We are Orthodox Christian Greeks.
Because we are Orthodox Christians, we love our country, our people and all the peoples of the earth; this of course includes our African brothers and sisters.
Εκοιμήθη εν Κυρίω ο Μητροπολίτης Νιγηρίας Αλέξανδρος Γιαννίρης. Ο μακαριστός Ιεράρχης της Αλεξανδρινής Εκκλησίας αντιμετώπιζε προβλήματα υγείας δίνοντας μάχη με τον καρκίνο.
“Τούτη την περίοδο κατά την οποία κι εγώ δίνω τον δικό μου αγώνα
με την ασθένεια αυτή, απευθύνομαι σε όλους τους συν-ασθενείς γιά να
ευχηθώ ο Κύριος με τις πρεσβείς των Αγίων μας, να χαρίζει δύναμη
σωματική και ψυχική σε όλους μας. Και ποτέ να μην λησμονούμε ότι
“γεννηθήτω το θέλημα Του”, είχε γράψει ο ίδιος πριν λίγους μήνες με αφορμή την Παγκόσμια Ημέρα κατά του Καρκίνου.
Αύριο, Σάββατο 1 Ιουλίου, στις 12 το μεσημέρι, στο Ιερό Ησυχαστήριο Μεταμορφώσεως του Σωτήρος (Αγίου Πορφυρίου) στο Μήλεση Αττικής θα τελεσθεί η Εξόδιος Ακολουθία και η ταφή, όπως ανακοίνωσε το Πατριαρχείο Αλεξανδρείας και πάσης Αφρικής.
Ο μακαριστός Μητροπολίτης κυρός Αλέξανδρος σε παλαιότερη συνέντευξή του είχε μιλήσει στην Πεμπτουσία για την Εκκλησία στην Νιγηρία και τις συνθήκες διακονίας και ποιμαντικής.
Ποιος ήταν ο Μητροπολίτης Αλέξανδρος
Ο Μητροπολίτης Νιγηρίας, Yπέρτιμος και Έξαρχος Κόλπου Γουϊνέας
Αλέξανδρος (κατά κόσμον Γεώργιος Γιαννίρης) εγεννήθη στην Αθήνα το έτος
1960. Είναι πτυχιούχος του Τμήματος Ποιμαντικής και Κοινωνικής Θεολογίας
του Πανεπιστημίου της Θεσσαλονίκης. Ενετάχθη στον κλήρο του
Πατριαρχείου Αλεξανδρείας, χειροτονηθείς Διάκονος την 1η και Πρεσβύτερος
την 2α Οκτωβρίου 1988. Από της χειροτονίας του υπηρετήσε στην Ιερά
Μητρόπολη Ιωαννουπόλεως και Πρετορίας ως Προϊστάμενος του Πατριαρχικού
Ναού των Αγίων Αναργύρων και Γραμματεύς της Μητροπόλεως.
Εξέδωσε το
δίγλωσσο περιοδικό «Ορθόδοξη προσέγγιση» και ήταν υπεύθυνος των
ραδιοφωνικών εκπομπών της Μητροπόλεως. Διετέλεσε μέλος του
Νοτιοαφρικανικού Ινστιτούτου Βυζαντινών και Νεοελληνικών μελετών. Τον
Απρίλιο του 1997, διωρίσθη Διευθυντής του Ιδιαιτέρου Πατριαρχικού
Γραφείου. Επίσκοπος Νιγηρίας εξελέγη την 23η Σεπτεμβρίου 1997,
χειροτονηθείς από τον μακαριστό Πατριάρχη Αλεξανδρείας κυρό Πέτρο Ζ’ την
24ην Νοεμβρίου 1997. Την 27η Οκτωβρίου 2004 η Ιερά Επισκοπή Νιγηρίας
ανυψώθη σε Μητρόπολη.
Η Ιερά Μητρόπολη Νιγηρίας ιδρύθηκε διά Πατριαρχικού και Συνοδικού
Τόμου το έτος 1997 κατ’ αρχήν ως Ιερά Επισκοπή Νιγηρίας. Τον Οκτώβριο
του έτους 2004 ανυψώθηκε σε Μητρόπολη.
Στην πνευματική της δικαιοδοσία περιλαμβάνει τα κράτη Νιγηρία, Νίγηρα, Μπενίν και Τόγκο.
"A
blessed Pentecost to all from St. Basil Gulu. May the Holy Spirit our
God, come and dwell in us, cleanize us, strengthen us, protect us, clear
our Atmosphere from the current virus and protect us from all dangers
& evils". Orthodox Diocese of Gulu and Eastern Uganda
Growing up in a European capital where rubbish is put in the dustbin and
from there the rubbish dumps, which I do not know and in a way I don't
want to know where they are. People in the cities choose to distance
themselves from these facts and get quite annoyed when the trash is not
collected on time.
However we forget various other places around the world which receive
our rubbish. It is a fact that trash is moved around, massive quantities
are thrown in the oceans and the third world. These of course produce
many illnesses and infections to the people close to this 'mountains of
rubbish'.
Are the pictures here the answer to the problem in the 21st century? We
have been hearing that a futuristic solution would be to send our
rubbish into space. Maybe recycling should be taken more seriously.
These images are appalling, showing how colonial attitudes from the
Western powers towards the South, mainly Africa, continue even in the
post-colonial era.
Alexandria, in Northern Africa, became the most important centre of
research and study of the ancient world, due to the policies applied by
the Ptolemaic kings after the conquest of Egypt by Alexander the
Great. King Ptolemy established in 280 B.C. a museum in the south-west
part of the palace which housed foreign visitors, poets, scholars and
researchers. There he founded the Serapeion Temple, honouring the God
Serapis.
When Ptolemy II took power he established next to the Temple the
Serapeion Library. The Egyptian priest Manetho helped significantly in
this project. According to historical sources found in libraries and
temples of Memphis in Ain Shams, Manetho created replicas of Egyptian
texts in Greek, which were placed in the Serapeion Temple in Alexandria.
Manetho achieved three important goals, first he gave an overview of
ancient Egyptian history until the rule of the Ptolemies, secondly he
gave a collection of hieroglyphic writings containing philosophical and
theological explanations of the world and thirdly he gave numerous
references to the natural laws of science.
The library was comprised of general knowledge and philosophical texts
of the era form the ancient civilizations of Egypt, Babylon, Syria,
Persia and Greece. Also one could find scrolls from difference
disciplines, including language, rhetoric, jurisprudence, law,
geography, history, philosophy, logic, sport, engineering, medicine,
chemistry and physics. This was the first time in history, where human
heritage of many civilizations was accumulated into a single place and
in a language widely known to countless people, i.e. Greek, making it
possible for students from all around the known world to be able to
study at this school of thought and science. The Serapeion was hence the
first university in the world and it is due to this establishment that
countless students studied there from the 3rd century B.C. until the 4th
century A.D.
Ota Benga (c. 1883[2] – March 20, 1916) was a Mbuti (Congo pygmy) man, known for being featured in an exhibit at the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis, Missouri, and as a human zoo exhibit in 1906 at the Bronx Zoo. Benga had been purchased from native African slave traders by the explorer Samuel Phillips Verner,[3]
a businessman searching for African people for the exhibition, who took
him to the United States. While at the Bronx Zoo, Benga was allowed to
walk the grounds before and after he was exhibited in the zoo's Monkey
House. Benga was placed in a cage with an orangutan as a lampoon on Darwinism.
To enhance the primitive image and presumably protect himself if need
be from the ape, he was given a functional bow and arrow. He used this
instead to shoot at visitors who mocked him and partially as a result of
this the exhibition was ended.[4]
Except for a brief visit to Africa with Verner after the close of the
St. Louis Fair, Benga lived in the United States, mostly in Virginia, for the rest of his life.
In 1910, Gordon arranged for Benga to be cared for in Lynchburg, Virginia, where he paid for his clothes and to have his sharpened teethcapped.
This would enable Benga to be more readily accepted in local society.
Benga was tutored in English and began to work at a Lynchburg tobacco
factory.
He tried to return to Africa, but the outbreak of World War I in 1914 stopped all ship passenger travel. Benga developed depression, and died by suicide in 1916.[5]
Early life
As a member of the Mbuti people,[6] Ota Benga lived in equatorial forests near the Kasai River in what was then the Congo Free State. His people were attacked by the Force Publique, established by King Leopold II of Belgium
as a militia to oppress the local people and communities, most of whom
were used as forced laborers in the extraction and exploitation of
Congo's massive supply of rubber.[7]
Benga's wife and two children were slaughtered; he survived because he
was on a hunting expedition when the Force Publique attacked his
village. He was later captured by slave traders from the enemy
"Baschelel" (Bashilele) tribe.[8][9]
In 1904, American businessman and explorer Samuel Phillips Verner traveled to Africa,[10] under contract from the St. Louis World Fair, to bring back an assortment of pygmies to be part of an exhibition.[11] Verner came across Benga while en route to a Batwa
pygmy village visited previously. He purchased Benga from the Bashilele
slave traders, giving them a pound of salt and a bolt of cloth in
exchange.[12][8] Verner later claimed he had rescued Benga from cannibals.[13]
The two spent several weeks together before reaching the Batwa village. The villagers did not trust the muzungu
("white man"). Verner was unable to recruit any villagers to join him
for travel to the United States until Benga said that the muzungu
had saved his life, and spoke of the bond that had grown between them
and his own curiosity about the world Verner came from. Four Batwa, all
male, ultimately decided to accompany them. Verner also recruited other
Africans who were not pygmies: five men from the Bakuba, including the son of King Ndombe, ruler of the Bakuba; and other related peoples.[14][15]
Exhibitions
St. Louis World Fair
Benga (second from left) and the Batwa in St. Louis
The group was taken to St. Louis, Missouri, in late June 1904 without Verner, as he had been taken ill with malaria.
The Louisiana Purchase Exposition had already begun, and the Africans
immediately became the center of attention. Benga was particularly
popular, and his name was reported variously by the press as Artiba, Autobank,[16]Ota Bang, and Otabenga. He had an amiable personality, and visitors were eager to see his teeth that had been filed to sharp points
in his early youth as ritual decoration. The Africans learned to charge
for photographs and performances. One newspaper account promoted Benga
as "the only genuine African cannibal in America", and claimed that "[his teeth were] worth the five cents he charges for showing them to visitors".[14]
Benga in 1904
When Verner arrived a month later, he realized the pygmies were more
prisoners than performers. Their attempts to congregate peacefully in
the forest on Sundays were thwarted by the crowds' fascination with
them. McGee's attempts to present a "serious" scientific exhibit were
also overturned. On July 28, 1904, the Africans performed to the crowd's
preconceived notion that they were "savages", resulting in the First
Illinois Regiment being called in to control the mob. Benga and the
other Africans eventually performed in a warlike fashion, imitating Native Americans they saw at the Exhibition.[17] The Apache leader Geronimo (featured as "The Human Tyger" – with special dispensation from the Department of War)[16] grew to admire Benga, and gave him one of his arrowheads.[18]
American Museum of Natural History
Benga
accompanied Verner when he returned the other Africans to the Congo. He
briefly lived amongst the Batwa while continuing to accompany Verner on
his African adventures. He married a Batwa woman who later died of
snakebite, but little is known of this second marriage. Not feeling that
he belonged with the Batwa, Benga chose to return with Verner to the
United States.[19]
Verner eventually arranged for Benga to stay in a spare room at the American Museum of Natural History
in New York City while he was tending to other business. Verner
negotiated with the curator Henry Bumpus over the presentation of his
acquisitions from Africa and potential employment. While Bumpus was put
off by Verner's request of what he thought was the prohibitively high
salary of $175 a month and was not impressed by the man's credentials,
he was interested in Benga. Benga initially enjoyed his time at the
museum, where he was given a Southern-style linen suit to wear when he
entertained. He became homesick for his own culture.[20]
What at first held his attention now made him want to
flee. It was maddening to be inside – to be swallowed whole – so long.
He had an image of himself, stuffed, behind glass, but somehow still
alive, crouching over a fake campfire, feeding meat to a lifeless child.
Museum silence became a source of torment, a kind of noise; he needed
birdsong, breezes, trees.[21]
The disaffected Benga attempted to find relief by exploiting his
employers' presentation of him as a 'savage'. He tried to slip past the
guards as a large crowd was leaving the premises; when asked on one
occasion to seat a wealthy donor's wife, he pretended to misunderstand,
instead hurling the chair across the room, just missing the woman's
head. Meanwhile, Verner was struggling financially and had made little
progress in his negotiations with the museum. He soon found another home
for Benga.[20]
Bronx Zoo
At the suggestion of Bumpus, Verner took Benga to the Bronx Zoo in 1906. William Hornaday,
director of the zoo, initially enlisted Benga to help maintain the
animal habitats. However, Hornaday saw that people took more notice of
Benga than the animals at the zoo, and he eventually created an
exhibition to feature Benga.[9] At the zoo, the Mbuti man was allowed to roam the grounds, but there is no record that he was ever paid for his work.[8] He became fond of an orangutan named Dohong, "the presiding genius of the Monkey House", who had been taught to perform tricks and imitate human behavior.[22]
The events leading to his "exhibition" alongside Dohong were gradual:[8] Benga spent some of his time in the Monkey House exhibit, and the zoo encouraged him to hang his hammock
there, and to shoot his bow and arrow at a target. On the first day of
the exhibit, September 8, 1906, visitors found Benga in the Monkey
House.[8]
Ota
Benga at the Bronx Zoo in 1906. Only five promotional photos exist of
Benga's time here, none of them in the "Monkey House"; cameras were not
allowed.[23]
Soon, a sign on the exhibit read:
The African Pygmy, "Ota Benga."
Age, 23 years. Height, 4 feet 11 inches.[a]
Weight, 103 pounds.[b] Brought from the
Kasai River, Congo Free State, South Cen-
tral Africa, by Dr. Samuel P. Verner. Ex-
hibited each afternoon during September.[24]
Hornaday considered the exhibit a valuable spectacle for visitors; he was supported by Madison Grant, Secretary of the New York Zoological Society,
who lobbied to put Ota Benga on display alongside apes at the Bronx
Zoo. A decade later, Grant became prominent nationally as a racial anthropologist and eugenicist.[25]
African-American clergymen immediately protested to zoo officials about the exhibit. Said James H. Gordon,
Our race, we think, is depressed enough, without
exhibiting one of us with the apes ... We think we are worthy of being
considered human beings, with souls.[8]
Gordon thought the exhibit was hostile to Christianity and was effectively a promotion of Darwinism:
The Darwinian theory is absolutely opposed to Christianity, and a public demonstration in its favor should not be permitted.[8]
A number of clergymen backed Gordon.[26] In defense of the depiction of Benga as a lesser human, an editorial in The New York Times suggested:
We do not quite understand all the emotion which others
are expressing in the matter ... It is absurd to make moan over the
imagined humiliation and degradation Benga is suffering. The pygmies ...
are very low in the human scale, and the suggestion that Benga should
be in a school instead of a cage ignores the high probability that
school would be a place ... from which he could draw no advantage
whatever. The idea that men are all much alike except as they have had
or lacked opportunities for getting an education out of books is now far
out of date.[27]
After the controversy, Benga was allowed to roam the grounds of the
zoo. In response to the situation, as well as verbal and physical prods
from the crowds, he became more mischievous and somewhat violent.[28] Around this time, an article in The New York Times quoted Robert Stuart MacArthur as saying, "It is too bad that there is not some society like the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. We send our missionaries to Africa to Christianize the people, and then we bring one here to brutalize him."[24]
The zoo finally removed Benga from the grounds. Verner was
unsuccessful in his continued search for employment, but he occasionally
spoke to Benga. The two had agreed that it was in Benga's best
interests to remain in the United States despite the unwelcome spotlight
at the zoo.[29]
Toward the end of 1906, Benga was released into Reverend Gordon's custody.[8]
So that he could more easily be part of local society, Gordon
arranged for Benga's teeth to be capped and bought him American-style
clothes. He received tutoring from Lynchburg poet Anne Spencer[31] in order to improve his English, and began to attend elementary school at the Baptist Seminary in Lynchburg.[27]
Once he felt his English had improved sufficiently, Benga discontinued his formal education. He began working at a Lynchburg tobacco factory, and began to plan a return to Africa.[32]
Death
In 1914, when World War I
broke out, a return to the Congo became impossible as passenger ship
traffic ended. Benga became depressed as his hopes for a return to his
homeland faded.[32]
On March 20, 1916, at the age of 32 or 33, he built a ceremonial fire,
chipped off the caps on his teeth, and shot himself in the heart with a
borrowed pistol.[33]
Benga was buried in an unmarked grave in the black section of the Old City Cemetery, near his benefactor, Gregory Hayes.
At some point, the remains of both men went missing. Local oral history
indicates that Hayes and Benga were eventually moved from the Old
Cemetery to White Rock Hill Cemetery, a burial ground that later fell
into disrepair.[34] Benga received a historic marker in Lynchburg in 2017.[35]
Legacy
Phillips Verner Bradford, the grandson of Samuel Phillips Verner, wrote a book on Benga, entitled Ota Benga: The Pygmy in the Zoo (1992). During his research for the book, Bradford visited the American Museum of Natural History,
which holds a life mask and body cast of Ota Benga. The display is
still labeled "Pygmy", rather than indicating Benga's name, despite
objections beginning a century ago from Verner and repeated by others.[36]
Publication of Bradford's book in 1992 inspired widespread interest in
Ota Benga's story and stimulated creation of many other works, both
fictional and non-fiction, such as:
1994 – John Strand's play, Ota Benga, was produced by the Signature Theater in Arlington, Virginia.[37]
1997 – The play, Ota Benga, Elegy for the Elephant, by Dr. Ben B. Halm, was staged at Fairfield University in Connecticut.[38]
2002 – The Mbuti man was the subject of the short documentary, Ota Benga: A Pygmy in America, directed by Brazilian Alfeu França. He incorporated original movies recorded by Verner in the early 20th century.[39]
2005 – A fictionalized account of his life portrayed in the film Man to Man, starring Joseph Fiennes, Kristin Scott Thomas.
2006 – The Brooklyn-based band Piñataland released a song titled "Ota Benga's Name" on their album Songs from the Forgotten Future Volume 1, which tells the story of Ota Benga.[8]
2007 – McCray's early poems about Benga were adapted as a performance piece; the work debuted at the Columbia Museum of Art in 2007, with McCray as narrator and original music by Kevin Simmonds.
Ishi, a Native American who has been compared to Benga
Similarities have been observed between the treatment of Ota Benga and Ishi. The latter was the sole remaining member of the YahiNative American tribe, and he was displayed in California around the same period. Ishi died on March 25, 1916, five days after Ota.[49][50]
Graves, Katherine (September 15, 2017). "Ota Benga Honored". The Critograph. Retrieved August 31, 2020.
Bradford and Blume (1992), p. 54.
Crawford, John R. (1982). "Pioneer African Missionary: Samuel Phillips Verner". Journal of Presbyterian History (1962-1985). 60 (1): 42–57. JSTOR23328464.
"The Language Of Genes" by Steve Jones, p. 197.
Evanzz, Karl (1999). The Messenger: The Rise and Fall of Elijah Muhammad. New York: Pantheon Books. ISBN978-0679442608.
Bradford
and Blume describe Benga as Mbuti and write, "A feature article
described Ota Benga as 'a dwarfy, black specimen of sad-eyed humanity.'
He was sad because the others were Batwa but he was not ..." (p. 116).
They later mention that he "never fully assimilated into the Batwa"
during his time with them. Parezo and Fowler refer to "[t]he Mbuti
(Batwa) Pygmies and 'Red Africans'" and note that "McGee called them all
Batwa, 'real aboriginals of the Dark Continent' ... [Benga] was
slightly taller than the other Pygmies, a characteristic common to his
society, the Badinga or Chiri-chiri. Verner considered the Chiri-chiris a
Pygmy society, and McGee and the press decided not to quibble over
details." (pp. 200–203). Many sources, e.g. Adams 2001, p. 25 and NPR, simply describe him as "a Batwa Pygmy from Africa".
Weaver, Jace (2003). "When the Demons Came: (Retro)Spectacle among the Savages". In Kroeber, Karl; Kroeber, Clifton B. (eds.). Ishi in Three Centuries. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. p. 41. ISBN978-0-8032-2757-6.
Adams, Rachel (2001). Sideshow U.S.A: Freaks and the American Cultural Imagination. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN978-0-226-00539-3.
Bradford, Phillips Verner; Blume, Harvey (1992). Ota Benga: The Pygmy in the Zoo. New York: St. Martins Press. ISBN978-0-312-08276-5.
McCray, Carrie Allen (2012). Kevin Simmonds (ed.). Ota Benga under My Mother's Roof. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press. ISBN978-1-61117-085-6.
Newkirk, Pamela (2015). Spectacle: The Astonishing Life of Ota Benga. New York: Amistad. ISBN978-0-06-220100-3.
Parezo, Nancy J.; Fowler, Don D. (2007). Anthropology Goes to the Fair: The 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. ISBN978-0-8032-3759-9.
Spiro, Jonathan Peter (2008). Defending the Master Race: Conservation, Eugenics, and the Legacy of Madison Grant. Burlington: University of Vermont Press. pp. 43–51. ISBN978-1-58465-715-6.
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