Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Eastern Orthodoxy

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WikiProject Eastern Orthodoxy This article is part of WikiProject Eastern Orthodoxy, an attempt to organize information in articles related to the Eastern Orthodox Church. If you would like to participate, you can edit the article attached to this page, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion.

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 WikiProject Eastern Orthodoxy
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  1. August 2006-March 2007

Contents

[edit] vote for Moses to become a featured article

Vote at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Moses so as too get Moses into a featured article Java7837 23:11, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Saint of the day

A proposal has been made on the talk page of the Portal:Saints for a possible daily update to at least some of the content of the portal. I think that this is a fine idea, but also think that I would want input from others as to which content to feature on which date. I have therefore set up a page for such discussion at Portal:Saints/Saint of the day for interested parties to nominate content related to individual saints they would like to see featured on the portal, and one which particular day, if one is preferred. I am here thinking particularly about possibly including individuals on the days of their feasts, if they have one. Any member of this project is more than welcome to make any nominations they see fit. Please feel free to make any specific suggestions there. John Carter 20:14, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] History of Christianity

There has been a discussion on Talk:History of Christianity about whether or not that article adequately covers Eastern Orthodoxy (obvious answer: it doesn't begin to do an adequate job) and how we can fix it. Your comments on the Talk Page and contributions to the article would be much appreciated. --Richard 18:30, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Liturgical latinisation

Christ is Risen!

Dear folk, I've just gone and started Liturgical latinisation. It should heat up things somewhat. Would fellow Easterns like to help fill out that one and make links to it? InfernoXV 08:30, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Unattributed imports from OrthodoxWiki: Please help!

A number of imports of OrthodoxWiki articles have been made recently, especially by LoveMonkey, including at least one template. Unfortunately, these imports are not being properly attributed. It is against the terms of the OrthodoxWiki license to copy OrthodoxWiki content without attributing it as the source. Please help by either editing these articles to attribute them properly or (admins!) warning importers who refuse to cite their sources. Thank you! 72.28.30.34 18:33, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Some examples of the articles or templates that you are talking about would make it easier to respond to your note. Could you please provide some? -- Pastordavid 18:42, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
Template:Orthodoxyinamerica and pretty much everything linked from it, along with most of the new articles created by LoveMonkey today (April 24). 72.28.30.34 18:45, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

It actually occurs to me that the dual-licensing scheme of OrthodoxWiki might preclude importation into Wikipedia, since Wikipedia's GFDL license is not compatible with one of the licenses under which OrthodoxWiki material is released. (If so, all these articles will have to be deleted or completely reworked so as not to resemble their source.) (See: Talk:John_Climacus#Copyvio_and_OrthodoxWiki.) Do any of our licensing experts wish to comment? 72.28.30.34 18:57, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes I would too like to know since I imported them as part of the other articles I am working on i.e. History of the Eastern Orthodox church for example. Also who gets the copyright priviledges is it the church? Which one? LoveMonkey 19:06, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

The copyrights are owned by the authors of the articles, just as for articles on any other subject. TCC (talk) (contribs) 20:05, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Here's the link I know and have been referring to.. http://orthodoxwiki.org/OrthodoxWiki:Copyrights#Exporting_OrthodoxWiki_material It only states that the articles have to given Orthodox Wiki credit. LoveMonkey 19:25, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

It was just made explicit on that site that importing to Wikipedia violates OrthodoxWiki's dual licensing scheme. Unless it can be shown that the two licenses are compatible, the imported material will have to be deleted. (I was wrong in my earlier note on LoveMonkey's talk page regarding the question of commercial use.) 72.28.30.34 19:31, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
Since this has just now been made explicit, lets assume good faith. Lovemonkey, will you please remove the material that you copied from the Orthodox Wiki? I have no doubt that you thought you were in accord with copyright policies when you added the info, but it is now clear that it is not. Thank you. cross posted to user talk page -- Pastordavid 19:41, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

I am confused please clarify where it is clear that its any violation, where this is posted that there is a dual license issue with Orthodoxwiki and Wikipedia, other then this poster saying so. Also I posted a link from Orthodox wiki that stated that I could export. Where is there information stating A. That I can not (because the Orthodox wiki states that I can). B. Would someboby please goto Orthodox wiki and reword the page with the policy on exporting content? LoveMonkey 19:46, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, I thought you had seen in IP 72...'s post above that it has been changed, today, to state explicitly that their dual license is incompatible with exporting material from Orthodox wiki to Wikipedia. The copyright page of Orthodox wiki now says: "Note to Wikipedia editors: Because the terms of the Creative Commons license are not fully compatible with that of the GFDL that Wikipedia uses, exporting material from OrthodoxWiki to Wikipedia violates the terms of OrthodoxWiki's dual licensing scheme." I hope that that clears it up. -_Pastordavid 19:55, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
The other problem with importing material is that OrthodoxWiki used to use one of the CC-noncommercial licenses, and only changed to a free license after quite a bit of material had been written. There was a template provided so that authors could annotate their user pages stating they agreed to the relicensing (as was necessary, since each author owns his own contributions.) The problem is that even to validate their current licensing on every given article, you'd have to ensure that every contributor who still had material in the article used that template. If not, then at least part of the article is still licensed noncommercial-only, which is even more unacceptable to Wikipedia than the dual-licensing scheme. You'd have to identify that material and rewrite or remove it. It seems a lot less work to me just to write your own articles.
The anon user above misstated the case somewhat. The problem with importing from OrthodoxWiki isn't on their end, it's on Wikipedias. We don't use dual-licensing for article text, just the GFDL, and we can't have any of our text encumbered here. TCC (talk) (contribs) 20:05, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Gee guys it would have been nice if the website(s) reflected this. Since I was following the posted policies before I went and copied the articles. Also what can be done to alleviate this problem. Since I most definitely will not create and submit material to both material that even if I created it I'd be violating copyright by having it posted to both sites. I also think that people could be better exposed to Orthodoxy by having that information posted here on Wikipedia. LoveMonkey 20:22, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

What needs to be done is the material taken from the orthodox wiki needs to be removed from WIkipedia. And yes, if you posted material to both sites, there would be a copyright violation. Simply put, as I understand it, Wikipedia's copyright (GFDL) allows a broad use - is actually what is known as copy-left or free use, anyone can use the material, as long as the source is cited. Other licenses (such as the creative copyright used by Orthox Wiki) does not allow such a broad usage. Bottom line, the two are not compatable, and the material from Orthodox wiki should be removed. -- Pastordavid 20:35, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
Hi All, as the founder and director of OrthodoxWiki, I hope I can shed some light on this. Basically, dual licensing gives people an option - they can either use material under the GFDL (which we put in exactly for compatibility with Wikipedia) or under the CC license most compatible with the GFDL (though not exactly). This means that importing OrthodoxWiki content into Wikipedia should follow the same basic rules as importing Wikipedia content into OrthodoxWiki. That is, the source of the article should be noted and a link to the original provided -- but that's it (taking the more liberal interpretation of the attribution requirement for the GFDL, which we endorse, based on the supposition that the edit history will be preserved on the other site). I should note also that the dual license scheme applies only where compatible -- to material submitted on OrthodoxWiki itself, not what was copied over, which remains under GFDL. We used to use a more stringent CC license, but dropped that awhile ago in favor of the basic attribution-share alike license. There are some issues with the GFDL which have been well covered elsewhere in Wikipedia discussions (e.g. that it requires the full text of the license to be included in the distribution -- which is fine for software, but adds an unnecessary hurdle for text - see [1] and Wikipedia:Multi-licensing) - that's why we went for the dual model. You can choose which one to use the content under -- it's all "copy-left" according to our intention and our license. Hope that helps and that it's not too confusing! Jschroe
Just checking if I got this right. If the "references" or whatever section of a wikipedia article includes a link to the OrthodoxWiki page it's copied from, and some wording to indicate that it was copied from there, it can be used, provided there are no materials on the OrthodoxWiki page which are copyrighted or whatever by some other outside source? (This is the sentence that never ends...) John Carter 21:48, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
John, YES - this is the same policy we have when importing Wikipedia content. We just put a link to Wikipedia article (hopefully to the right version) and make sure it's somehow referenced as a source (e.g. under a header which says "Sources"). Copy away! :-) It's all GFDL. Jschroe / OWiki: FrJohn.

[edit] Random Section Break: Copyright Issues

I have been tagging these article for speedy deletion, based on the statement on the orthodox wiki copyright page and Csernica's note above. I hope that I have note been to hasty. If contributors have the option - does that not mean that it would have to be confirmed that every editor with material still in the article has chosen toparticipate in GFDL? And if they haven't, then the material that they added is not available to WIkipedia? I'll hold off on speedy deletion tags till we sort this out, and ask for forgiveness if I have been overly hasty. -- Pastordavid 21:51, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm of the opinion that, whatever the intention of OrthodoxWiki's founder, the legal reality of the dual-license release there makes exporting materials from there to here not possible. The question of the adjustment in licenses that was made there a while back was in the context of material taken from Wikipedia to OrthodoxWiki, not the other way 'round. I think we may need to call in Wikipedia licensing experts on this question. 71.241.70.9 21:56, 24 April 2007 (UTC) (Another OrthodoxWiki admin)
I was just about to note that much of the material in question (including the "Orthodoxy in America" template, unless I'm mistaken) originated with you; and that you are the Orthodox wiki sysop who added the explicit note about not using Orthodox WIki material on wikipedia. FYI, I have put in a request for help from editor assistance. -- Pastordavid 22:01, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
That is indeed me, which is one of the reasons I noticed this conversation. Anyway, it seems that my interpretation of the dual licensing may well have been wrong, that it's an "either/or," not "both/and." Some of our site's documentation was ambiguous in that regard, but it's now being made consistently "either/or," which means that most material from OrthodoxWiki may be exported from there to here, so long as an explicit link back to there is added here. (As noted below, there are some special cases.)
Let me also take this opportunity to plug OrthodoxWiki! We could use experienced WP editors to help us there! We're at 2,156 articles and growing. We now have 5 non-English versions, too. 71.241.70.9 22:17, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
LOL!! Poacher :) I'd love to help out but 1) I'm not Christian and 2) I'm already spending too much time here :) Good luck with the project, though - Alison☺ 22:26, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
Neutral POV person here :) I note that a lot of OrthoWiki's pages are of varying licensing and there seems to be no sitewide agreement, suggesting each page may carry its own license, or be unknown at best. For example, The Theology of Giving is explicitly marked, "Copyright © January 1991 by Fr. Dmitri Cozby. All Rights Reserved. Posted with Permission." - that is definitely not an open license and thus would be unsuitable for importation into WP - Alison☺ 22:06, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
It looks that way to me too. While their copyright page does specify reuse under GFDL is acceptable, and they specifically authorize it for Wikipedia (see [2]), it appears they also accept some "by permission" material and other licenses. It would have to be evaluated on a case by case basis. However, material that is licensed under their dual-licensing scheme would be acceptable, as one of the possible licenses is the GFDL. Under a multi-licensing scheme, reusers need only accept one license, not all of them. Therefore, if content is under a multi-licensing scheme which includes the GFDL as a choice, we may reuse, provided that we attribute and link back to the source for it. Seraphimblade Talk to me 22:11, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
Yes, I agree. The sitewide lic is a little unclear and, to be safe, I'd look at it on a case-by-case version. Note that importing it into WP automatically implies version forking and redistribution - Alison☺ 22:28, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
It appears that it has to be significantly selective. That is, only those users who transclude Template:Acceptrevised onto their user page agree to retroactively dual-license their contributions. Otherwise, any article on or after 2005-11-22[3] are dual-licensed. --Iamunknown 01:14, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
Just a note on this -- we do have some content that's clearly marked as being under a different license. This especially applies to images, but there are a very few articles too. (And we are in the process of moving those to another site.) If something isn't clearly marked with another license, it's safe to assume it's released under the GFDL. In 2005 we adopted another, more liberal CC license for broader compatibility, but even content that predates this is GFDL. Hope that helps! Jschroe 03:36, 25 April 2007 (UTC) (OrthodoxWiki BDFL).
My reading of http://orthodoxwiki.org/OrthodoxWiki:Copyrights is that, prior to November 22, 2005, content submitted to OrthodoxWiki was licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0. Am I mis-reading it or is it a discrepancy in the page? --Iamunknown 04:55, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
I agree with Iamunknown's reading. Prior to 11/22/05, the contributions were licensed under by-nc-sa2.0, which is incompatible with Wikipedia. Users who transclude the template agree to reissue their contributions under the new license. I think we can safely use only (1) articles created after 11/22/05, (2) articles created before that date for which every contributor before that date has at some point stated their will to reissue, and (3) articles for which (2) does not hold, if we revert to a version before any non-cooperating editors edited the article. Mangojuicetalk 11:57, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
Hi MangoJuice, You're right - I just looked through the history. I had forgotten that we didn't use the GFDL at the beginning (prior to 11/22/05), which was a mistake on my part. Most of our content has been developed after that, and the most prolific editors have all explicitly relicensed their content before that. However, you are right to point out that there may be some technical issue here. Howabout this, if anyone wants to use older content that's not explicitly relicensed, they are free to contact me (just leave a note on my OrthodoxWiki User Page and I will try to track down the original authors and ask them to relicense their content. I ask for all your indulgence here... it took me awhile to get up to speed on all of these copyright matters, but I think we're doing much better now. Basically, I think you can presume our good will - we want to enable this to happen. Jschroe

[edit] Clean-up needed

Alright - so it appears that I was overly hasty in adding speedy deletion tags. I am very sorry. Unfortunately, there is now a mess to be cleaned up. Both I and User:Andrew c tagged a bunch of these articles for speedy deletion. I would think that an admin would need to remove the tags. Those that I tagged are listed on the talk page of User:LoveMonkey. Those that Andrew C tagged are in his contributions page. Would an admin please help out here? Thanks, and I again, I apologize for my zeal in trying to clear up what I thought were copy-right violations. -- Pastordavid 22:23, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Good since Andrew c in the mist of his wikistalking me was quick go get these contributions deleted without even getting to the bottom of it then he should get to remove the delete tags. And thank you Father J the more info, the better- God Bless you. LoveMonkey 22:59, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Feel free to list any that were already deleted for Deletion review, indicating why you think they were wrongly deleted. John Carter 00:11, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
Ok, I'm glad to have found this discussion. I will go ahead and revert those speedy deletion taggings, Pastordavid & Andrew C. I will use Rollback, but please take no offense. The speedies are, after all, invalid because thanks to OrthodoxWiki's copyright policy, there is an implicit claim of permission. Let's figure this out and move forward carefully. I'm adding this page to my watchlist so we can work through this. Mangojuicetalk 01:23, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
Here is the series of events from my perspective. I saw a new template was added to an article that was on my watchlist. I thought it was strange that there were redlinks on a template, included redlinked categories, so I did some research and found that the content came from OrthodoxWiki (along with a large handful of new articles) and thought nothing of it. A few hours passed and I saw that Pastordavid had marked a few of the new articles for speedy deletion based on copyvio. I thought, this content came from a wiki, most likely its free for us to use. So I did some research into this and read the copyright page on OrthodoxWiki that said specifically that it was a direct violation to copy content from there to Wikipedia. I saw the ongoing discussion at LoveMonkey's talk page and figured (assumed) that the anon editor was an OrthodoxWiki sysop who disapproved of LoveMonkey's copying and changed the policy accordingly. At this point, taking Pastordavid's initiative, and following the wishes of what was then the copyright policy of OrthodoxWiki, I marked all of the articles from the template that were copied from OrthodoxWiki for deletion, because, at the time, to the best of my knowledge they WERE a copyright violation, and I was not the only editor to think this. I posted my rationale to LoveMonkey, apologized and said some sympathetic words. (also, in the course of doing this, I found a few Wikipedia articles that already existed on articles recently created). Anyway, I step away from the computer for a few hours to come back to a very uncivil, hostile message from LoveMonkey on my user talk (some of which has come through on this page), and I discover this discussion here with the new info from Jschroe. After getting the full story, I would have personally reverted my tags if I was at the computer, but thank you Mango for getting that clear.
I still have some outstanding concerns. Copying and pasting information from free sources isn't always a simple matter. I know, because in the past I have helped out with the 1911 Catholic Encyclopedia project. We couldn't just copy and paste text straight from the Catholic Encyclopedia. We had to add mark up and formatting, we had to watch out for archaic language, and we had to especially watch out for NPOV concerns because the Catholic Encyclopedia was written from an obvious POV. I'm concerned over simple copy and paste jobs from OrthodoxWiki because the text may not be written in a tone, style, or POV that is appropriate for Wikipedia, and that a large number of redlinks (especially redlinked categories) are being introduced. And I simply ask that LoveMonkey, and anyone else involved in this project, please take care to comb through every article and make sure its up to wikipedia standards. For obvious reasons we can't have List of American bishops if it is simply a list of Orthodox Bishops. The options would be to rename to List of Orthodox American bishops or something similar or include Catholic, Anglican, etc bishops on the list. I'm also concerned about the redlinked categories. I'll start going through the articles and see what I can do, but this is stuff that I feel should be done before the article goes live (I'd rather be working on researching Biblical canon and Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act). Sloppy copy and paste jobs creates work for editors. Maybe we could start a working group that could actively working on converting articles a couple at a time?-Andrew c 02:16, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

And here's my perspective I followed the posted instructions on Orthodox wiki imported articles to add to the recent articles I have been working on about the Orthodox church [4]. Father ASDamick adds a note to my talk page under an IP address that first says I have to source tag the articles [5] no prob, I go to it get it done, then Father ASDamick under an IP address rather then his name states dual license prohibits exporting from orthodox wiki to wikipedia [6]. Then all of the articles show up for speedy delete. Funny but guess who shows up but-Andrew c who just happened to caught all this and decides to jump right in and again have a bunch of my articles put up for deletion. This after the blanket deletes and revert warring on articles like gospel of john (recently) and p52. Now in the middle of all this blood in the water and sharks and the like Father John or Jschroe posted that the instructions as they were originally before Father ASDamick [7]changed it to say no exporting and now because Father John changed it back to say you can export [8]. LoveMonkey 03:13, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Sorry for the confusion here. Copyright issues can be confusing. I think we can presume everyone's good will here, and I personally am happy that OrthodoxWiki might have something to contribute back to Wikipedia (after we've borrowed so much, especially at first). I can't keep away the speedy deletion sharks (hat-tip to the sharks, who were indeed very speedy!), but I can speak authoritatively for OrthodoxWiki on this. I think Andrew c has some good points about style - our NPOV is largely compatible with Wikipedia's, but not 100% - our focus is a little bit different (hence the need for a separate site), and his concern about link integration is valid. Fr. Andrew added the part on our copyright page today which "said specifically that it was a direct violation to copy content from there to Wikipedia", but that was wrong (based on a misunderstanding of dual licensing) and was corrected very quickly. Our policy on this has not changed at all from the beginning of the site. In any case, thanks for your work and peace be to you! Jschroe 03:31, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
I don't think I can quite sort out everything that's attributed to me above by LoveMonkey, but not all of it is stuff I wrote. (It's dangerous, I think, to assume an IP address is some particular person, since most IPs are transferred or shared. My IPs all come from Verizon, for instance, who is a massive provider.) Anyway, I don't see that it matters too much, unless LoveMonkey somehow thinks that Andrew_c and I are the same person. I don't actively edit here any more (I've pretty much abandoned my account), but I do keep an eye on things, and I noticed the discussion about OrthodoxWiki, to be sure. That's why I undertook to clarify our copyright notice on the OrthodoxWiki site. With Fr. John's help, I did eventually get it right, though I misinterpreted it initially. 71.241.70.9 11:19, 25 April 2007 (UTC) (the aforementioned "Father ASDamick")
Before I go to bed, I wanted to post a list of the articles we're concerned with here, so people don't have to go digging them out of histories. Here it is:
Among the above, several of the articles should probably be moved, per the above, to reflect that they are about Eastern Orthodoxy: specifically, all the ones that start with "List of American". My take on what is written at the OrthodoxWiki copyrights page is that any material available under that dual license is indeed compatible with Wikipedia, as long as we attribute the source. My concern, though, is the change in copyright policy there: we should check the source articles and figure out what their status is with respect to the date the policy was changed. Any articles created after that date are certainly okay (at least, copyright-wise). That's a place to start. Mangojuicetalk 04:39, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
Checked the first four articles above. Ligonier Meeting is the only one that may have a problem. The other three were all created before November 22, 2005, but all editors who edited them before that date have a "reissue" notice on their userpage. The Ligonier meeting article has one edit that doesn't meet this, but I checked and it's extremely minor: that editor added ("sic") in one place. My view is that we probably don't need to worry about that, since it didn't really create the text we've been using.. but if people disagree, we can always take from the version just prior to that edit, and it would be okay. Mangojuicetalk 11:32, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
I've now checked over all the articles in the list above, and annotated the list. If we can get certain OrthodoxWiki users to agree to back-license their contributions, we can use many more, in particular, if we can get Wsk, Magda, MariaCrabtree, and Pistevo to agree, we can use many of the above articles. However, since they haven't yet agreed, I'm going to delete the articles where no version is compatible with the GFDL. Mangojuicetalk 14:45, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
I've just left notes on all of their talk pages - you might want to give them a couple days. I don't think they'd be adverse at all. Thanks, User:Jschroe 15:58, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
I have gone through and done some preliminary adjustments. I moved the articles that had parenthetical disambiguation comments; according to my understanding of wikipedia's naming convention, they weren't necessary. I have also adjusted the categories to remove the redlinks and redundant cats, and link to existing appropriate cats. We do not currently have a category Category:Orthodoxy in America nor do we have a logical place in the tree for it to fit. If we are to take the lead from the RCC tree, they have "Roman Catholic Chuch"->"Roman Catholic Church Organization"->"Roman Catholic Church by region"->"Category:Roman Catholic Church in North America"->"Roman Catholicism in the United States". This is way too detailed for the articles we currently have for Eastern Orthodoxy. There is simply no simple place where we could plop a "Orthodoxy in America" category into the existing tree. So perhaps we could live without the category for now. Also, while browsing the cats, I found Category:Eastern Orthodox churches which has major disambiguation issues. It includes Church bodies (such as the Russian Orthodox Church) with church structures like Saint Basil's Cathedral. I propose splitting the category into Category:Eastern Orthodox churches for the structures and Category:Eastern Orthodox organization for the (lack of a better word) denominations.-Andrew c 20:58, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] import cont.

Thanks Mango but I am just a little unclear on the date issue you point out. First what if the articles were made recently? From what Father John stated that seems to make little difference so please clarify. Also I completely agree about the renaming. I only imported them that way so that the template would work with little or minimum modification. Now that the articles are up and we can (it appears so at least) keep them then modification seems OK. LoveMonkey 12:21, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

What Father John said (that old contributions are available under the GFDL) is contradicted by the OrthodoxWiki copyrights page, which says that old contributions are licensed under CC-by-nc-sa2.0 (which includes a non-commercial use clause), at least, they were licensed that way by default. See http://orthodoxwiki.org/OrthodoxWiki:Copyrights and http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/ - they make this pretty clear. The date of 11/22/05 is also explained on the OrthodoxWiki copyright page. Mangojuicetalk 13:29, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
See above! Jschroe
In order to make it easier for everyone, I think it would make sense for us to create a template to mark this older content more clearly. We want to ease the confusion here! Jschroe
Actually, looking into it more carefully, we may be able to use old contributions without explicit permission. This version of the OrthodoxWiki copyrights page, the last version given before 11/22/05, says that contributions are licensed under http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/ -- that is, without the non-commercial restriction. When the dual licensing policy was introduced, the page was then edited to say that old contributions were released under CC by-nc-sa. Unless that page doesn't reflect the actual policy as it used to exist, I think this means the material is licensed under CC by-sa, which in my opinion is compatible with export to here. Jschroe -- thanks for offering to help contact authors. In the meantime, is there something I'm missing in my conclusion that old contributions are CC by-sa? Mangojuicetalk 13:58, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
Okay, I was wrong, it's been figured out. The old version I linked to above includes a template, {{cc}}, which used to display CC by-nc-sa but has been changed. Also, what really matters is http://orthodoxwiki.org/MediaWiki:Copyrightwarning; that's the text that includes the agreement. It didn't even point to the copyright policy page until 11/2005, and before that it clearly said that contributions were licensed under CC by-nc-sa 2.0. Mangojuicetalk 14:17, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
Edit conflict! Here's what I was going to post:
Although we'd like for this to be the case, old contributions were bc-nc-sa. See my comment here regarding the history of the included template. I've created a template for us to mark articles with old (pre-11-22-05) edits that haven't been relicensed (a minority of them). They will be listed in our Category:Prerevised. Hopefully, this will make it simpler for the Wikipedia folks! Let us know if you have any other ideas or suggestions about how to make this smoother. Jschroe

(undent) Thank you to Mango for stepping in and cleaning up the mess that I created. My apologies to everyone involved for making a confusing situation more so - please know that I was trying to keep us copyright compliant based on the then-current info on the orthodox wiki copyright page. It does appear that we now have the copyright issue resolved. There are still other issues (POV, terminology, and categories being carried over), but all much less pressing than the copyright issue. -- Pastordavid 15:51, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] OrthodoxWiki credit templates

I created {{orthodoxwiki}} and {{orthodoxwiki permission}} as a standard, explicit way to (1) give credit for an OrthodoxWiki article and (2) explain the copyright situation on the talk page. They only work properly if the Wikipedia article and the OrthodoxWiki article have the same name, but you can use {{orthodoxwiki source}} and {{orthodoxwiki note}} if the article names are different, it's just a little more complicated. (I'll see if I can fix that up, but it may be tricky). Mangojuicetalk 19:43, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

OK now point me in the proper direction and I will do my best to edit away. LoveMonkey 19:56, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

I believe I have this taken care of. See what you guys think of User:Csernica/Sandbox/Orthodoxwiki. It takes two named parameters, name and oldid. If name is omitted it uses the name of the article. Either way it automatically links to the corresponding OrthodoxWiki article. If oldid is omitted it spits out a big ugly error message, since I think we're required by the GFDL to link to the version we actually snarf.
I changed "by permission" to "under the terms of the GFDL" since the P-word tends to raise red flags. I believe that's accurate, no? I gathered from the earlier discussion that this isn't really by permission; we decided that we are able to use only one of the licenses under which it's available, and that will be the GFDL.
Anyway, this single template should suffice for both {{orthodoxwiki}} and {{orthodoxwiki source}}. I'll complete a more verbose version for talk pages shortly. I'll call it "Orthodoxwiki talk" though.
Should this be in CamelCase instead? TCC (talk) (contribs) 01:26, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
Oh, and since I thought it might be a good idea to keep track of which articles use this kind of content, I'm creating Category:Wikipedia articles incorporating GFDL text from Orthodoxwiki where the template will automatically add files. Template:1911 does something similar.
I'll wait until it's agreed that we can replace the other templates with this one before I move it into template space. TCC (talk) (contribs) 01:43, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
Just wanted to note that a CfD discussion back in the end of March decided to move all of these source categories to talk pages. While we need to mention the source in the main article references, is there a way that this template (or at least the categorization) goes to the talk namespace? -Andrew c 02:02, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
Yes, easily. TCC (talk) (contribs) 02:43, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

There being no further comment, I'm going live with {{OrthodoxWiki}} and {{OrthodoxWiki talk}} and updating the relevant articles. TCC (talk) (contribs) 00:43, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Archive

The talk page was getting a little unwieldy, so I archived. Please revert me if anyone objects. -- Pastordavid 16:07, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Help needed at Purgatory

There's been some discussion about what, precisely, the EO views of Purgatory are. One school of editors argues that there is no real difference, it's just a matter of translation and terminilogy. Another group says the differences are a substantial theological dispute.

Could someone (or someones) knowledgable in EO come lend a hand to summarizing the EO views on the subject? --Alecmconroy 08:48, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Peer review: Christian Church

The Christian Church article has been expanded and "completed." A review for NPOV would be helpful and any suggestions on sub-topics that might make it more relevant.

Thanks.

--Mcorazao 20:39, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] New project proposal

There is a new WikiProject task force proposal at Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals#Inter-religious content that is being proposed to deal specifically with articles whose content relates to several religious traditions. Any editors interested in joining such a group would be more than welcome to indicate their interest there. John Carter 15:09, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Assessment of The Finnish Orthodox Church

I have added a bit to this page (much more needed), and spent some time trying to assess the article. My computer skills are deplorable, so I have not been able to do it in the right manner. My assessment of the article is: start/mid. Could somebody help me?--Tellervo 10:07, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Done. Valentinian T / C 10:32, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
Thank you, Valentinian! Tellervo 13:33, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Eastern Orthodox Archdiocese of North and South America

Although I was raised Orthodox, I married and Episcopalian and joined his church so It's been over 20 years since I've seen any publications but I seem to remember that all (or at least most) of the different Orthodox communities in the Western Hemisphere were united under the Eastern Orthodox Archdiocese of North and South America (I even remember the name and logo being present on the Divine Liturgy booklets used in my church). When did they devolve into separate archdiocese such as Greek Orthodox and Antioch Orthodox? I can find no reference in any of the articles I've read so far. Thank you CanadianMist 18:22, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Merger: "Christian Church" and "One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church"

I recently merged these two articles. There was an objection that was raised and a request was made to seek feedback here. Please offer commentary on the talk page, for or against.

--Mcorazao 03:11, 22 May 2007 (UTC) pp by Johnbod 01:04, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Patriarch template?

Do we have a template for Patriarchs? I've created one based off of {{Pope}}, located here: User:Kimon/Infobox Patriarch. Perhaps we can use that one? --Kimontalk 17:13, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Are you sure you don't mean {{Infobox Pope}}? No special coding is needed for the succession boxes. Valentinian T / C 20:23, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
uhhh yeah :) I proposed the change because the new one says "Patriarchate" instead of "Papacy" and we can be consistent. --20:28, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
It sounds like a good idea, and keeping it visually similar to the template for the popes sounds appropriate. Valentinian T / C 20:41, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
Looks good. I suggest the addition of a parameter for the see. The value could just be a convenient label that would cause the insertion of the full title. (e.g. see=Moscow would expand to Patriarch of Moscow and All-Russia; or see=Serbia to Patriarch of all Serbia, Archbishop of Peć, Metropolitan of Belgrade and Karlovci) TCC (talk) (contribs) 20:46, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
I like the idea, where would I find the complete list? --Kimontalk 20:50, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
The full, formal titles are used when the diptychs are read at a Primatial Divine Liturgy. I wonder if there's some kind seminarian out there who can snag a copy for us? TCC (talk) (contribs) 20:56, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
I guess the articles on the individual Patriarchs would have the full title. --Kimontalk 21:01, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
Ok, I've added the sees. Can someone take a look at it? --Kimontalk 15:32, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
Is this complete? Could this be used for say, an archbishop as well, or is there a template already established for an archbishop? El Greco(talk) 21:55, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Sign of the Cross

The article Sign of the cross (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) underwent a complete rewrite over the last few weeks that left it quite heavily biased. I have tried to merge older material back into it, but it now needs to be put back together. If anyone on this project has the time, could they, please, take a look at the article and improve it. — Gareth Hughes 15:16, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Help needed at List of Eastern Orthodox jurisdictions in North America

List of Eastern Orthodox jurisdictions in North America needs editing. At the very least, it needs references (possibly inline citations). Also, it looks like some of the terms suffer from POV problems, and at least one term ("walled-off groups") is a neologism. Could someone please fix this. (Also, please do not use orthodoxwiki.org as a reference, since it is a Wiki that may change over time and hence is not a reliable reference). Thank you, Dr. Submillimeter 22:52, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Tanakh/Old Testament/Hebrew Bible categories

Some people may have noticed that most categories previously using "Old Testament" have been converted to "Tanakh" by a user, without I think much discussion. There is a discussion here which proposes converting them to use "Hebrew Bible" Johnbod 22:07, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

I propose a discussion here, advocating retention of the term "Old Testament." "Hebrew Bible" and "Tanakh" represent successively further excursions in pursuit of political correctness. The "Hebrew Bible as Received in the Eastern Orthodox Churches (to wit, the Septuagint)" might be more fully, and "neutrally," descriptive than "O.T.", but then "Hebrew Bible as Prononunced Canonical at the Council of Jopneh (Jamnia)" would be more descriptive and neutral than "Tanakh." After all, the Samaritans have a Pentateuch, too. (And if "Hebrew" is taken linguistically, what about the Chaldo-Syriac passages?)

Even the term "Bible," implying a collection of books having equal canonical dignity, is not entirely neutral. DcnSimeon 18:59, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree with those (like johnbod, I believe) who want to retain "Old Testament." It is scriptural: "When He said, 'A new covenant,' He has made the first obsolete. But whatever is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to disappear" (Heb 8:13 NASB95). We must not capitulate to religio-politically correct rhetorical subterfuge that abandons significant theological/ecclesiological distinctives in the feeling of prioritizing peace: “It is false piety to preserve peace at the expense of truth.” -- Blaise Pascal. "Do not think that I came to bring peace on the earth; I did not come to bring peace, but a sword" (Matt 10:34 NASB95). I am sad that many Rabbinists and cultural Jews suffered under Hitler, but that was over 60 years ago, and we must not sacrifice important theological truth simply because we are sad that pagan Nazis killed millions of people. Tens of millions of Christians are being killed today, and that is more important than what happened in Germany a century ago. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Olorin3k (talk • contribs) 01:26, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Hypostasis and Ousia

In the discussion page attached to the article "Hypostasis (Christianity)", Nrgdocadams writes "the human person as we know it is a particular enhypostasization of human nature." This seems to imply that the Persons of the Trinity are, similarly, particular enhypostasizations of Divine nature. I wonder if that is what Nrgdocadams meant to suggest.

If so, I would pose a few questions:

What if one maintained, instead, that "human nature" is an abstraction, derived from observing a number of human beings?

Is there a necessary relationship between human nature, as such, and any particular human? Is there a necessary relationship between Divine nature, as such, and the Persons of the Trinity, or any Person of the Trinity? DcnSimeon 16:43, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] What "tales" of the Bible merit separate articles?

There has recently been some discussion regarding which "stories" or portions of the Bible merit having their own articles. For the purposes of centralized discussion, please make any comments at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Bible#What should have separate articles?. Thank you. John Carter 13:52, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Monastery Infobox

I have played around trying to make an infobox for orthodox monasteries. Are there any suggestions for changes to the included fields or any other improvements? StephP 11:53, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Please note that, in English Monastery = male, whilst Convent = female. Let's use the term cloister instead to avoid confusion. --Kuban Cossack 11:55, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
Why not just create a separate infobox for convents?StephP 16:41, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Finnish Orthodox Church

Finnish Orthodox Church has been greatly improved. Whenever you have time, please reassess it, thanks. --Drieakko 06:17, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] One, Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church?

I was just looking through articles today, and found one on the "Four Marks of the Church", which is in the Nicene Creed. The page on Wikipedia is under the Roman Catholic Wikiproject, but shouldn't it also be under the Eastern Orthodox WikiProject since it is also a part of the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Nicene Creed in the Divine Liturgy? Four Marks of the Church --KCMODevin 00:53, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

If the concept of "four marks of the church" can be shown to play a significant role in Eastern Orthodox thought, then sure. I personally haven't seen it. But just because the EOC uses the Nicene Creed isn't sufficient justification for including it IMO.Mrhsj 04:36, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Is it not enough that the EOC claims to BE the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic church? That is a primary belief and claim in the EOC. --KCMODevin 14:08, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

I don't think so, no. An analogous case would be if there were an article titled "The Seven Sacraments" The idea of exactly seven sacraments plays a major role in Catholic thought and catechesis. Orthodox do in fact believe all the same things are sacraments, but they just don't talk about "The Seven Sacraments". So I would say that article would belong in the Catholic project, not the Orthodox project. Similiarly here: the Orthodox do believe that the church is one, holy, catholic, and apostolic, but I personally can't recall ever seeing where Orthodox writers reflect on these as constituting The Four Marks. They could, but as far as I know, they don't. I don't want to have a big argument about this, but why not see what other editors think? Mrhsj 16:08, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Portal Template

Eastern Christianity Portal

Template:Eastern Christianity is currently used on a number of non-applicable articles. As a navigational template, it should be on the articles that are included on it, not every article related to eastern Christianity. I have created Template:Eastern Christianity Portal (seen to the right), to replace it on articles about Eastern Christianity that don't need the nav template. To use, insert the code {{Eastern Christianity Portal}}. Usually the most appropriate place is in the references or see also section. Pastordavid (talk) 20:17, 29 November 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Celtic Orthodox Church needs your help

Celtic Orthodox Church needs references and sources. It has been tagged as lacking them since January 2007. -- 201.37.229.117 21:08, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

I cannot provide any information immediately, but I am sure more can be found. I'm already stretched to the limit on projects, but if the word could be gotten out then possible editors could be found... Monsieurdl 21:10, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
I posted this here in the belief that in doing so I was "getting the word out". -- 201.37.229.117 21:57, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Possible Eastern Orthodox saint collaboration

For the purposes of centralized discussion, please see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Saints#Multiple saints collaborations?. Thank you. John Carter (talk) 15:09, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] OrthodoxWiki as a source

I'm not sure how active this board is (one post in six weeks), but it seems to be the most centralized location to bring up some very serious concerns about the reliability of a source used extensively. Wikipedia guidelines very clearly say that an open wiki is NOT a reliable source. Unfortunately, from the discussions above, it appears that only one person mentioned that fact and they were not heard. So now there is the potential that dozens of articles need to be rewritten, at the very least examined. How would the Project like to to go about excising the material that came from OrthodoxWiki? Because it has to come out; Wikipedia policies allow for no other option that I can see. Pairadox (talk) 02:30, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

This is not a sarcastic question: when you say "open wiki", is there an actual definition of that to be found in the policy? This wiki allows people to edit without registering. Orthodoxwiki does not. I also wonder if Citizendium would be considered an open wiki, because it has some strict standards of scholarship. Frjohnwhiteford (talk) 06:48, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
Serious answer. "Open wiki" is the actual terminology used in the Verifiability policy. WP:SPS will take you right to it, but for your convenience: Anyone can create a website or pay to have a book published, then claim to be an expert in a certain field. For that reason, self-published books, newsletters, personal websites, open wikis, and blogs are largely not acceptable as sources. OrthodoxWiki is open based on the wording on their Main Page; "OrthodoxWiki, a free-content encyclopedia and information center for Orthodox Christianity that anyone can edit." Registering may be mandatory, but it's still open to anyone and thus is subject to the same problems this one is. I can't answer for Citizendium - I've never run across it being used as a reference and don't know what standards they have for contributors or peer review. I'm sure it's been addressed somewhere on Wikipedia (everything else has), but I don't recall seeing it. (PS - This is the same clause that prevents your personal webpage being used.) I monitor the List of wikis, BTW, which is where it first came to my attention. A couple of clicks (and one article cleaned up) later and I finally realized there was a (potentially) huge problem. Pairadox (talk) 07:07, 12 January 2008 (UTC)


It doesn't matter- when you are doing an article, using internet sources should be the last resort, and then only sparingly, unless it provides an offline reference which can be verified. Reliance on the internet sites (those that obviously don't provide source documents or quoted/sourced passages) is not the tool of a serious researcher. I don't understand why some would try and defend this practice when it is obvious that even the most prolific, registered, respected Orthodoxwiki user could put in bad information that is unsourced. Please see that it is not the wiki itself that is objectionable, but the practice of using the internet as I stated above. Monsieurdl mon talk-mon contribs

14:00, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

One way that I have seen Orthodoxwiki used in footnotes is to refer to a more extensive article that is on a subject that there is not a comparable one on this wiki. That would seem unobjectionable. But what is your opinion? Frjohnwhiteford (talk) 14:40, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
Could you provide an example? I'm not sure what you mean. Pairadox (talk) 20:51, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
For example, in the article on the Russian Orthodox Church, there is a section on the OCA, which in a footnote includes a reference to an Orthodoxwiki article on the history of the relations between the Orthodo Church in America and the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia. That article is well sourced, and there is no comparable article on this wiki.Frjohnwhiteford (talk) 21:05, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
At first glance, that one is an easy fix. Because there is a second source for that statement, the OrthodoxWiki (hereafter abbreviated OW) ref can simply be removed. Obviously that won't work where OW is the only reference. Thus a better, albeit much more labor-intensive, solution is to track down the reference that OW uses, confirm that it supports the claim in the WP article, and use that direct source here, bypassing OW attribution entirely. I don't envy anybody the task. Pairadox (talk) 22:04, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
I think there is a difference, however, between using another wiki such as Orthodoxwiki to verify something, and referring people to another wiki article for more information. As for articles based on Orthodoxwiki, what I would say is that some clean up tag might be needed. Although, if you took an entire article from Orthodoxwiki that was well sourced, it seems like the sources could stand on their own merit, and the reference to Orthodoxwiki would just be an acknowledgment that material was taken from that article. Orthodoxwiki often does this in reverse by taking articles form this wiki, and Orthodoxifying them. Frjohnwhiteford (talk) 02:12, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
Also, given the extensive use of news paper citations, and given that you often have unsourced assertions of fact by people who are not experts in the subject, I am not sure that they are better sources than a good wiki. In fact, I suspect a lot of reporters get their information from far less reliable sources. You also have partisan advocacy groups that are cited as sources. I am not disputing what you say about serious research, just that citing some newspaper or group with an axe to grind's assertions as a source is routinely done, and defended on wikipedia, and given that this is so, I think that Orthodoxwiki is at least as reliable source, just on an objective level... however, that's just a comment... I am not disputing your reading of the policy. Frjohnwhiteford (talk) 14:49, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
OrthodoxWiki probably has very good and very accurate information - I won't dispute that at all. But it's not so much about truth or accuracy as much as it is about verifiability and accountability. If a newspaper or a reporter prints false information, they can be held accountable in ways that anonymous Wiki editors aren't. So yeah, that's a conversation for an entirely different talk page. Pairadox (talk) 20:51, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
This seems to be a very interesting wiki (~2,500 articles) and also a good source of free images. Could anyone provide outside references/publications about this wiki? We do not have article OrthodoxWiki here (this is a redirect page now).Biophys (talk) 03:21, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Any progress on updating articles to remove Orthodox Wiki as a source? Pairadox (talk) 02:16, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Regarding project banner

I have noted how several articles relevant to Christianity have only the banner of more focused projects, several Christianity banners, or no banners at all on the talk pages. This makes it rather difficult for the Christianity WikiProject to keep track of all articles, as well as potentially reducing the number of editors who might be willing to work on the article, if only the more focused banner is in place. If I were to adjust the existing {{ChristianityWikiProject}} to include separate individual assessment information for each relevant Christianity project, and display the projects which deal with it, like perhaps the {{WikiProject Australia}} does, would the members of this project object to having that banner ulimately used in place of this project's one? It might help reduce the banner clutter, as well. John Carter (talk) 18:19, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Is there a way that we can make the Orthodoxy banner somehow add the pages to both projects at one time. For example it would say Wikiproject Orthodoxy, but everything with that banner also automatically is added to christianity? Grk1011 (talk) 21:44, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
Yeah, it could be done. The importance parameters would probably have to be individually put in for both Christianity and Eastern Orthodoxy, as I would expect them to be different rather often, but it could be done. John Carter (talk) 14:46, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

I still don't know if it is desirable to have every Orthodoxy article come under the view of the Christianity Project. -- Secisek (talk) 21:21, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

I dont see the problem. Everything related to Orthodoxy is related to Christianity. An extra pair of eyes wouldnt hurt. Grk1011 (talk) 23:21, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Help needed : Two articles for the same patriarch

Anastasius of Antioch and Anastasius the Sinaite are the very same person. I don't know how to properly merge them. Perhaps we should keep the former and incorporate the infobox of the latter. Since there is already an article about the monk Anastasius Sinaita, I am suggesting to rename the final article as Anastasius I of Antioch]] Dipa1965 (talk) 12:13, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

Per naming conventions, I'd suggest the article be renamed Patriarch Anastasius I of Antioch so it would be named like the other patriarchs. This is assuming that he was the patriarch, I don't know much about him. Also make sure before you rename it that he doesn't go by the other name. A wiki policy says naming conv can be disregarded in that case. ie, John Chrysostom instead of Patriach John.... Grk1011 (talk) 21:44, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Philippine Orthodox Church

I would recommend redirecting Philippine Orthodox Church to Exarchate of the Philippines since the latter article has more information and it is the name of the Orthodox institution present in the Philippines. Any comments? --Darth Narutorious (talk) 11:34, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Def merge or redirect the former to the latter. Its a waste of an article to have one basically say that there is only one orthodox church in the philippines and this is it..the link to the other article. Grk1011 (talk) 21:44, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Infobox

An infobox has been created for orthodox hierarchy: bishops, metropolitans, etc. [15] I want to find a color that we can commit to to be the "Orthodox" color for infoboxes, etc. It is currently the provisional light yellow. Can anyone think of a better color? The yellow looks a little plain/boring. Grk1011 (talk) 15:32, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

The two ideas which come to mind are the color of the Flag of the Ecumenical Patriarch, which is also yellow but a more interesting yellow, here, and the light blue color of the priest's robes in several images, including here. John Carter (talk) 22:50, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

I have been using the standard bishop infobox template as I did with Ignatius Zakka I Iwas. Is this not acceptable? -- Secisek (talk) 05:27, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Coordinators for the Christianity projects

I have recently started a discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Christianity#Coordinators? regarding the possibility of the various Christianity projects somewhat integrating, in the style of the Military history project, for the purposes of providing better coordination of project activities. Any parties interested in the idea, or perhaps willing to offer their services as one of the potential coordinators, is more than welcome to make any comments there. Thank you. John Carter (talk) 21:01, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

It might be nice to do that seeing how there aren't many active people in this project. Grk1011 (talk) 21:44, 18 March 2008 (UTC)


[edit] Saint Mary

Hiya, I was doing some research on Maria Despina Palaiologina, after whom was named the Eastern Orthodox Church of Saint Mary of the Mongols (Istanbul). If Maria is a saint, I would like to notate it on her article, but I have been unable to verify this. Does anyone she was actually beatified or canonized, or could you shed any light on how the church got its name of "Saint Mary"? I'm not that familiar with the Greek Orthodox faith, so there may be a simple explanation. Thanks for any help, --Elonka 21:30, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

The church is named after the Virgin Mary, but that name was chosen because of Maria. Maria->Mary. Just as if someone named John was influencial in the building of a church, they might name the church saint john in his honor, not that he was a saint. The church is not technically named after these people, its rather named because of these people. Does that help? Grk1011 (talk) 21:57, 27 March 2008 (UTC)
Thanks, can you point me at a source on that, that the church was named after the Virgin Mary, and not Maria Despina Palaiologina? Sorry, I don't mean to sound suspicious, but I'm currently cleaning up after an editor who was adding misinterpreted source information to dozens of articles. Per an Arbitration case, the editor PHG (talk · contribs) has been banned from working in that topic area for a year, but the rest of us are still left with a lot of damage to repair. He was unfortunately very talented at putting information into articles that looked well-sourced, but then turned out to not really be what the source actually said. So I'd like to be very sure of sources, as we get things fixed up. Any assistance appreciated! --Elonka 02:00, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Coordinator?

It has probably been noticed by most of the editors who frequent this page that there is often a pronounced degree of overlap between the various projects relating to Christianity. Given that overlap, and the rather large amount of content we have related to the subject of Christianity, it has been proposed that the various Christianity projects select a group of coordinators who would help ensure the cooperation of the various projects as well as help manage some project related activities, such as review, assessment, portal management, and the like. Preferably, we would like to consider the possibility of having one party from each of the major Christianity projects included, given the degree of specialization which some of the articles contain. We now are accepting nominations for the coordinators positions at Wikipedia:WikiProject Christianity/Coordinators/Election 1. Any parties interested in helping performing some of the management duties of the various Christianity projects is encouraged to nominate themselves there. Thank you. John Carter (talk) 17:33, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Much to my surprise, the period for the factual elections of the new coordinators has started a bit earlier than I expected. For what it's worth, as the "instigator" of the proposed coordinators, the purpose of having them is not to try to impose any sort of "discipline" on the various projects relating to Christianity, but just to ensure that things like assessment, peer review, portal maintainance, and other similar directly project-related functions get peformed for all the various projects relating to Christianity. If there are any individuals with this project who are already doing such activities for the project, and who want to take on the role more formally, I think nominations are being held open until the end of the elections themselves. And, for the purposes of this election, any member in good standing of any of the Christianity projects can either be nominated or express their votes at Wikipedia:WikiProject Christianity/Coordinators/Election 1. Thank you for your attention. John Carter (talk) 00:30, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Source needed

I have need of the book Anglicans and Orthodox: Unity and Subversion 1559-1725 (2004) by Judith Elizabeth with a forward by the Archbishop of Canterbury. Does anybody have access to this source? I have seen it for sale on-line, but I thought I would ask here first. -- Secisek (talk) 22:33, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Orthodoxy in "America"

I am going to propose that the series of articles in the {{Orthodoxyinamerica}} template been renamed with a view to consistancy. The problem is the term "America" which is ambiguous. It should changed to: A) United States (exclusive) B) North America (includes Canada but excludes Latin America) C) the Americas (inclusive). Personally I prefer "the Americas" until we have enough information to subdivide them dowin into individual countries. The titles as fo now are (note inconsistancy):

Also the title of the box itself should be standardized. --Kevlar (talk • contribs) 15:10, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

I began this with process with a view towards C) the Americas (inclusive). Please be bold and continue this process. -- Secisek (talk) 20:01, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
It makes perfect sense to keep List of American Eastern Orthodox saints and List of American Orthodox bishops. What else would we use "United Statesian"? Unless you mean say "List of Eastern Orthodox Saints of the Americas" which might work, but has a slightly different meaning. Also with Byzantine response to Orthodox Church in America autocephaly, the church's official name is the Orthodox Church in America, so we can't change that. The second and third could be changed to "in the United States". Grk1011 (talk) 20:08, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Totaly agree with the above, which is why I did not alter those. -- Secisek (talk) 20:29, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Blessed Virgin Mary

I'm extremely dubious about recent attempts to broaden the scope of this article, traditionally the RC view, to include Anglicans/Anglo-catholics and the Othodox. For example the present first sentence "The Blessed Virgin Mary, sometimes shortened to The Blessed Virgin or The Virgin Mary, is a traditional title specifically used by Roman Catholics, Anglicans, Eastern Orthodox and Eastern Catholics, and some others to describe Mary, the mother of Jesus Christ..." is surely not true, or misleading, as far as Orthodoxy is concerned. Again, to say that "The Assumption of Mary -- meaning that, at the end of her earthly life, Mary was taken directly into Heaven -- is held infallibly by both the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Churches." is pretty misleading, especially with no link to Dormition of the Theotokos. Nor am I sure what "infallibly" means in an Orthodox context. These changes have been defended agressively by reverting, and for example links to the Dormition article have been removed.

The article is equally misleading as to "Anglican", or at least average Anglican, beliefs at various points - again in the first sentence for example. Theotokos covers the Orthodox view pretty well, though it is not linked at the disam page Mary (I'm not sure of the history of this. The old versions of BVM, with an Anglican section which could be expanded, were much more satisfactory.

People may care to comment at Talk:Blessed_Virgin_Mary#Widening_the_scope. Johnbod (talk) 12:21, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Editing help needed on Religion in Greece

On reading the Religion in Greece article, I discovered that the section on Greek Orthodoxy is really incorrect and rather badly written. I don't have the time to attend to it myself but I did want to draw it to someone's attention. Thanks. MLilburne (talk) 07:08, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

I took care of it, but another pair of eyes couldn't hurt. It was comparing the church to the Catholic Church when it should have been talking about the role of the Orthodox church in Greece. Grk1011 (talk) 21:00, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Metropolitan Nikodim (Rotov) of Leningrad

I've written a stub for Metropolitan Nikodim (Rotov) of Leningrad. Please correct any glaring errors (this is my first time editing any article relating to Eastern Orthodoxy so I could easily be ignorant of some basic conventions), or expand the article if you have the time and/or better sources. I ran into Nikodim because he figures in some of the conspiracy theories concerning the death of Pope John Paul I (for example, the claim in the book Murder in the Vatican by Lucien Gregoire (2005) that Nikodim was poisoned by a poison intended for John Paul), but I'm sure that isn't his only, or most important, claim to fame. Kingdon (talk) 06:26, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Titles for Hierarchs

I have noticed some inconsistency in how bishops are named on Wikipedia, both Eastern Orthodoxy and elsewhere. For example we have leads that being "Patriarch Alexius II...", "His Eminence the Most Reverend Philip (Saliba)..." and "His Beatitude, Metropolitan Herman (Swaiko)...". I brought this up on Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (biographies) and there is emerging consensus on a proposal that would standardize on Title Firstname (Lastname) as the correct lede. So in my examples we would keep "Patriarch Alexius II", but change to "Metropolitan Philip (Saliba)" and "Metropolitan Herman (Swaiko)". If you disagree, please discuss on the aforementioned talk page under "Religious Honorifics". If the proposal is accepted I will start cleaning up the titles for EO hierarchs. Mrhsj (talk) 15:38, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

There is already a naming policy. Grk1011 (talk) 19:28, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Proposed merger

There has been relatively little activity at the Serbian Orthodox Church WikiProject for some time now. Given the very limited scope of that project, and the few articles it has, I believe that the project might better function as simply a part of this one. Opinions? John Carter (talk) 01:47, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. Grk1011 (talk) 11:17, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Theology workgroup

The proposed theology workgroup of Wikiproject Christianity is now online, here. Any suggestions, improvements, and ideas are more than welcome - as are interested editors. Pastordavid (talk)