Unbeliever turned Episcopal turned Orthodox Christian speaking in Iowa City

This was passed along to us by our friend in the Kansas City satellite office of the Eastern Iowa Emergent Cohort, Nancy Weikal (thanks, Nancy!):

Frederica Mathewes-Green will be speaking on Thursday, Feb. 7 and Friday, Feb. 8 at the University of Iowa. At 7 p.m. Feb. 7, in the Illinois Room of the UI’s Iowa Memorial Union, she will tell her own story of becoming an Eastern Orthodox Christian in a talk titled "Facing East: A Pilgrim's Journey into the Mystery of Orthodox Christianity.” She will detail her journey from unbeliever, to a dabbler in eastern religions, to the Episcopal Church and finally to the Orthodox Church. This event is co-sponsored by the UI Orthodox Christian Fellowship and St. Raphael Orthodox Church.

At 1:30 p.m. Feb. 8, she will be speaking at the Gerber Lounge of the UI English-Philosophy Building on "Freelance Writing as a Career” and then at 7:30 p.m. at the Shambaugh Auditorium of the UI Main Library in a talk titled "Faith, Film and False Assumptions: Christians and the Transformation of Culture." These events are sponsored by Geneva Campus Ministry and the UI Communications Department.

All talks are free and open to the public.

Mathewes-Green is a wide-ranging author and regular columnist for the multifaith web magazine Beliefnet.com who also writes movie reviews for National Review Online and Christianity Today Movies. Among her books are “Facing East: A Pilgrim's Journey into the Mysteries of Orthodoxy” (HarperCollins, 1997) and “The Illumined Heart: The Ancient Christian Path of Transformation” (Paraclete, 2001). She and her husband, the Rev. Gregory Mathewes-Green, live in Baltimore, where he is pastor and she is "Khouria" ("Mother") of the church they founded, Holy Cross Orthodox Church. More information at www.frederica.com.

[Side note: You can read Mathewes-Green's review of the film "What Would Jesus Buy?" here. The film just finished its run today at the University of Iowa's Bijou Theater. Unfortunately, I missed it and hope to catch it when it comes out on DVD.]