Template talk:OrthodoxyinAfrica

Some style comments: I thought I would interject some thoughts before this template's links get all filled out and a lot of adjustment may have to be made.

Since all of Africa is under the Alexandrian patriarchate, it would seem that instead of dedicating articles to particular countries, perhaps diocesan or regional articles would work better. The "Orthodoxy in ______" series of articles is for areas under multiple, overlapping jurisdictions, essentially meant to provide some sort of topical cohesion to regions where there is no single church.

Additionally, as per the Style Manual, articles named exclusively after places should be only for places whose primary significance in the world is religious.

On a related note, I think perhaps the articles Orthodoxy in Africa and Orthodoxy in Sub-Saharan Africa ought to be renamed as "History of..."

What do you think? —Fr. Andrew ^talk contribs 04:35, March 15, 2007 (PDT)

I agree that not every country should necessarily get its own article, if for no other reason then that some countries have no presence of Orthodoxy at all (yet!) I had in mind the "List of parishes of_____" model when composing the Malawi and Angola articles (where, for example, even North Dakota with 3-4 parishes, gets a stand-alone article,) but it would probably work just as well with, say, a "Metropolis of Zimbabwe" article to which all relevant countries point.

On the other hand, that would not work for places like Ethiopia, where the majority population is non-Chalcedonian and not, properly speaking, under the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Alexandria. (An article about the Archdiocese of Axum really wouldn't tell the whole story.) Personally, I think that maybe the Style Manual provision should be rethought, but I'm sure that wiser heads than mine had a reason for crafting it that way.

Agreed that the Orthodoxy in Africa and Orthodoxy in Sub-Saharan Africa are primarily about history, but I think covering history at that high a level is problematic. The Sub-Saharan article is only about East Africa (Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania.) The history in each country is radically different. The growth of the church in Ghana, for example, has almost nothing to do with the growth of the church in Congo. To do this properly, there really needs to be an article at the country/diocesan level.

What do others think? Paterakis 08:43, March 15, 2007 (PDT)