viernes, 20 de mayo de 2011

Conversión de Bob Marley en la Iglesia Ortodoxa.Padre Fernando Rivas(Elias)

El bautismo del legendario Bob Marley poco antes de morir
                                                            Padre Fernando Rivas (Elias)

Extraido de: http://temasteologicosyfilosoficos.blogspot.com/2011/05/el-bautismo-del-legendario-bob-marley.html (Interesante artículo sobre la conversión de este gran luchador y musico jamaiquino en la Iglesia Ortodoxa Etiope)

Bob Marley (6 de febrero 1945 11 de mayo 1981), nacido Robert Nesta Marley que más tarde se cambió por funcionarios el pasaporte a Robert Nesta Marley, fue un cantante jamaiquino, compositor, guitarrista, y activista.

Bob Marley, "el rey del reggae", tenía sólo 36 años cuando un cáncer acabó con su vida . Durante casi toda ella, el famoso cantante jamaicano fue un devoto de la doctrina rastafari, que considera al emperador etíope Haile I Selassie (1892-1975) como la encarnación de Dios.

En1966 el emperador etíope visitó Jamaica y conoció la religión rastafari y como consecuencia envió misioneros de la Iglesia Ortodoxa Etíope, la oficial de su país, a predicar a la isla: africanidad, la herencia de Salomón y el Antiguo Testamento eran su patrimonio. El arzobispo Abuna Yesehaq invirtió muchos años en hacer amistades en la isla caribeña, entre ellas Bob Marley. Esa amistad fue lo que condujo al bautismo del músico pocos meses antes de su muerte.

"Cuando se bautizó, se abrazó a su familia y lloró; todos lloraron juntos durante media hora", explicaría el arzobispo en una entrevista de 1984 en el Jamaica´s Sunday Gleaner.

Por un lado, Marley sabía entonces que estaba enfermo, aunque continuaba con sus giras y viajes. Por otro lado, su vida no había sido ejemplar en el aspecto familiar, ni siquiera para el estándar rastafari: demasiados hijos con demasiadas mujeres distintas, aunque solo estuvo casado con una. Abrazar el cristianismo, asumir a Jesucristo como único y verdadero Salvador, era visto como una traición por muchos "rastamen", algo que enfureció a muchos de sus amigos. Pero él renunció a todo para acercarse a Dios. En su álbum "Uprising", de mayo de 1980, un año antes de morir, se encuentra su Redemption Song: "my hand was made strong / By the ´and of the Almighty" ("mi mano fue fortalecida / por la mano del Todopoderoso").

"Bob no era una estrella de rock mundano. Probablemente es más adecuado decir que era un músico religioso que había triunfado en el mundo secular", escribe Christopher Stefanick, director del Ministerio para Jóvenes de la archidiócesis de Denver. En su canción "One Love", que la BBC consideraría "la canción del milenio", canta: "dad gracias y alabanza al Señor y me sentiré bien". Y en "Forever Loving Jah" ("Jah" es Yavé, Dios, en la cultura rastafari) "Marley claramente reza, no es una mera actuación; la alabanza a Jah está en toda su obra", insiste Stefanick.

"Los rastas creen que el cannabis quita las barreras mentales para lograr un pensamiento iluminado, y basan su peinado en la ley del Antiguo Testamento, pero aunque estas doctrinas sean cuestionables, está claro que una fe sincera en Dios y el servicio a su gente fueron las fuerzas que condujeron la vida y la música de Bob", añade Stefanick en un artículo del "Denver Catholic Register".

Usó la música para predicar la paz, en la violenta Jamaica y en los países que se independizaban en África. En 1976 le tirotearon, pero dos días después, aún con dos heridas de bala serias, quiso actuar porque "los que quieren hacer este mundo peor no se toman un día libre, ¿cómo voy a hacerlo yo?"

El arzobispo etíope Yesehaq se ganó el cariño de Bob y muchos rastas mediante el testimonio y la convivencia. Cuando la policía detenía rastas y les rapaba la cabeza el arzobispo acudió al comisario y logró que detuviera la persecución. Bob hizo donativos a su incipiente parroquia y hasta le dio una de las casas en las que vivió Yesehaq durante años.

"Bob lloró cuando el arzobispo le invitó a convertirse y dar su corazón a Cristo. Decidió aceptar el bautismo", explica el actual párroco de los ortodoxos de rito copto de la isla, el padre Lloyd Malakot. "Muchos rastamen le consideraban un profeta, y yo, como líder de la Iglesia en Jamaica, vi que era un profeta por derecho propio. Su música estaba inspirada por Dios. Era una expresión de su creencia en que Dios estaba con él. Inspiró a muchos a entrar en la iglesia, incluso hoy. Hace cinco meses bauticé un lider espiritual rasta con sus grandes trenzas o Dreadlocks que entró en la iglesia con su esposa", afirma Lloyd Malakot.

Su muerte fue dolorosa, y rezaba al final para reunirse con Dios. "Jesús, llévame", era lo que su viuda le oyó decir. Las últimas palabras a su hijo Ziggy Marley fueron: "el dinero no puede comprar la vida". Su funeral mezcló elementos rastafari y la lirturgia ortodoxa etíope.

miércoles, 18 de mayo de 2011

Inscripciones abiertas.Escuela de Artes.

El Centro Cultural San Nicolás de Mira,Asociación Civil,abre inscripciones en las siguientes disciplinas.
Música: Canto Popular, lírico y contemporáneo,Canto Bizantino,Practica Coral,Iniciación musical, guitarra eléctrica y acústica.
Artes Plásticas: Iconografia Bizantina,Arte moderno,Iniciación a la pintura.
Espiritualidad Ortodoxa y Bizantina.Catecismo ortodoxo.

Responsables: Padre Fernando Rivas(Elías).Música.
Licenciada Karuz Gruber de Rivas.Artes Plásticas.

Interesados pueden llamar a los teléfonos: 0212-9251643 y 0416-4158102.

martes, 10 de mayo de 2011

Bob Marley Cristiano Ortodoxo.

Este interesante artículo puede ser visto en su totalidad por medio del link de este diario ortodoxo"Journey to orthodoxy" en internet: http://journeytoorthodoxy.com/2010/06/03/bob-marley-orthodox-christian/#axzz1076QprkN

Bob Marley: Orthodox Christian

Posted by admin on June 3, 2010 · 4 Comments
[Traductor]

Twenty four years on few know of his conversion to Christianity.

In May 1981, the world lost the man who had been described as the “first Third World superstar”. The Hon. Robert Nesta Marley O.M. died on 11th May 1981 in a Miami hospital after an 8 month battle with cancer. He was 36.

To the masses he was known as Bob Marley – the man who brought them reggae and Rastafarianism. His was the voice of classics like “No Woman No Cry” recorded live at the London Lyceum Ballroom in 1975.

However, what most people don’t know, and many try to cover up, is the fact that Bob Marley converted to Christianity in 1980. In fact on 4 November 1980 he was baptised and became a member of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. When he was buried under Orthodox rites on 21st May 1981 it was with his Bible and his Gibson guitar!

Bob Marley was born at Nine Miles, St Ann’s in Jamaica. His father was Norval Sinclair Marley, a 50 something Liverpool born captain in the British Army. His mother, an 18 year old teenager, was Cedella Booker. His birthday is thought to be 6th February 1945 although no birth certificate has ever been found.

His mum, and his grandparents, read the Bible at home and worshipped in a Christian church. Bob Marley strayed away from that upbringing as a teenager and as an adult embraced Rastafarianism. He had married Alpharita Anderson in February 1966 and while he was away in the USA earning some money to pursue his musical career she had converted to Rastafarianism following the visit to Jamaica of Haile Selassie I, Emperor of Ethiopia. Rastafarians worshipped Selassie as the Messiah and Saviour. Bob followed suite and spent his career expousing the beliefs of Rastafari in songs like “One Love“, “Jammin‘” and “Exodus“.

The worship of Selassie is a little ironic as Selassie was a Christian and in the 1970′s personally commissioned Archbishop Abuna Yesehaq to go to Jamaica to start a church that worshipped Christ and not himself in the hope that Jamaicans would follow the true Christ. Yesehaq became the head of the Kingston chapter of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church.

The Archbishop (pictured left), interviewed by Barbara Blake Hannah for Gleaner’s Sunday Magazine (November 25 1984), told how Bob Marley had come to his church for some time. When he had expressed a desire to be baptised, people close to him who controlled him and who were aligned to a different aspect of Rastafari prevented him from going ahead.

The Jamaicans.com website says that Bob remained outside the church for several years after Rita and the children converted in 1972. Bob was under the spiritual guidance of the archbishop but was baptised just a year before his death, after 3 aborted attempts to convert in Kingston. He backed out each time, says the Archbishop, after being threatened by other rastas. Marley was finally baptised in the Ethiopian Church in New York where less resentments were less inflamed. The Archbishop christened him Berhane Selassie – “light of the Trinity”.

Yesehaq told Barbara Blake Hannah:

“I remember once while I was conducting the Mass, I looked at Bob and tears were streaming down his face. Many people think he was baptised because he knew he was dying, but that is not so… he did it when there was no longer any pressure on him, and when he was baptised, he hugged his family and wept. They all wept together for about an hour.”

Yesehaq is adamant Bob’s conversion was genuine. It is clear that Marley denounced the belief of Selassie as God at his conversion and baptism into the Ethiopian Orthodox Church and accepted their Christian belief system, otherwise his funeral would never have taken place in the church. The Ethiopian Orthodox Church does not allow any ceremonies including funerals for non-members.

Yesehaq’s testimony is supported by Judy Mowatt, one of Marley’s backing singers the “I-Threes”, which also included his wife Rita Marley and Marcia Griffiths. Judy (pictured left) sang with Bob for 6 years and told British journalist and broadcaster Mike Rimmer in an interview that was published in Christian Herald in March 2005 of a phonecall she received from Rita when Bob was dying.

“She said to me that Bob was in such excruciating pain and he stretched out his hand and said ‘Jesus take me’. I was wondering to myself ‘Why is it that Bob said ‘Jesus’ and not ‘Selassie’? But I never said it to anyone. Then I met a friend whose sister is a Christian and was a nurse at the hospital where Bob was treated and she had led him to the Lord Jesus Christ. So when Rita saw him saying ‘Jesus take me’, I now know it was after he had received the Lord Jesus Christ in his life.”

Judy Mowatt became a Pentecostal Christian herself in the mid 90s and is now a gospel reggae performer. Mike Rimmer asked her why the story of Bob Marley’s conversion was not more widely known:

“If people knew, they would be drawn to Jesus Christ. Nobody wants to promote that in Jamaica. I said it on a popular television programme over there and a Rasta man met me and asked me why did I have to say that? I told him it was because it’s the truth! But he never wanted me to reveal that and I think that nobody wants it to be revealed because so many people would be drawn to Jesus.”

Bob Marley’s official website doesn’t even mention his conversion, although a number of fan sites do.

Fans celebrated what would have been Bob Marley’s 60th birthday this February amidst rumours his body was to be exhumed and taken to Ethiopia. His widow Rita has strongly denied the rumours.

Three years after his death the “Legend” compilation album of Bob’s greatest hits was released, spending 12 weeks in total at No 1 in the UK album charts and selling over 15 million copies in the UK and USA. Twenty four years on the legend lives on. Bob Marley found a “Redemption Song” that “Satisfied his Soul”. The question is will the “People Get Ready” for their “Exodus”!

Bob Marley knew Jesus – do you?

Read more: Bob Marley: Orthodox Christian : Journey To Orthodoxy | The Orthodox Christian 'Welcome Home' Network for Converts