Learning from the Orthodox tradition

Editor’s note: The following post arises from small group reflections from The Rise of Global Christianity, 1910–2010, taught by Dr. Todd Johnson at Boston University in the Fall of 2010. Led by doctoral students, the small groups discussed lectures given by Christian scholars in various disciplines, including significant changes that have occurred in global Christianity over the past 100 years.

On the week of October 13th in the class on Global Christianity, Father Luke Veronis from Holy Cross Seminary gave a guest lecture on the Orthodox Church history and the impact on Orthodox missions, especially in the past century.

If we paint the history of Christianity in terms of broad strokes, one of the dominant colors would be the demographic shift of Christianity to the ‘global South’ in the last 100 years, a shift that has brought Christian growth in areas of the world where the gospel had no foothold a century ago. But the story of the Orthodox churches would be a counter stroke of a different color. Historically, the Orthodox churches are the oldest Christian traditions. They have a rich spiritual history that shaped early Christianity and the monastic traditions, and as far as missions go, they also have had many missionary champions. However, persecution, repression, and immigration have threatened many Orthodox traditions. This past century has witnessed the multiplying of such treats, through communist oppression in the former Soviet Union and other communist states, the repression and immigration across the Middle East, and the genocide committed against the Armenian people. But it is also a story of survival and resurgence, and hope for the future in other places that have opened up to newfound religious freedoms.

This counter story is all the more disheartening given the widespread lack of knowledge about Orthodoxy among many Christians. Indeed, several participants in our discussion group had not known of the Orthodox churches until this course. The learning experience has been a pleasant surprise. Some of the students expressed an appreciation for the mystical tradition of theosis and the profound encounter with God as mystery within the Orthodox traditions. In our discussion, Teasoeb contrasts this sense aptly: “I think the Orthodox have different, even alluringly mysterious liturgical styles, and although they seem to accept anyone who comes, they definitely do not expose their interior liturgical life like Western bodies do.”

Many in our discussion group were also intrigued by the Orthodox approaches to missions. Father Luke’s lecture stressed that at their best Orthodox models for missions were very respectful of local culture; the pace of missions was slow as to adapt to local culture and language, as well as built a strong base for local leadership … all this in a missionary tradition that flourished long before fervent Catholic and Protestant missions began. It seems that one of the Orthodox models for spreading the gospel was one of patience. Persecution, repression and the minority status of many churches (we can see this at the fall of the Byzantine empire, and more recently of communism), did cause many churches to retreat into a kind of survival mode. Father Luke proposed this may be a reason why many Orthodox churches lost touch with their missionary traditions.

One student, Myung Eun, remarked on their very different style of evangelism: “the Orthodox tend to evangelize people in a different way than Westerners. They do not go forward to evangelize people in the same strong or forceful manner. In Korea many Christian churches have grown in the last hundred years, but there is only one Orthodox church. The Orthodox churches don't use any “marketing” as other churches do to bring people in."

Some in our group were more cautious than others about the Orthodox version of history with regards to missions. Bruce and Jeff pointed out that the Orthodox may see themselves as the ‘underdogs’ of history compared to the Western churches. From this perspective they can differentiate themselves from the more extreme forms of Christian imperialism and cultural insensitivity.

Nevertheless, we could agree that Protestants and Catholics alike can learn much from the patience, the strong sense of continuity with ancient Christian tradition, the rich mystical theology, and the perseverance of the Orthodox churches.

Eva Pascal, discussion moderator

Orthodoxy in Korea and China

Editor’s note: The following post arises from small group reflections from The Rise of Global Christianity, 1910–2010, taught by Dr. Todd Johnson at Boston University in the Fall of 2010. Led by doctoral students, the small groups discussed lectures given by Christian scholars in various disciplines, including significant changes that have occurred in global Christianity over the past 100 years.

In this week’s class our guest lecturer, Luke Veronis, gave a very informative talk on the history of Orthodoxy. He gave a brief overview of the apostolic era to the 19th century, focusing especially on significant mission activity from the 4th to 6th centuries and the 9th to 11th centuries. He reminded us that Orthodox missionaries were translating the Gospel into local languages and training local leaders before the Protestant reformation even happened. But from the 15th century onward the advance of Islam resulted in reduced missionary zeal, though there was movement into Slavic areas, Russia and Siberia. During the 19th century missionary work in Korea, Japan and Alaska was organized from Moscow. During the 20th century Orthodoxy spread through emigration into Europe and the Americas but the Church in Eastern Europe and Russian was stifled by persecution until the end of the century. The majority of our group does not know the story of the Orthodoxy well, so it was good to have this introduction. One of our group noted that the lecture we heard gives the impression that in the Orthodox tradition there is a strong sense of history, that things take time. The Gospel needs time to settle into a region; one has to wait for people to be ready. She contrasted that with a sense of urgency that one gets from the Protestant mission tradition, for example.

We talked a bit about the Orthodox tradition in Korea and China. Will the Orthodox tradition experience explosive growth in China as it has in the freer environment of Russia and Eastern Europe in recent years? Certainly the church does not have as significant a history in China to build on as it does in Russia. One of our South Korean members noted that there is only one Orthodox congregation in Seoul. Hence one might get the impression that the Orthodox faithful are not numerous, but of course they are in other regions of the world like Russia, Ethiopia and the Balkans. She also observed that in Korea the church is known for its liturgy which is different from that of the more numerous Protestants. In addition the church don’t use the same marked-oriented means of evangelism, and one gets the impression that the church has not grown rapidly as have their Protestant counterparts. One of our members who is familiar with the tradition noted that Othodoxy is not focused as much on conversion as on theosis, the long journey of getting closer to God. Hence the concept of evangelism is seen in a different light. Again we noted the Orthodox (?) sense that things take time and that patience is necessary.

Bruce Yoder, discussion moderator

Persecution of the Orthodox Church

Editor’s note: The following post arises from small group reflections from The Rise of Global Christianity, 1910–2010, taught by Dr. Todd Johnson at Boston University in the Fall of 2010. Led by doctoral students, the small groups discussed lectures given by Christian scholars in various disciplines, including significant changes that have occurred in global Christianity over the past 100 years.

This week, we had an opportunity to have a very impressive lecture from Father Luke Veronis from Holy Cross Seminary, dealing with a brief history of Orthodox Church, particularly focusing on the last 100 years. He especially depicts two realities of Orthodoxy during the last century. The first reality is the Orthodox diasporas leaving their homeland to the other land for seeking the better life. Because of their vulnerability, diaspora people (or immigrants) articulated the survival mentality within Orthodox Churches so that they built their own communities which are consisted of very ethnic and homogeneous groups. As a result, the Orthodox Churches are throughout the world but isolated within each ethnicity. The second reality Father Luke especially highlights is the persecution and martyrdom under the communism. What surprised us is the persecution history of Armenian Orthodox. After acknowledging us that there were 20 million martyrs under the pressure of USSR, he states that what happened during the great persecution means a lot for the Orthodox Church today. It implies to us that the more they had persecutions, the more they concentrated on the holiness and purification of their faith. Lastly, Father Luke emphasized the mission history of the Orthodox Churches by saying that the Orthodox Church has many exemplary missionary figures who reflected distinct missionary characteristics from their contemporary Western counterparts throughout her 2000 year tradition. However, he was pitiful for the fact that Orthodox Church’s missionary tradition is often unknown in Western circles.

The initial reflection came from the administrative structure of the Orthodoxy. Unlike Roman Catholicism, Orthodoxy has the autocephalous structure by countries except the case of the ecumenical council under one authority. Our group agreed that Orthodox polity seems similar to that of Methodist (or Anglican) or Presbyterian. However, one of us pointed out that it looks like very “foreign” because they give an impression of being rather exclusive and inwardly-focused, but the talk dispelled some of that impression. The interesting thing for all of our group was that from Orthodox perspective they think Catholics and Protestants have much more in common than Eastern and Western churches do. Rome likes to pretend the Orthodox are the schismatics, but from their point of view they are the original.

Then, our discussion turned to the persecution issue. The pitiful story was that despite the extensive and distinctive missionary activity with translation, respect for culture, and indigenous leadership, all stopped since persecution had set in. On the other hand, one pointed out that the persecution history is the basis of Orthodox potential for the revival because it keeps the Orthodox Church alive. For instance, the number of converts is pretty amazing, especially in light of statements that they don't proselytize or seek converts. A Korean student supported this idea that one of many reasons explaining the rapid growth of Korean churches is very the persecution and martyrdom. We concluded that it doesn't actually seem possible to extinguish Christianity by directly persecuting it or suppressing it.

Lastly, we were talking about the Orthodox theology. One highlighted that theology of Orthodox is very mystic, spiritual, and holy, and the experience of persecution might have purified their faith. Another student stated that Orthodox theology is more compatible with creation care and ecological ethic. But, due to the time limit, we had to stop at this point.

Gun Cheol Kim, discussion moderator

Mission in the Orthodox Church

Editor’s note: The following post arises from small group reflections from The Rise of Global Christianity, 1910–2010, taught by Dr. Todd Johnson at Boston University in the Fall of 2010. Led by doctoral students, the small groups discussed lectures given by Christian scholars in various disciplines, including significant changes that have occurred in global Christianity over the past 100 years.

On October 13th, Father Luke lectured on the brief history of Orthodox Church, focusing on what happened to the Orthodox Church in the last 100 years. He pointed out that people are very ignorant about the mission work of Eastern Orthodox, although long before the Protestant missionaries began their mission works, Eastern Orthodox missionaries were engaged in mission work including translating the Bible while respecting the indigenous culture. In his lecture, he explained the characteristics of Orthodox community under the rule of communism and the recent spiritual renewal of Orthodox mission work.

After the lecture, our group members got together and shared their reflections on the lecture. Initial reaction of most members was that they were surprised about the emphasis on missions in the Orthodox churches. But one student wanted to know what is the main message being emphasized in the Orthodox Church’s mission work. He claimed that when we serve as missionaries, we had better focus more on Jesus Christ over denominational differences. In his thought, this will help us unify as the body of Christ, rather than emphasizing the differences that often get elaborated. Our discussion moved on to the issue of denominational competitions in the mission field and agreed on that we should not give priority to denominational logics over Jesus Christ. Another student said that the call to attend an Orthodox church to learn history moved him to appreciate and strive to understand the wider perspectives of Christianity beyond our own context as Protestants or Catholics. We all agreed that it is not beneficial to have knowledge of only one side of the coin. And one student pointed out that as western Christians have much to learn about the Orthodox Church, orthodox Christians also have much to learn about western Christians. The other student said that Orthodox churches seem to have a greater emphasis on mysticism and, in his thought, monastic life also has an emphasis on creation and connecting with creation.

After sharing our reflections, our conversation turned to the ethnic characteristic of Orthodox Church after one student asked “Does a church with one ethnicity (ie. Russian orthodox, Greek orthodox) have a greater challenge in its perspective of world missions?” This question was a much thought provoking one, but due to the lack of time we could not have enough discussion time for that issue.

Hye Jin Lee, discussion moderator

Learning about Orthodoxy

Editor’s note: The following post arises from small group reflections from The Rise of Global Christianity, 1910–2010, taught by Dr. Todd Johnson at Boston University in the Fall of 2010. Led by doctoral students, the small groups discussed lectures given by Christian scholars in various disciplines, including significant changes that have occurred in global Christianity over the past 100 years.

On Wednesday evening the 13th of October, Father Luke Veronis of Holy Cross Seminary enthusiastically recounted the history of Orthodoxy, particularly over the last century. He highlighted how immigration and Communism were the primary factors shaping the Orthodox community through the 20th-century, but also spoke of the renewal of Orthodox mission. He departed with an appeal for students to familiarize themselves with the rich Orthodox tradition.

In our small group questions immediately surfaced about the Orthodoxy: Why does the Orthodox Church contain so many icons? Who has the longest Christian history—the Orthodox Church or Roman Catholic Church? How did the Orthodox Church get its name (in so far, as we all consider our theology orthodox)? What does it mean to “not be in Eucharistic Communion”? The ensuing discussion proved valuable in two ways. First, the questions were answered, providing a deeper understanding of how Orthodoxy fits within Christian history. Second, the questions underscored Father Veronis’s parting words—many of us do live largely in ignorance of the very broad and deep stream of Orthodox Christianity. The only remaining question will be whether our recognition of that fact will prompt us to remedy the deficiency. That question, it seems, will be settled outside of class.

Daryl Ireland, discussion moderator