This final episode of the season, recorded on 5 November 2024, is available in full for subscribers to our Patreon channel. This is an edited version of the original episode which discusses more of the varied responses to the response we drafted to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Please do check out www.archdiocese.ca/orthodox-church-and-indigenous-peoples-canada to see what is now being shared on our behalf.

We'd like to also acknowledge that Murray Sinclair passed into eternal rest the day before this episode was recorded, with many thanks to this great man for the work that he did towards Truth and Reconciliation. Clearly, the work is ongoing, and needs to be ongoing!

Fr Yuri presents a first draft of a statement to post on the Canadian Orthodox Church's website that will serve as a (somewhat informal) response to the TRC, that he prepared based on the previous episodes of this season. Paragraph by paragraph, Fr Geoffrey offers suggestions on how to strengthen the message, making sure that the theology is clear, and yet also accessible to both Orthodox and non-Orthodox ears. It's a unique opportunity to hear them work through the practical part of writing, a mini crash course if you will, with some worthwhile tangents thrown in for good measure (for example, correcting the "othering" of Indigenous peoples that can happen in hymnology, and the root meaning of dialogue).

It is beautiful and fitting that this episode was recorded on the anniversary of the first contact of the Russian mission in Alaska with Indigenous peoples, and published on the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. Glory to God!

In this week's episode, we focus our discussion on the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Parsing out each word in that title - what does it mean to be a "person", and "indigenous", what are "rights" - there is plenty to talk about, and we draw on ideas from Fr Thomas Hopko, Martin Luther King and Tom Holland (the historian, not the Spiderman actor!), among others.

Fr Geoffrey and Fr Yuri discuss why tensions might exist for some Orthodox when considering these terms, and also the way that our Orthodox perspective upholds and strengthens this language. We can think of rights as a gift of Christianity to the world, not an enemy theology. Instead of questioning the rights themselves, we must re-tether them to the theological tradition that gave rise to them. Responding in this way gives us a framework for discussion, a framework that is connected back to our wider story of God, and enables us to enact the Kingdom here and now.