NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC: Orthodox Renegades Broke from the RC?

Fr John Shaw, a Russian Orthodox priest in Milwaukee, writes:

The other day, I received a colorful ad packet from the National Geographic Magazine. I only took a good look at it today.

“Introducing GEOGRAPHY OF RELIGION: Where God Lives, Where Pilgrims Walk”.

“Christianity: Journey from Pasture to Imperial City.”

” ‘For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life’.”

“During his lifetime, Jesus ventured no more than 25 miles from his birthplace. Yet his teachings and example encircled the globe, led to the establishment of the church in Rome, and created a faith practiced today by some 950 million believers, making it the world’s largest religion.”

“How, then, did the seat of Christendom move from the pastoral sheep-grazed slopes of the fertile Middle East to the imperial city of Rome? What is the history of the Vatican CIty, the world’s smallest state and official seat of the Catholic Church?”

“What events led a breakaway set of believers to form the Eastern Orthodox Church?”

‘Moving farther inside the pages of GEOGRAPHY OF RELIGION, you’ll stand on the banks of the River Jordan, note its remarkably ordinary character, and come to appreciate the extraordinary events and personalities that gave it meaning as a holy place. Become mesmerized before shrines in the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, built above a cave that contained the manger where Jesus was born. And you’ll behold the magnificence of Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris with its 176 storytelling stained glass windows and 2,000 stone figures.”

JRS: Note that I have quoted their entire passage about Christianity, as it appears in the mailing (there is no mention of Protestantism in it).

The letter is signed by one “Nina Hoffman, Executive Vice President”.

The reason I think the above is worthy of note, is that this is exactly the same misinformation about the Orthodox Church that most English-language books used to contain decades ago.

Mailings, and books, like those described above, *should* evoke a flood of Orthodox believers’ complaints to the editors.

Yet, instead of going to defend Orthodoxy against external, non-Orthodox ignorance and misrepresentation, most of our “apologetic efforts and energy” have to be diverted elsewhere, due to Orthodox attacking Orthodox.

Taken from the Orthodox List.