Race and American Orthodoxy an interview with Archpriest MOSES BERRY
Could you give a brief rundown of your biography? Where did you come from and how did you become a
Fr. Moses Berry is the rector of Theotokos "Unex-
priest?
pected Joy" Orthodox Church in Ash Grove, Missou-
Well, I came from the Ozark Mountains in Missouri, and I live in a house that my great grandparents built in 1871. My great grandfather built the house, my grandfather was born and raised in that house, my father was born and raised in that house, and I was born and raised in this town. When I was young, I was what they would call a lawless man. I turned 21 at the Missouri State Penitentiary in a 4.5-by-6.5-foot cell, with 12-foot ceilings and no windows. You know, this was in the late '60s and early '70s before prison reform. This was a horrible place to be. They had a habit of taking prisoners out of the cell and beating them for any number of reasons. And there was this man
ri, and a co-founder of the Fellowship of St. Moses the Black, a group devoted to linking ancient African Christianity and the African American experience. In this interview, he discusses his own conversion to the Orthodox Church, how the Church should think about interracial outreach, and what an African American expression of Orthodoxy might look like. This interview was conducted in the Spring, before the protests that followed the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, but it has been updated to deal with the recent events.
jacob's well
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