Emanuel Nine Commemoration
The ELCA has designated June 17 as a commemoration of the martyrdom of the Emanuel 9—the nine people shot and killed on June 17, 2015, during a Bible study at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, S.C.
To mark this commemoration, these resources from the ELCA can be adapted for use in your congregation, whether in worship on June 13 or 20, online conversation, or individual reflection and devotion.
Learn more about how our synod is working toward healing, reconciliation, and equality for all people through the Authentic Diversity & Justice Working Group >>
Documentary and Conversation
Wednesday, June 16 at 7pm -or- Thursday, June 17 at 1pm
Join by Video: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/83973713751
Join by Phone: 301-715-8592 (Meeting ID: 839 7371 3751)
Watch the Emanuel documentary on your own (more information about the film and where to watch it) then join the Authentic Diversity and Justice Team of the synod for conversation via Zoom.
Bishop Kurt F. Kusserow shares a prayer in memory of the nine martyrs.
Presiding Bishop Elizabeth Eaton reminds us to mark this day of penitence with study and prayer.
Bishop Kusserow Reflects on the Emanuel Nine in the “Wayfarer” Magazine
Say Their Names: Emanuel Nine
Bishop Kurt F. Kusserow
Southwestern Pennsylvania Synod Bishop
kurt.kusserow@swpasynod.org | 412-367-8222
There was a little Roman Catholic congregation just outside the town of Trauger, where I last served as pastor. “Forty Martyrs” was its name. I found that name to be curious in two respects. It seemed an odd name for a church to me, and it made me curious to learn more about the saints of old for whom it was named.
My guess is that any one of us could tell stories of curious names we have encountered (whether attached to congregations or to other people) but that is not my point here. Rather, I call to mind the Forty Martyrs in writing to you about the Emanuel Nine because their tragic death was also at the hands of one who had once embraced the faith.
The forty martyrs of Sebaste were 4th century Roman soldiers serving in what is now Turkey, when Licinius was emperor over the eastern part of the Roman Empire and Constantine was emperor over the western part. Although these two men had together established the Edict of Milan that ended formal intolerance of Christianity in the Roman Empire in 313, Licinius later distanced himself from the faith and began again to incite the persecution of Christians in the east. The Forty Martyrs died because they self-identified as Christians in a time when the emperor’s personal prejudice gave space for persecution.
The Emanuel Nine were martyrs of a different kind of personal prejudice, one that causes so much damage in our day. They were killed in their own church building on June 17, 2015, by a fellow Christian. They were professing their faith openly, not only by being in a church building and engaged in Bible study, but through the welcome they extended to him to come and join them. But unlike the Forty Martyrs, it was not the confession of their faith that made them targets of violence. It was the color of their skin. Their killer was hoping to incite a race war.
Personal prejudice against people of color continues to result in violence in this country in our time because systems of power have given space for it to happen. Our church confesses its participation in systems of power that continue to harm people of color and seeks to repent from that complicity. Our national church has issued an apology for our historical complicity in slavery and its enduring legacy of racism in the Declaration of the ELCA to People of African Descent. Our church has named June 17 the Commemoration of the Emanuel Nine in our liturgical calendar, and we have pledged to deepen relationships with the African Methodist Episcopal Church.
These actions are all admirable and appropriate. But real change comes to systems of power when people in local communities pursue a change of heart. To that end, I strongly encourage you to make use of the ELCA’s Prayers, Litanies, and Laments for the Commemoration of the Emanuel Nine in your home or with your congregation on June 17.
In using that prayer resource you will be invited to say the names of the Emanuel Nine:
Clementa
Depayne
Cynthia
Susie
Ethel
Tywanza
Daniel
Sharonda
Myra
Take time when you do so to look intently at their pictures as if they were holy icons. See in each of them the face of Christ. Name each of them as your sister or your brother in the faith. Grieve their loss, and rejoice in the blessed anticipation of reunion with them (and with the Forty Martyrs!) in that glorious day when “the redeemed of the Lord shall return and come with singing unto Zion.”