Saturday, April 30, 2005
Easter for Orthodox Christians
An estimated 6 million Eastern Orthodox Christians in the United States will join 300 million worshipers around the world in celebrating Easter tomorrow. Archbishop Demetrios, primate of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese in America, which claims about 1.5 million members in the United States, will lead an Agape Service on Easter at Holy Trinity Cathedral in New York.
Archbishop Herman, head of the Orthodox Church in America, will celebrate Easter at St. Nicholas Cathedral in Northwest Washington. The OCA includes Bulgarians, Romanians, Russians and Syrians among about 1 million members.
Orthodox Easter this year falls five weeks after the holiday was celebrated by other Christian groups. The difference results from the use of different calendars. Eastern Orthodox Christians use the Julian calendar. Easter is commemorated the Sunday after the first full moon of the spring equinox and always after the Jewish holiday of Passover.
Western Christian churches use the Gregorian calendar, which adds leap days, sometimes placing Easter before Passover, as happened this year.
Coptic Orthodox Christians -- with roots in Egypt and Ethiopia -- also will celebrate Easter tomorrow. There are about 300,000 Coptic Christians in the United States.
-- Religion News Service
A First for Disciples of Christ
The Rev. Sharon E. Watkins, senior minister of the Disciples Christian Church of Bartlesville, Okla., has been nominated to become the next leader of the Indianapolis-based Christian Church (Disciples of Christ).
If elected in July at an assembly in Portland, Ore., Watkins would be the first female leader of the 770,000-member denomination.
Watkins, 50, was unanimously endorsed by the denomination's General Board to be its next general minister and president.
She has been the Disciples' Oklahoma moderator and an administrator at Phillips Theological Seminary, where her husband, Richard Lowery, teaches the Old Testament.
-- Associated Press
Peyote Case Generates Lawsuit
The leader of a Native American church is suing county officials in Utah who unsuccessfully prosecuted him for using peyote during religious ceremonies.
James "Flaming Eagle" Mooney, in a federal lawsuit filed Wednesday in Salt Lake City, accuses officials in Utah County of civil rights violations, including unlawfully searching his property in October 2000 and confiscating thousands of peyote buttons.
Mooney, who is part Native American, also says county officials have refused to return the items even though he was vindicated by a state Supreme Court ruling last June.
That ruling found that non-Indian members of the Native American Church can use peyote in religious ceremonies.
Mooney was giving the peyote to members of his Oklevueha Earthwalks Native American Church who were not members of any Native American tribe.
"It's put a chilling effect on people's right to assemble and practice religion," said Mooney's attorney, Randall Marshall. "This is ultimately about religious freedom."
Moone seeks the return of the peyote, which has hallucinogenic properties, and other items taken from the church. He also seeks unspecified monetary damages and attorney's fees.
He said officers confiscated about 18,000 peyote buttons in the October 2000 raid on his six-acre complex. Officials say it was only 12,000.
Peter Stirba, an attorney for the officials, said the same claims made in this week's filing were dismissed in a federal lawsuit filed in 2000.
"In terms of civil rights claims, there has already been findings made that there was nothing untoward by the county attorney's office," Stirba said.
-- Associated Press
