Orthodox books to Ethiopian students

An excellent opportunity has emerged to help seminary teachers and students in the Ethiopian Orthodox Church who are desperate for books by Eastern Orthodox writers. They can’t get them in Ethiopia!

St. Vladimir’s Seminary President Fr. Chad Hatfield is working with me to accomplish this task. Ethiopian Archbishop Melchizedek asked me to reach out to my network to obtain these books for his students, books by writers like Schmemann, Lossky, Meyendorff, etc. (See this list of 10 suggested books.) The archbishop was referred to me by Girma Batu, dean of the largest Orthodox seminary in Ethiopia, who was a key figure in my 2019 book on Ethiopian Christianity, Unknown Empire.

Ethiopians cannot get these books! Amazon is banned in Ethiopia, and shipping one book there costs twice as much as the book itself. We will solve this by sending a box of books with various people flying back to Ethiopia. That costs about a dollar per book. I am setting a goal to send them at least 100 books.

Fr. Chad Hatfield is working on sending 25 books from St. Vladimir's for the seminarians in Ethiopia. (Of note, the late, and beloved, Patriarch Abune Paulos, is an alumnus of St. Vlad’s.)

Can you help us? I am asking you to prayerfully consider following St. Vladimir's lead and committing to at least one or more books. You can mail a book you already own to this address. (Use USPS “Media Mail” for cheapest rate.) Or you can send $20 for us to purchase a book and we will send it on a plane overseas to students very eager to study Eastern Orthodox theological books.

Thank you in advance for considering this unique opportunity.

Dean W. Arnold (The Reader Gabriel)

Choir Director, St. Tikhon Mission OCA

Chattanooga, Tennessee