low-to-middle class district over an hour and a half from the wealthy districts of Rio de Janeiro people see in movies? Ah, you're talking about some of the privileges I had growning up such as walking back from school as a child in streets flooded with sewer water during summer floods, having a relative murdered for not accepting to condone with with traffic of goods? Maybe "class" is a family thing. Which side of the family would it be? My mother's side of the family who fled the even poorer Northeast of the country to Rio, or my father's side who literaly were peasants in the Northern country-side of Portugal?

Sure my childhood and youth were not like of the children in the slums, but you bet it was no California.

Marxist assumptions fail again. People are individuals, not hypostasis of their classes. And you know what? The main places where I have seen liberal ideas thrive the most were among the rich elite of Rio, the same who brought the commerce of cocaine to the city in the 70s and 80s to supply their parties, thus being partially responsible for the takeover of the city by drug dealers sinking it into a silent civil war. The top wealthiest in the word always support liberal campaigns and institutions. They sure know what they are doing and which initiatives favour them in the end of the day.

has happened. But I saw it too many times to believe it. The worst that could happen is that the sheer size of the group had an active corrupting impact in the Church with their radical leftist leanings. All that I do not want to see in the Orthodox Church is the disgrace that Liberation Theology caused in the Roman Church.

Your class bias is showing mister. But, in a way, you are in the wrong place if you think the orthodox have anything compared to the organized reaction to leftist politics the upper class Catholics in Latin America or USA have. Nada, I'll tell you. So it is a smart move for those Mayans. it probably gives them more wiggle room as we are not bound by Leo the thirteen's dogmatic teachings about "class harmony' and all that reactionary nonsense.

Thank you for sharing this.  I know that you have a fine mind and wonder if you waste your time posting such things.  You aren't wasting your time.

[Father H]

^ I'm assuming you know about all of these areas? 

p.s., could you dig up a map of where these churches that "jumped ship" came from?  What areas?  Or what demographics? 

I don't know for sure, but that last map sure looks like the map on the back cover pages of Game of Thrones....... just sayin....

I don't know what this means, but if it means that it looks like a colorful right angle, then I agree

[Father H]

Augustin717 has a point.... at least since Archbishop Macarios III of Cyprus, the Greek Orthodox have a pretty good track-record of supporting anti-colonial struggles. One might be able to draw parallels between these Mayans and the groups in Kenya who found Orthodoxy out of a desire to find an authentic Christianity with no colonialist associations (well, at least in their region...). If Orthodoxy and the Mau Mau can work well together, there's pretty good precedent for Orthodox cooperation with indigenous and land reform movements in Latin America.

Indeed, we have to look at these issues not just from our typical American myopia.

I was also thinking that we USA types don't appreciate that not only we, but most of the rest of the Western hemisphere calls us first and foremost "Americans," even though it applies equally to them as well.  

[Fabio Leite]

Thank you for sharing this.  I know that you have a fine mind and wonder if you waste your time posting such things.  You aren't wasting your time.

Thank you, father.

[mike]

The HCHC community will observe Missions Week November 5-9, 2012. All are invited to attend the EFOM Missions Lecture on Thursday, November 8th at 7:00 p.m. in the Reading Room. The lecture, entitled Mission to Guatamala: Receiving the Mayan People Into the Orthodox Church, will be streamed live on the Internet as well as recorded for our video archives. Please return to this page to access the live stream on the day of the event.

http://www.hchc.edu/holycross/about/news/news_releases/missions_week.html

[IreneOlinyk]

So there is no proof that "half a million" people have been chrismated and received into the Orthodox Church is there?

[Cantor Krishnich]

According to wikipedia, about 3 percent of Guatemala is Orthodox. Glory to thee of Lord! Gloria a Ti Senor!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Guatemala#Orthodox_Catholic

[serb1389]

So there is no proof that "half a million" people have been chrismated and received into the Orthodox Church is there?

That's the weird part.  Some were received through baptism, & chrismation.  Others just accepted orthodoxy & are in the process of being accepted through sacramental means

[Orest]

According to wikipedia, about 3 percent of Guatemala is Orthodox. Glory to thee of Lord! Gloria a Ti Senor!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Guatemala#Orthodox_Catholic

I like this comment in the "Talk" section:

Issues with religion statsThe state department document which is cited as a reference for adherence statistics is at odds with the numbers cited in the text. In particular it does not include the 3% Orthodox number, which by my calculation has been back-figured from the claim of 520K converts. As far as I am aware this is a church-reported number and is thus not comparable with other estimates.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Guatemala

So there is no proof of half a million converts.

[mike]

yt presentation recorded from the HC
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Cn36X4JUT4w

[ialmisry]

Some update:
http://www.mayanorthodoxy.com/

[Sirach]

Some update:
http://www.mayanorthodoxy.com/

Now that a few years have passed and there has been time to straighten up the records, it seems that the actual number of converts was about 40,000.  (Unless a tremendous number of people left since the initial influx.)

From the link:

"How many Mayan Orthodox people are there? How many villages and parishes?

People, villages, parishes: all three are hard to quantify in a changing and mostly rural church. In fact, these are hard to quantify in any church in the world, even developed areas like the United States, because methodical population studies are rare, and reported numbers are often merely estimates. This is the case in Guatemala and Mexico, where the reported number of people has fluctuated from one extreme to another. As of 2014, the best estimate from the missionaries involved in the field is 40,000 people who live in about 300 villages. Not every village has a church, so the total number of parishes is around 100...."

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