On January 7th, much of the Orthodox Christian world celebrates Christmas. What we often refer to as the Orthodox Church or Orthodox Christianity is actually a complex family of churches that stretches across many parts of the world, but are historically located mainly in Europe and the Middle East. This family of churches includes the primary Eastern Orthodox Churches (e.g. Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem, Russia, Romania, Bulgaria, Georgia, Cyprus, and Greece), but also what are commonly referred to as the Oriental Orthodox Churches (e.g. the Coptic Orthodox Church, Ethiopian Orthodox Church, the Armenian Orthodox Church, the Malankara Orthodox Church, and Eritrean Orthodox Church). Historically, the Oriental Orthodox churches expressed reservations about the doctrinal formulations at the Council of Chalcedon (451) which were embraced by the larger Eastern Orthodox community. Significant ecumenical efforts in the 20th century seem to have resolved at least some of these theological tensions. Dialogue Across Borders wishes all Orthodox Christians, who number somewhere close to 300 million adherents around the world, a blessed Christmas celebration. 

(Grand Imam Dr. Aḥmed al-Ṭayyeb and Grand Mufti Dr. Naẓīr ʿAyyād visit Coptic Orthodox Pope Tawāḍrūs II on January 4th, 2025, in Cairo to deliver Christmas greetings.)

Looking back over 2024, Dialogue Across Borders is grateful to have played a role in improving interreligious relations between Christians and Muslims and intercultural relations between the Middle East, Europe, and North America. Our team translated and edited more than 450 articles from Arabic media sources in Egypt and around the region that present a more complex and encouraging story about religion in the Middle East than the stream of news about war and terrorism that often dominates international coverage. We translated key sermons, speeches, and lectures from Muslim and Christian leaders in Egypt and the Middle East, conducted interviews on Coptic migration, Coptic publishing, the crisis in Sudan, and theological education at Al-Azhar University, and hosted interns and research associates from Egypt, Spain, the United Kingdom, Italy, Croatia, the Netherlands, and Germany. For a more detailed overview of our activities last year, please visit our newsletter archive.

(CAWU staff and interns at our office in Cairo.)

I would like to express my special thanks to Noha Heraiba who has served as our database editor and intern coordinator for the last 18 months. Noha stepped into a position of significant administrative and intellectual complexity and greatly improved the quality and quantity of the material presented on our database. We very much hope that she will remain involved in our work even as she transitions to a new job in Cairo. At the same time, we are pleased to welcome Luka Renić as our new database editor and intern coordinator. Luka earned a B.A. and M.A. in international law from the University of Zagreb in Croatia and a second M.A. in democracy and human rights from St. Joseph University in Beirut, Lebanon. Luka interned with us in 2023 and 2024 while writing a master’s thesis on the dialogue landscape in Egypt. We are looking forward to publishing this important study soon.

Our team at the Center for Arab-West Understanding/Dialogue Across Borders would like to wish all our readers a good start to the new year. We are grateful for your continued interest in our work as we promote the challenging yet rewarding path of intercultural and interreligious dialogue over the many simplistic and polarizing stereotypes that surround us. 

Matthew Anderson

Director - Center for Arab-West Understanding

Executive Editor - Dialogue Across Borders (Brill)

CAWU Instagram

January 7, 2025