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A recently published critique entitled “The Juneteenth Joke” by Aaron Hickman attempts to reduce the historic and spiritual labors of the Apostolic Mission to the African Diaspora in the Americas, West Indies, and Caribbean to an ecumenical scandal organized with a supposed “lack of pastoral discernment.”
By invoking Saint Paisios of Mount Athos on the danger of “shallow” promotions, the article levels severe criticism against the recent Juneteenth Ecumenical Prayer Service held at Saint Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church and National Shrine. At the center of the Hickman’s grievance is the presence of clergy from the American Orthodox Catholic Church.
Canonical discipline remains a necessary duty of the Church. Yet, when efforts by the Church to respond to the centuries-old trauma of the African Diaspora in the West is viewed through such a narrow and poorly informed lens, the heart of the Gospel is easily overlooked.
The Apostolic Mission to the Diaspora is neither an ecumenical parlor trick nor is it a compromise of the Faith. It is an ongoing act of dynamic, emergency triage: the Church acting as Christ intended, as a hospital open to the heavily laden.
In order to understand the Juneteenth Ecumenical Prayer Service in the context of the Apostolic Mission, we must look beyond poorly informed commentary and return to the therapeutic and unwavering theological foundations handed down by the Church Fathers. The overall critique within “The Juneteenth Joke” reveals a fundamental discomfort with the very idea of an ecumenical prayer service dedicated to healing the wounds of slavery. It suggests that bringing historical chattel slavery, trauma, and the memory of emancipation into prayer at an Orthodox shrine somehow distracts from “reflection and repentance.”
The service, however, does precisely the opposite as it highlights the work of Mother Katherine Weston, who composed the “Akathist to the Merciful Savior: Healer of the Wounds of American Slavery.” Each section of the Akathist attends to the shared, martyric experience of Native peoples and enslaved Africans, inviting all faithful to bring these wounds before Christ for healing.
“Passing through the Door of No Return thy sons and daughters were dead to thee, O Mother Africa. They passed through fire and water: the branding iron and the trial by sea, but they did not find a place of refreshment. Two million of thy children died at sea and of bitter toil. Trusting in Thy redemption, O Lord who watchest over sparrows and numberest our hairs, we cry out: Alleluia!”
Akathist to the Merciful Savior: Healer of the Wounds of American Slavery
To dismiss this celebration of liberation from slavery as “wokeism” or “activism” is therefore not merely a slight against this prayer service. It also diminishes Mother Katherine’s work and disregards the witness of the African American Orthodox community, whose suffering, faith, and perseverance are part of the Church’s liturgy, memory, and pastoral care.
To understand why critiques like “The Juneteenth Joke” fall short, we must recognize how they weaponize a historic milestone of Black liberation against Black people themselves. By dismissing an Ecumenical prayer service commemorating the end of chattel slavery as a shallow concession to “activism,” detractors display profound racial insensitivity. Juneteenth is neither a passing secular trend nor a partisan vehicle for social justice slogans; it is a solemn day of remembrance for the dignity of millions of Americans who were brutally commodified and dehumanized by slavery. Reducing a community’s celebration of liberation to an exercise in ideological “wokeism” reveals a serious lack of imagination, empathy, and understanding of how the Church, Christ’s body, is called to bring all things before Him so that they may be transfigured by His love and mercy. How is it that members of the Church honor and celebrate various triumphs throughout European history and yet view Church celebrations to commemorate the survival and emancipation of African descendants with suspicion and dismissal? How is it that one commemoration is embraced as a mark of cultural and religious affinity and the other is seen as a dangerous political agitation? The distinction is a consequence of one’s own flawed perception as the truth behind any commemoration of human liberation testifies to the profound reality of our Lord’s deliverance.
Saint Silouan the Athonite provides us the ultimate refutation to this cold perspective. Saint Siouan’s life was defined by the radical directive: “Keep your mind in hell, and despair not”. The African Diaspora has historically lived within the structural and social hell of white supremacy, displacement, and systemic dehumanization. For the Church to stand in solidarity with those navigating that trauma on Juneteenth is not a “joke.” It is a profound imitation of Saint Silouan’s life and bears witness to the martyric salvation of Christ.
Saint Silouan taught that the primary indicator of the Holy Spirit’s presence is the love of one’s enemies. The Diaspora’s long journey has been one of striving to love, forgive, and heal even in the face of the oppressor. When the Apostolic Mission to the African Diaspora opens its doors to those outside the visible boundaries of the Church to offer a service based on the Akathist to the Merciful Savior, it is practicing the radical, expansive love that Saint Silouan championed. You cannot heal wounds by locking the hospital doors and shouting instructions through the windows on how the patient should bind their own wounds. You have to be in the midst of those in need, providing care and counsel without fear or hesitation. The Church is not an imperial administrative agency or a court of law; it is instead a spiritual hospital for the cleansing of the passions and the illumination of the nous.
As such, when canonical clergy engage in dialogue or prayer with groups seeking the fullness of the Orthodox Faith, the goal is not to endorse schism, but to encourage healing and reconciliation. The encounters occur within the clearly defined contexts where the integrity of the Church is preserved in fulfilling the Church’s universal work of mercy and reconciliation. It is through this therapeutic and pastoral approach that the Church is called to heal the wounds of division and estrangement with the medicine of theosis. To dismiss these delicate, gradual, and at times painful steps toward canonical reconciliation as a “joke” is to choose legalistic pharisaism over therapeutic pastoral care. The Juneteenth Ecumenical Prayer Service can only then be understood as part of a deliberate and historically rooted process of pastoral care.
Our dialogue with the American Orthodox Catholic Church did not appear overnight, but has matured over the past year after being built upon a reciprocal relationship of trust that has been nurtured for more than a decade. This effort was not undertaken on a whim, but was initiated by Fr. Moses Berry of blessed memory and continues to this day as a testament of the Church’s unrelenting desire to reconcile all people, across time, space, and circumstance, to Christ.
This work was also inherited directly from Fr. Moses Berry of blessed memory, who entrusted me with the sacred task of helping complete this community’s journey into the Orthodox Church. As a visionary pioneer of African American Orthodoxy, Fr. Moses understood that the Orthodox Church in America (OCA) was not the ideal jurisdiction for the American Orthodox Catholic Church to enter. He recognized that this community’s pastoral, cultural, and therapeutic needs required a more carefully tailored missional home.
Fulfilling Fr. Moses’s dying wish by guiding this community toward canonical fullness is not an ecclesiastical game. It is the patient and faithful realization of a prophetic legacy.
It is by embracing this understanding of the Church that see we see how the Church constantly seeks to widen the “missional tent” and “deepen our unity”. Some may claim that such efforts only foment confusion among the faithful who are “left to wonder” about ulterior motives or ideological schemes. In reality, it is the deep cynicism and suspicion against the application of the Church’s therapeutic and reconciliatory charisms to historic trauma and modern circumstance that is truly perplexing and a cause for collective reflection. Here we see an underlying fear of enthusiasm, of cultural expression, and of the dynamic movement required to reach communities of outside of the normative cultural and ethnic milieu of Eastern Orthodox. A protective, fortress-like mentality is killing the missionary spirit of Orthodoxy in America. We are in grave need for an uncompromised, fiery revival rooted in Tradition, repentance, and a living relationship with Our Lord and His Church through the grace of the Holy Spirit.
The Mission to African Diaspora possesses a vibrant, Spirit-filled, and resilient history. This missional effort does not seek to suppress the Church’s evangelical fervor; it seeks to fulfill it. By stepping out into a public and open sanctuary of the Church on Juneteenth, the Mission, for the third year in a row and with the blessing of His Eminence Archbishop Elpidophoros of America, honors the Scriptural mandate of freedom, awakens the dormant missionary zeal within the Church, and fulfills the mandate of the Gospel to actively save souls rather than merely preserve the trappings of holiness. In recognition of Juneteenth, His Eminence Archbishop Elpidophoros of America issued the following message: “Those who follow Christ must understand that faith without justice is a contradiction, and that silence in the face of inequality is not an option.”
Pastoral discernment does not mean avoiding complex, messy, or uncomfortable situations out of fear of social (media) backlash in the public square. True pastoral discernment as demonstrated by Our Lord means going into the hedges and highways to invite the brokenhearted into the feast as Christ said: “Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.” (Luke 15:6)
The Apostolic Mission to the African Diaspora in an urgent and holy endeavor of the Church. Responding to its efforts with cynicism is a tragic misreading of the Gospel. By standing firmly on the trauma-bearing solidarity of Saint Silouan the Athonite, this mission bears witness to the living, breathing, uncompromised mission of Christ’s Church, throwing its doors to heal the deepest wounds of history. As such, it is in embracing the great commission of Christ to His disciples, to preach the Gospel of the Resurrected Lord and receive all into His Body, the Church, that we fulfill our calling to be united to Him by our love for Him and our neighbor. Truly then, we may be worthy to be called servants of God.
Rev. Fr. Samuel Davis is the Associate Priest at Saint Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church and National Shrine, as well as the Director of the Mission to the African Diaspora in the Americas, West Indies, and Caribbean.
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