Since making our first official declaration signed by the bishops of each jurisdiction back in 2009, the Standing Conference of Oriental Orthodox Churches has encouraged individual parishes to reach out to us for guidance and support in creating opportunities that bring our faithful and communities together.
We are pleased to say that many parishes have taken advantage of that counsel over the years, reaching out to SCOOCh for help with organizing regional concelebrations of the Divine Liturgy, vespers services, youth conferences, and other events.
Recently, one such parish was St. Gabriel’s Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church of New Jersey, which organized the E.M.E.R.G.E. Empowering Orthodox Women for Service Conference. The Standing Conference of Oriental Orthodox Churches was happy to offer guidance and assistance to St. Gabriel’s parish in organizing this truly blessed event, highlights of which – including interviews with participants – can be viewed in this official video by the Mahibere Kidusan organization of the Ethiopian Church.
If this conference was a blessing to you – whether you attended in person or viewed it online – and you would like to support more events like this in the future, it is not too late to donate to St. Gabriel’s parish for their fundraiser, which concludes at the end of this month.