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Orthodox Mission Methods: a Comparative Study

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Orthodox Mission Methods: a Comparative Study ORTHODOX MISSION METHODS: A COMPARATIVE STUDY by STEPHEN TROMP WYNN HAYES submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF THEOLOGY in the subject of MISSIOLOGY at the UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH AFRICA Promoter: Professor W.A. Saayman JUNE 1998 Page 1 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank the University of South Africa, who awarded the Chancellor's Scholarship, which enabled me to travel to Russia, the USA and Kenya to do research. I would also like to thank the Orthodox Christian Mission Center, of St Augustine, Florida, for their financial help in attending the International Orthodox Christian Mission Conference at Holy Cross Seminary, Brookline, MA, in August 1996. To Fr Thomas Hopko, and the staff of St Vladimir's Seminary in New York, for allowing me to stay at the seminary and use the library facilities. The St Tikhon's Institute in Moscow, and its Rector, Fr Vladimir Vorobiev and the staff, for their help with visa applications, and for their patience in giving me information in interviews. To the Danilov Monastery, for their help with accom­ modation while I was in Moscow, and to Fr Anatoly Frolov and all the parishioners of St Tikhon's Church in Klin, for giving me an insight into Orthodox life and mission in a small town parish. To Metropolitan Makarios of Zimbabwe, and the staff and students of the Makarios III Orthodox Seminary at Riruta, Kenya, for their hospitality and their readiness to help me get the information I needed. To the Pokrov Foundation in Bulgaria, for their hospitality and help, and to the Monastery of St John the Forerunner in Karea, Athens, and many others in that city who helped me with my research in Greece. Stephen Hayes Pretoria 1999-02-17 Page 2 SUMMARY After a barren period between about 1920 and 1970, in which there was little or no mission activity, the Orthodox Church has experienced a revival of interest in mission. This thesis is an examination of how Orthodox theology and worldviews have affected Orthodox mission methods, and account for some of the dif­ ferences between Orthodox methods and those of Western Christians. A starting point for the study of the Orthodox theology of mission is the ikon of the descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, which shows the apostles gathered in the upper room with the world in their midst. Orthodox soteriology, which sees Christ as the conqueror of evil and death, rather than as the punisher of sin, has led Orthodox missionaries to have a more open approach to other cultures. A historical survey of ways in which the Orthodox Church grew in the past includes martyrdom, mission and statecraft, monastic mission, and in the 20th century, the mission­ ary significance of the Orthodox diaspora. Even in the fallow period, however, there was mission in the sense that various groups of people were drawn to Orthodoxy, sometimes through the ministry of irregularly ordained bishops. The collapse of communist regimes in the Sec­ ond World has created many new opportunities for orthodox mission, but has also brought problems of intra-Christian proselytism, nationalism and viole:1ce, and schism and stagnation in those places. As the Orthodox Church prepares to enter the 21st century, its worldview, which has been less influenced by the mod­ ernity of the West, may enable it to minister more effectively to people involved in postmodern reactions against modernity. Key terms: Orthodox mission; Eastern Orthodox missions; Russian Orthodox Church; Greek Orthodox Church; African Orthodox Church; Christian missions; mis- sion methods; African Christianity; Russian missionaries; cultural imperialism; mission and culture; premodernity; modernity; post­ modernity; modernity and mission; mission and colonialism Page 3 TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction ........................................................... 5 Chapter 1 Mission, Eastern and Western .......................... 22 Chapter 2 Soteriology and mission ............................... 38 Chapter 3 Historical survey of Orthodox mission ................. 67 Chapter 4 Some recent examples of Orthodox mission ............. 102 Chapter 5 Methods and models ................................... 140 Chapter 6 Contemporary issues in Orthodox mission .............. 181 Chapter 7 Paradigm shifts, worldviews and culture .............. 219 Chapter 8 Orthodox mission in the 21st century ................. 252 Bibliography and source list ......................................... 264 Index ................................................................ 280 Page 4 ORTHODOX MISSION METHODS: A COMPARATIVE STUDY Introduction While the mission movement in Orthodox Christianity has lasted nearly twenty centuries, the self-conscious study of mission is much more recent. Missiology, or mission studies, has not usually been taught as a subject in Orthodox seminaries or academies. It is only since the rise in popularity of mission studies in the West that Orthodox scholars have begun to pay any attention to the subject. Two recent published monographs in English on this subject: Eastern Orthodox mission theology today by James Stamoolis (1986), and Orthodox Alaska by Michael Oleksa (1994), could be said to have been pioneering works in this field. Though Stamoolis is not himself Orthodox, his work has done much to stimulate Orthodox interest. It would be impossible to do justice to the broad sweep of such a movement in a single monograph. I shall therefore try to paint a broad picture of the movement as a whole, but will examine certain themes in more detail. METHODOLOGY AND SOURCES Before one can even begin to discuss Orthodox mission methods, however, one has to acknowledge that there is a methodological problem. One should perhaps begin by defining one's terms, but to do so is, in a sense, foreign to the spirit of Orthodox mission. The term "mission" is a recent one, even in Western theology. The concept of mission as a "phenomenon", something that can be observed, discussed, studied, analysed, and dissected is itself a product of Western thinking, condi­ tioned by the Enlightenment. Even in Western missiology, definition has been a problem. It is only since the sixteenth century that the term has been used (beginning with the Jesuits) for the spread of the Christian faith among people who had not previously known it. Since the 1950s the word "mission" has been used more frequently among Christians, and that it has been used in an increasingly broader sense (Bosch 1991:1). Bosch, in his magisterial work Transforming mission (1991) describes the origin and the expanding use of the term "mission" among Western Christians, Page 5 and goes on to observe that there is a crisis in Western mission. Having noted the difficulty (and ultimately the impossibility) of defining mis­ sion, Bosch (1991:9) sets out an interim definition, which is necessary in order to delineate the scope of his work. Is it then possible to apply a term that arose in Western Christianity in the sixteenth century to the Orthodox Church? Many of the assumptions of Western theology, and the conditions in which they have been applied since that time, have been different from those of Orthodox Christians. Any application of the term to a time before the sixteenth century must be in some sense anachronistic. If one can speak of Orthodox mission at all, it will necessarily be different from the Western understanding of the term. "Mission" is a term derived from Latin, and means "sending". It is perhaps significant that the Afrikaans terms for "mission" and "missio­ logy" are "sending" and "sendingwetenskap" respectively. For the Orthodox Church, whose theology is based on Greek rather than Latin, the cognate term for "missionary" (used as an adjective) would be "apostolic". One of the marks of the Church in the Symbol of Faith1 is that it is "apostolic", and, based purely on the etymology of the terms, one could perhaps translate "apostolic" as "missionary", and deduce from that that mission is one of the essential marks of the Church. "Missionary", however, has a narrower connotation than "apostolic", and when one says that the Church is "apostolic" it means more than simply saying that the Church is "missionary"; it proclaims that the Church as a body continues "in the apostles' teaching and fellowship, the breaking of bread and the prayers" (Ac 2:42). The apostles were sent into the world as the Father sent the Son into the world (Jn 17:18; 20:21). The Father sent the Son into the world "to bring the good news to the poor, to proclaim liberty to the captives and to the blind new sight, to set the downtrodden free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favour" (Lk 4: 18) . 1 Known in the West as the "Nicene Creed" Page 6 The Son likewise sent his disciples to "Go out to the whole world; proclaim the Good News to all creation" (Mk 16:16), and as they go they are to "make disciples of all nations (ethne), baptising them in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit", teaching them to observe all Christ's commands (Mt 28:19). As an interim defini- tion, therefore, one could say that Christian mission is the sending of the Church into the world, and what the Church is sent into the world to do. In the following chapters I shall try to flesh out this definition, and to describe the methods by which the Orthodox Church has sought to accomplish its mission in various times and places. Sources While I have included a great deal of historical material, this thesis is not a historical treatise. The primary focus is missiological and not historical. A historian who wants to make an original contribution to historical studies must make use of primary sources, and I have for the most part only had secondary sources available to me. South Africa is not an Orthodox country, and the Orthodox Church here is a largely immigrant community. Most of the primary source material is overseas, and would require a great deal of time and money to consult.
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