{"id":1708,"date":"2006-07-01T10:24:58","date_gmt":"2006-07-01T14:24:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/?p=1708"},"modified":"2006-07-01T10:24:58","modified_gmt":"2006-07-01T14:24:58","slug":"priest-finds-faith-that-looks-like-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/2006\/07\/priest-finds-faith-that-looks-like-me\/","title":{"rendered":"Priest finds faith that looks ‘like me’"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Grand Rapids Press<\/a> Juanita Westaby July 01, 2006<\/p>\n

GRAND RAPIDS — When The Rev. Moses Berry was a child, his mother told him: “We are all flowers in God’s garden.” But he remembers thinking: “Where were the flowers in God’s garden that looked like me?” <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The question was tucked into the back of his mind, when he grew up as a third-generation African Methodist Episcopal pastor’s son. <\/p>\n

Today, he is an Orthodox priest who speaks nationwide about bringing African Americans and people from other ethnic backgrounds into his adopted faith. He might do it with something simple: prayer cards with icons that feature saints with dark skin. <\/p>\n

Berry, of Ash Grove, Mo., was one of the speakers at the 13th annual Ancient Christianity and African-American Conference in Detroit last weekend. <\/p>\n

Berry spoke of his journey to Orthodoxy, which includes jail time. He said he and his wife, Magdalena, then became “new age, nondenominational pastors.” <\/p>\n

“Ex-flower children, Jesus freaks,” he said. <\/p>\n

But a friend, who wanted him to experience something new, asked him to visit a church in Richmond, Va. There was talk about the Mother of God. There was a different language at times. There was incense. <\/p>\n

“Normally, we would revile against that,” Berry said. <\/p>\n

But the icons caught his eye, especially one of St. Moses the Ethiopian. <\/p>\n

“He had nostrils like I had,” Berry said. “He had lips like mine. He had coarse hair.” <\/p>\n

Then, he looked at the icon of St. Cyprian of Carthage. “And I thought, ‘Oh my goodness, these must be the flowers who looked like me,'” Berry said. “I knew I was home.” <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Grand Rapids Press Juanita Westaby July 01, 2006 GRAND RAPIDS — When The Rev. Moses Berry was a child, his mother told him: “We are all flowers in God’s garden.” But he remembers thinking: “Where were the flowers in God’s garden that looked like me?”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1319,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"generate_page_header":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1708","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-orthodox-christianity"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1708","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1319"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1708"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1708\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1708"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1708"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1708"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}