A Byzantine African monk in a Connecticut Yankee's Court?
In Cockaponset State Forest, southern Connecticut, near the town of Guilford is North America's oldest Christian Church. According to the article Connecticuts 5th Century church by John Gallager, "Recent epigraphic evidence found here suggests that it is 1500 years old, and linked to a voyage of Christian Byzantine monks who fled from North Africa during the 5th Century, in the wake of the Vandal invasions."
This would indicate that Alexandria and not Moscow has canonical claim to the America's. This certainly need to be pursued further especially considering the OCA's claim on this territory. It could throw a monkey wrench in the works.
Read the article and see pictures at this link.
http://orthodoxinfo.com/general/connecticuts-5th-century-church.pdf
Saturday, June 20, 2009
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4 comments:
Interesting. Not sure it is relevant to the issue of American unity though. Let's pray that the Lord will show us how to bring forth unity here in America.
My bishop showed me this article; he believes it and wants to include it in a documentary he's filming (he went to film school). It seems intriguing, but I think before everyone gets excited we should wait to see what other archeologists think about this claim. In my internet search this is the ONLY reference to the finding; something this big ought to have received more attention, if it's for real. The magazine it was published in, "Ancient American", is known for its controversial and sometimes crackpot authors (stories about Atlantis, Phoenicians in America etc); it's not a respected journal in its field, with its generally uncritical publication of any theories supporting pre-Columbian contact with America. While I don't want to dismiss this finding out of hand, I am rather skeptical. The credentials of the author John Gallager are less than impressive: I can't find anything to confirm even the existence of an American Institute of Archaeological Research in NH; he only has a BA in history, and 'historical detective' is a pretty vague job description. To be honest, he sounds like a complete amateur. The pictures of the 'fonts' do not look much like fonts to me; most of the 'cupules' look nothing like Greek to me. Gallager provides no references or evidence to support his interpretations: there is not a single citation of others' research (although he claims he got 'expert' advice). All this sounds too much like Barry Fells and his 'Ogham' inscriptions in West Virginia, which have been thoroughly debunked. In short, to use this article to support some spurious claim of Alexandria to American jurisdiction is ridiculous.
If it was 5th Century, then it means they were Catholic! This is great!
Incorrect. The Great Schism did not occur until 1054 which would be the 11th century.
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