New Wine Into Old Wineskins Orthodox TH PDF

Series Preface
Regnum Studies in Mission are born from the lived experience o f Christians
and Christian communities in mission, especially but not solely in the fast
growing churches among the poor o f the world. These churches have more to
tell than stories o f growth. They are making significant impacts on their
cultures in the cause o f Christ. They are producing ‘cultural products’ which
express the reality o f Christian faith, hope and love in their societies.
Regnum Studies in M ission are the fruit often o f rigorous research to the
highest international standards and always o f authentic Christian engagement in
the transformation o f people and societies. And these are for the world. The
formation of Christian theology, missiology and practice in the twenty-first
century will depend to a great extent on the active participation o f growing
churches contributing biblical and culturally appropriate expressions of
Christian practice to inform World Christianity.
Series Editors
Julie C. Ma Oxford Centre for Mission Studies, Oxford, UK

Wonsuk Ma Oxford Centre for Mission Studies, Oxford, UK
A full listing o f titles in this series

appears at the end o f this book
REGNUM STUDIES IN MISSION
Theological Education
and Theology of Life
Transformative Christian Leadership
in the Twenty “First Century
A Festschrift for Dietrich Werner
Edited by Atola Longkumer,

Po Ho Huang and Uta Andrée
Copyright © Atola Longkumer, Po Ho Huang and Uta Andrée, 2016
First published 2016 by Regnum Books International
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Contents
Acknowledgements ix
Foreword
R udolf von Sinner xi
Introduction
Uta Andrée, Atola Longkumer, PoHo Huang 1
Theological Education: Hope for a Theology of Life

A Conversation with Dietrich W e rn e r 6
Part 1: Foundations
Finding Common Ground: The Theology of Life, Decade to
Overcome Violence, and Theological Education
Rodney L. Petersen 15
Biblical Vision for a Learned/Learning Community and Some First

Consequences for the Educational Ministry of the Church
Ulrich Becker 27
Theological Education and Ecumenical Vision Today
Aikaterini Pekridou 34
Theological Education and Transformative Leadership

Atola Longkumer 47
Part II: M ission and Theological Education

Moving from Contextual Bible-Readings on Mission
towards an Inter-contextual Missioiogy
Christine Lienemann-Perrin 61
Theological Education and Theology of Life as Christian Mission

Konrad Raiser 78
Mission and African Ecumenism in Theological Education
James Amanze 87
‘Life’ in Theological Education and Missional Formation -
A Reflection for a New Christian Era
Wonsuk Ma 100
VI Theological Education and Theology o f Life
New Wine into Old Wineskins? Orthodox Theology of

Mission Facing the Challenges of a Global World
Pantelis Kalaitzidis 119
Theological Education and Theology of Life
Isabel Apawo Phiri / Chammah Kaunda 148
Brain Drain to Brain Gain: Asian North American

Theologians as Resource for Theological Education in Asia:
A Few Initiatives of FTESEA
H.S. Wilson 160
Part III:
Theological Education and Theology of Life in C ontexts
Doing Asian Theologies in the Context of God’s Oikos
Huang Po Ho 175
Christian Mission and Education in China:
The Chinazation of Christianity
Theresa C. Carino 182
All Things Hyphenated: Chinese Christian

Hybridity and Asian Pluralism
Mélisande Schifter 193
Mission, Education, and the Theology of the Church

- A Latin American Perspective
Nestor M iguez 199
Diversity in Theological Education and Ecumenical Engagement -

Diversity among the Theological Schools of North America
Daniel Aleshire 208
Asian Realities and Challenges for Peacebuilding

Wati Longchar 218
Women’s ordained ministry in Presbyterian church of Myanmar

Lai Tin Hre 230
P art IV: T heological Education and G lobal Trends

Diakonia in the Ecumenical Movement - An Instrument Towards
Transformative Christian Leadership
Carlos Ham 243
Contents vii
Ecumenical Formation in Theology (EcuFiT)

Werner Kahl / Uta Andrée 252
The Potential of Globalized Religions for Peace

Christoph Stueckelberger 261
Theology of Life - A Perspective from Pastoral Ministry

Chammah Kaunda 266
Select Bibliography of Dietrich Werner 277
Contributors 383
Select Bibliography 289
Index 293
New W ine into O ld W ineskins?:
O rthodox T heology of M ission Facing
the C hallenges of a G lobal W orld *
Pantelis Kalaitzidis
Mission and Theological Education

If one looks back at the history o f Ecumenism, and especially at the 1910
First World Missionary Edinburgh conference, one would have no
difficulty to see clearly the intimate bond between mission and theological
education. Further, one would realize that “the debate on theological
education had started in the missionary and the early ecumenical
movement.” *1 In that year and that place, “the first international commission
on questions o f ‘mission training and theological education,’ came together
and met in the W om en’s Missionary College in St. Colms,” while the
report on Edinburgh 1910, in the interest o f support to interdisciplinary
theological education, and in a bold missionary spirit, expressly suggested
“the primacy o f classes and text books in vernacular languages as well as
[the] increase o f academic standards in theological education in young
churches o f the South.”2
In fact, according to Rev. Dr. Dietrich W erner’s analysis, “ Edinburgh
1910 highlighted the strategic importance o f (theological) education as an
indispensable element o f any Christian mission both in the past and in the
future,”3 drawing on Bishop Gore, Chairman o f Commission III who notes
that:
“The subject of education in missionary work is of special and far-reaching
importance. No one, who knows the history of missions, can doubt that
missionaries were pioneers of education wherever they went, and it is hardly
* The initial version of this paper was presented in Volos Academy’s Workshop
“Orthodox Theology of Mission and the Global Demand for Justice and Peace”,
taken place in the framework of the WCC 10th General Assembly, Busan, Korea,
November 4, 2013.
1 Dietrich Wemer, “The Unfinished Agenda of Ecumenical Theological Education
and the Future of World Christianity”, Theological Education in World
Christianity: Ecumenical Perspectives and Future Priorities (Kway, Tainan,
Taiwan: Programme for Theology and Cultures in Asia, 2011), 249.
2 Dietrich Wemer, “Ecumenical-Theological Education as a Strategic Priority for
World Christianity in the 21st Century”, in Wati Longchar, Mohan Larbeer (eds),
Communion on the Move: Towards a Relevant Theological Education. Essays in
Honour o f Bishop John Sadananda (Bangalore: BTESSC, 2015), 90.
’ Dietrich Werner, “The Unfinished Agenda of Ecumenical Theological Education”,
250.
120 Theological Education and Theology o f Life
possible to exaggerate the debt of gratitude which is due to them for their
labours in education, nor can it be doubted how important a part of education
has played in the process of evangelization.”4
Edinburgh 1910 highlighted also, among others, the importance and
relevance o f missionary education. This is why it “called for a massive
quality improvement in training o f missionaries which according to the
Report o f Commission V should be drastically upgraded in academic level
and enlarged in terms o f both a) language studies, b) history o f religions
and sociology o f mission territories and c) in general principles of
missionary work.”5
Edinburgh 1910 also closely linked mission studies and theological
education with ecumenical openness and the overcoming of confessional
divisions, clearly calling to move “beyond denominational lines in
theological education and promoting the establishment o f centralized
mission colleges jointly supported by different denominations and mission
agencies.” Following this suggestion, “theological education of
missionaries should take place mainly in ‘central missionary colleges’ (not
as before just in regional denominational mission seminaries) which were
to be foreseen in places like Shanghai, Madras, Calcutta, Beirut and Cairo
and should be open to missionaries o f all Christian denominations.”
According to Dietrich Werner whose argument I follow,
“these plans were visionary and revolutionary in their understanding of
Christian education and theological education in particular - an early
foretaste of the concept of ecumenical theological education and ecumenical
learning which was developed decades later.”6
One o f the suggestions and instructions o f Edinburgh 1910, o f crucial
and decisive importance for our discussion, was the one referring to the
need o f providing theological and Christian education in vernacular
languages. Following the Report o f Commission 111: “In the work of
training the native Christian Churches, and in particular those who are to be
the leaders o f the Churches, the greatest possible care will have to be taken
to avoid the risk o f denationalizing those who are being trained. In
particular, we lay the greatest emphasis on the importance o f giving
religious teaching, not only o f the elementary kind, but as far as possible
throughout, in the vernacular. We feel certain that those o f our witnesses
are right who believe that religion can only really be acclimatized in the
4 Bishop Gore, Chairman of Commission 111, in World Missionary Conference,

1910, Education in Relation to the Christianization of National Life, Report of
Commission 111 (Edinburgh & London, 1910), 6, quoted in Dietrich Werner, “The
Unfinished Agenda of Ecumenical Theological Education”, 250.
5 Dietrich Werner, “The Unfinished Agenda”, 250.
6 Dietrich Werner, “The Unfinished Agenda”, 251.
Mew Wine into Old Wineskins? 121
heart o f the natives o f any country if it finds expression in their native

language - the language o f their homes.”7
Since then, and up to Edinburgh 2010 and beyond, ecumenical dialogue,
theological education, and mission studies are inextricably linked, as this is
exemplified through the different relevant organizations, funds or programs
(Theological Education Fund-TEF, Programme on Theological Education-
PTE, Ecumenical Theological Education-ETE) serving the vision and
purposes o f theological education, which, besides its importance for the
history o f Ecumenism and missiology, it is also “a strategic factor for the
future and coherence o f World Christianity in the 21st century, often
underestimated in many churches, development agencies and mission
boards, and partially also in the W CC.” Therefore,
it calls for new priorities in the field of theological and missionary
education in many churches in the ecumenical world, to the extent that
theological education is considered as “the only means to counter the
foreseeable ecclesial apartheid within World Christianity.”8
Rev. Dr. Dietrich Werner, who is honored by the present Festschrift,
served ETE for seven years (2007-2014) with theological competence,
ecumenical openness, and missionary zeal, and left behind him a
considerable amount o f work and relevant publications,9 for which we are
deeply thankful and grateful to him and to his praise-worth service and
diakonia. I had the honor and the privilege to work with him, very much
appreciating his faithful commitment to the ecumenical vision, and to the
ministerial and theological formation, particularly his continuous support
and enthusiasm in facilitating the strengthening and consolidation o f an
ecumenically oriented Orthodox theological thinking in both fields, i.e.,
theological education, and mission studies. Flaving published papers in two
out o f the four Handbooks he co-edited on topics dealing with Theological
7 Quoted in Dietrich Werner, “The Unfinished Agenda”, 251.

8 Dietrich Werner, “The Unfinished Agenda, Ecumenical-Theological Education as
a Strategic Priority for World Christianity”, 89; Cf. idem, “The Unfinished
Agenda”, 267.
9 Among other things, during his mandate at ETE/WCC, Rev. Dr. Dietrich Werner
manage to edit and to publish four volumes covering the areas of Theological
Education, Ecumenism, World Christianity, and Missiology: (1) Dietrich Werner,
David Esterline, Namsoon Kang, Joshva Raja (eds), Handbook o f Theological
Education in World Christianity: Theological Perspectives-Regional Surveys-
Ecumenical Trends (Oxford: Regnum Books International, 2010); (2) Isabel Apawo
Phiri, Dietrich Werner (eds), Handbook o f Theological Education in Africa
(Oxford: Regnum Books International, 2013); (3) Hope Antone, Wati Longchar,
Hyunju Bae, Huang Po Ho, Dietrich Werner (eds), Asian Handbook on Theological
Education and Ecumenism (Oxford: Regnum Books International, 2013): (4)
Pantelis Kalaitzidis, Thomas Fitzgerald, Cyril Hovorun, Aikaterini Pekridou,
Nikolaos Asproulis, Dietrich Werner, Guy Liagre (eds), Orthodox Handbook on
Ecumenism. Resources for Theological Education (Oxford/Volos: Regnum Books
/Volos Academy Publications, 2014).
Education, and Ecumenism,10 I made the choice to contribute to his

Festschrift with a paper dealing with Orthodox mission, its achievements,
problems, and new challenges.
The Orthodox Contribution towards the Renewal

of Mission Theology during the 20th Century
Orthodox mission theology, along with the wider renewal of Orthodox
theology which took place during the 20th century, first in diaspora, and
then in many Orthodox countries and settings, has significantly contributed
to global Christian community, and ecumenical theology regarding issues
o f missiological interest. To list only a few, one could mention:
a) the foundation o f mission in Trinitarian theology, i.e., the
understanding o f mission not as aiming primarily at the propagation or
transmission o f intellectual convictions, doctrines, moral commands, etc.,
but at the transmission o f the very life o f personal communion that exists in
God, to the degree that God’s involvement in history aims at drawing
humanity and creation in general into this communion with God’s very
life;11 b) the theological reflection on the charismatic boundaries o f the
10 Pantelis Kalaitzidis, “Orthodox Theological Education in the Postmodemity Era:

Challenges, Questions and Ambivalences”, in Handbook o f Theological Education
in World Christianity, 614-622; Pantelis Kalaitzidis, “Theological, Historical, and
Cultural Reasons for Anti-ecumenical Movements in Eastern Orthodoxy”, in
Orthodox Handbook on Ecumenism, 134-152.
11 Cf. Ion Bria (ed), Go Forth in Peace: Orthodox Perspectives on Mission
(Geneva: World Council of Churches, 1986), 3; Elias Voulgarakis, Mission: Paths
and Structures (Athens: Armos Publications, 1989), 33-36 [in Greek]; Archbishop
Anastasios (Yannoulatos), Mission in Christ’s Way: An Orthodox Understanding o f
Mission (Brookline/Geneva: Holy Cross Orthodox Press/WCC Publications, 2010),
7-8, 128-129; Petros Vassiliadis, Unity and Witness: Orthodox Christian Witness
and Interreligious Dialogue. Handbook o f Mission (Athens: Epikentro Publications,
2007), 192-194 [in Greek]; Petros Vassiliadis (ed), “Introductory Remarks”,
Orthodox Perspectives on Mission (Oxford: Regnum Books International, 2013), 4-
5; “Patriarch Daniel Ciobotea”, Significance of the Trinitarian Theology for the Life
and the Mission of the Church, International Journal o f Orthodox Theology, 1.1,
2010, 28-32; Metropolitan Geevarghese Mor Coorilos, “Mission and Inter-religious
Dialogue: Some Orthodox Perspectives”, in Pantelis Kalaitzidis, Thomas FitzGerald
et al. (eds), Orthodox Handbook on Ecumenism. Resources for Theological
Education (Oxford/Volos: Regnum Books /Volos Academy Publications, 2014),
831-837, especially 831-834. Cf. Athanasios N. Papathanasiou, “The ‘Generation
of ’60s’: Suspicion, Creativity, Embarrassment”, in Pantelis Kalaitzidis, Athanasios
N. Papathanasiou, Theophilos Ambatzidis (eds), Turmoil in Postwar Theology: The
Theology o f ’60 (Athens: Indiktos Publications, 2009), 389-390 [in Greek];
Metropolitan Geevarghese Mor Coorilos, “Mission Toward Fullness of Life”, in
Erlinda N. Senturias, Theodore A. Gill, Jr. (eds), Encountering the God o f Life:
Report o f the 10th Assembly o f the World Council o f Churches (Geneva: WCC
Publications, 2014), 118-119. This Trinitarian foundation of mission is now
New Wine into Old Wineskins? 123
church which when seen from a pneumatological (based on the distinct

economy o f the Holy Spirit) or from a soteriological (based on the
universality o f the salvation in Christ) perspective, exceed its canonical
limits, embracing people from other Christian traditions or even from non-
Christian faiths;12
reflected in the new WCC mission and evangelism statement. Together Towards
Life: Mission and Evangelism in Changing Landscapes, prepared by the
Commission on World Mission and Evangelism. See Jooseop Keum (ed), Together
Towards Life: Mission and Evangelism in Changing Landscapes (Geneva: WCC
Publications, 2013).
12 Georges Florovsky, “The Boundaries of the Church”, in Ecumenism 1: A
Doctrinal Approach, volume thirteen in the Collected Works of G. Florovsky
(Vaduz, Europa/Belmont, MA: Büchervertriebsanstalt, 1989), 36-45; idem, “The
Limits of the Church”, Church Quarterly Review, 1933, 117-131; idem, “The
Doctrine of the Church and the Ecumenical Problem”, The Ecumenical Review, 2-3
(1950), 152-161; Georges Khodr, “Christianity in a Pluralistic World - The
Economy of the Holy Spirit”, The Ecumenical Review, 23.2 (1971), 118-128; the
same paper is also published in Constantin G. Patelos (ed). The Orthodox Church in
the Ecumenical Movement: Documents and Statements 1902-1975 (Geneva: World
Council of Churches, 1978), 297-307; idem, “An Orthodox Perspective of Inter-
Religious Dialogue”, Current Dialogue, 19 (1991), 45-64; Ioannis Karmiris, “The
Universality of the Salvation in Christ”, Theologia, 51 (1980), 645-691, and 52
(1981), 14-45 [in Greek]; idem, The Salvation o f the People o f God Outside the
Church (Athens, 1982) [in Greek]; Archbishop Anastasios (Yannoulatos), “A
Theological Approach to Understanding Other Religions”, Facing the World:
Orthodox Christian Essays on Global Concerns, transi. Pavlos Gottfried
(Crestwood, NY / Geneva: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press / WCC Publications,
2003), 127-153; Kallistos Ware, “’The Light that Enlightens Everyone’: The
Knowledge of God among non-Christians’, Greek Orthodox Theological Review,
44 (1999), 557-584; loan Sauca, “The Church Beyond our Boundaries / The
Ecumenical Vocation of Orthodoxy”, The Ecumenical Review, 56.2 (2004), 211-
225; Petros Vassiliadis, “The Eucharist as an Inclusive and Unifying Element in the
New Testament Ecclessiology”, in A. Alexeev-Ch. Karakolis-U. Luz (eds), Einheit
der Kirche im Neuen Testament (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008), 121-145; idem,
“Interfaith dialogue as a Missiological Issue: Reconciliation as a New Mission
Paradigm”, in Philia and Koinonia: Festschrift in Honor o f Professor Gregorios
Ziakas (Thessaloniki: Vanias Publications, 2008), 647-662; idem, “The Missionary
Implications of St. Paul’s Eucharistic Inclusiveness”, in Nicolae Moçoiu (ed), The
Relevance o f Reverend Professor Ion Bria’s Work for Contemporary Society and
for the Life o f the Church. New Directions in the Research o f Church Doctrine,
Mission, and Unity (Sibiu: Editura Universitâ(.ii, ‘Lucian Blaga’), 2010, 123-134;
Athanasios N. Papathanasiou, “If I cross the boundaries, you are there! An
affirmation of God’s action outside the canonical boundaries of the Church”,
Communio Viatorurn, 53.3 (2011 ), 40-55; Emmanuel Clapsis, “The Boundaries of
the Church: An Orthodox Debate”, Orthodoxy in Conversation: Orthodox
Ecumenical Engagements (Geneva/Brookline, MA: WCC Publications/Holy Cross
Orthodox Press), 2000, 114-126; idem, “Interreligious Dialogue and Universal
Salvation”, Theologia, 84 (2013), 81-104 [in Greek]; Athanasios Vletsis, “Return to
Orthodoxy: What is the Model of Church’s Unity for the Orthodox Church?”, in
c) the mission as diakonia and “liturgy after the Liturgy” : in the

Orthodox tradition the “liturgy after the Liturgy” relates the Eucharistic
gathering to the social praxis or action, the liturgical life with the life o f the
world and the engagement in favor o f the poor and the marginalized, and
therefore expends the liturgical ethos o f sharing and brotherhood beyond
the sanctuary in the everyday life, sending thus the Orthodox forth “in
peace,” to bear witness to their Eucharistic experience in the world.13 In
more recent times Orthodox theologians, from both the Eastern and the
Oriental family, echoing patristic insights on liberation and the sacrament
o f the brother, but also o f the Latin American Jesuit liberation theologian
Jon Sobrino, and his idea on G od’s preferential option for the poor,
initiated the expression “liturgy before Liturgy.” According to the profound
Ioannis Petrou, Stylianos Tsompanidis, Moschos Gkoutsioudis (eds), The

Ecumenical Dialogue in the 21s>Century: Festschrift for Emeritus Professor Petros
Vassiliadis (Thessaloniki: Vanias Publications, 2013), 115-131 [in Greek]; idem,
“Orthodox Ecelesiology in Dialogue with other understandings of the Nature of the
Church”, in Pantelis Kalaitzidis, Thomas FitzGerald et al. (eds), Orthodox
Handbook on Ecumenism. Resources for Theological Education, 639-646; Stylianos
Tsompanidis, “The Church and the Churches in the Ecumenical Movement”,
International Journal for the Study o f the Christian Church, 12 (2012), 148-163;
Cyril flovorun, “Borders of Salvation: Reading Fathers with Russian Theologians”,
in Theresia Hainthaler, Franz Mali, Gregor Emmenegger und Mante Lenkaitytè
Ostermann (eds), Für uns und fur unser He il: Soteriologie in Ost und West.
Forscher aus dem Osten und Westen Europas an den Quellen des gemeinsamen
Glaubens. Studientagung, Erztergom, 3.-5. Oktober 2012 (Innsbruck-Wien:
Tyrolia-Verlag, 2014), 313-322.
]j Cf. Ion Bria, The Liturgy after the Liturgy: Mission and Witness from an
Orthodox Perspective (Geneva: WCC Publications, 1996); cf. idem, “The Liturgy
after the Liturgy”, International Review o f Mission (hereinafter referred as IRM), 67
(1978), issue 265, 86-90; idem (ed.), Martyria-Mission: The Witness o f the
Orthodox Churches Today (Geneva: World Council of Churches, 1980); idem (ed),
Go Forth in Peace', see also Archbishop Anastasios (Yannoulatos), “A Clarification
of the Phrase: ‘The Liturgy after the Liturgy’”, Mission in Christ’s Way: An
Orthodox Understanding o f Mission, 94-96 (in which Archbishop Anastasios
claimed the paternity of both the idea and the terminology of “the Liturgy after the
Liturgy”); Al. Papaderos, “Liturgical Diakonia”, in George Tsetsis (ed), An
Orthodox Approach to Diakonia. Consultation on Church and Service. Orthodox
Academy o f Crete, November 20-25, 1978 (Geneva, WCC Publications, 1980), 17-
46; Stylianos Ch. Tsompanidis, Meta-liturgia: The Orthodox Contribution in the
Common Christian Witness for Justice, Peace, and Integrity o f Creation
(Thessaloniki: Poumaras Publications, 2009) [in Greek]; Petros Vassiliadis,
“Orthodox Christianity [and Politics]”, in Jacob Neusner (ed), God’s Rule: The
Politics o f World Religion (Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 2003),
85-105, especially, 95. Dragica Tadic-Papanikolaou, “Orthodox Contributions for
the Understanding and Practice of Diakonia (the ‘Liturgy after Liturgy’)”, in
Pantelis Kalaitzidis, Thomas FitzGerald et al. (eds), Orthodox Handbook on
Ecumenism, 725-732.
remarks made by the Greek Orthodox lay theologian Athanasios N.

Papathanasiou,
the journey towards the world is not simply the result of the Eucharist; it is
also the precondition for it. in other words, we do not need only a “liturgy
after the Liturgy” but also a “liturgy before the Liturgy.” The “liturgy before
the Liturgy” is the sacrament of love. If solidarity, the journey towards the
Other, and inviting the Other into the Kingdom are not conditions and
constitutive elements of the Liturgy, then the Liturgy risks lapsing into the
sheer ritualism, meaning a conviction that the performance of rites and cults
without further conditions automatically produces salvific results.14
Geevarghese Mor Coorilos puts forward the idea o f the mission as
“liturgy before Liturgy,” as a presupposition for a genuine Eucharistic
gathering (according to Mt 5:23, 24), and as a way to overcome
discrimination against people by virtue o f caste, race, or gender. The Indian
Orthodox bishop o f the Jacobite Syrian Orthodox Church poses in the same
context the following crucial question: “what is Holy Communion without
social communion?” By this he maintains that the challenge lies chiefly in
taking up the “liturgy after the Liturgy” (the ministry o f healing and
reconciliation) before, and not after the Liturgy;15
d) the overcoming o f both mission as a universal proselytism, and its
aggressive practices based on a Christomonistic perspective followed by a
colonialist / imperialistic expansion, and therefore the understanding of
mission in terms o f a common Christian witness, and interfaith dialogue;16
14 Athanasios N. Papathanasiou, “Journey to the Center of Gravity: Christian

Mission One Century after Edinburgh 1910”, in Todd M. Johnson, Rodney L.
Petersen, Gina A. Bellofato, Travis L. Myers (eds), 2010 Boston: The Changing
Contours o f World Mission and Christianity (Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications,
2012), 70-71.
15 Geevarghese Mor Coorilos, “Mission as Liturgy Before Liturgy”, in Petros
Vasiliadis (ed), Orthodox Perspectives on Mission, 175-180.
16 Ion Bria, “Common Witness”, in Nicolas Lossky, José Miguez Bonino et al.
(eds), Dictionary o f the Ecumenical Movement (Geneva: WCC Publications, 2002),
1208; Petros Vassiliadis, Unity and Witness, op. cit., 59-71; Metropolitan
Geevarghese Coorilos, “Mission and Interreligious Dialogue: Some Orthodox
Perspectives”, in Pantelis Kalaitzidis, Thomas FitzGerald et al. (eds), Orthodox
Handbook on Ecumenism, 831-837; John Njoroge, “Common Mission as a Task for
Orthodox Involvement in Ecumenism”, in Pantelis Kalaitzidis, Thomas FitzGerald
et al. (eds), Orthodox Handbook on Ecumenism, 685-689. Fr. Lev Gillet (1893-
1980), a French convert to Orthodoxy, in an early paper he published in 1942
(“Dialogue with Trypho”, IRM, 31, 1942, 172-179), speaking on the mission to
Jews, and based on the practice and the theology of the early church (especially
Martyr and Apologist Justin in the 2nd century), proposed a new understanding of
mission as dialogue, and not simply as a one-sided movement towards the other. Cf.
Athanasios N. Papathanasiou, “Tradition as Impulse for Renewal and Witness”,
IRM, 100 (2011), 205.
e) the understanding o f Eucharist as a missionary event: as the late Fr.

Ion Bria, who served for many years as the Secretary for Orthodox Studies
and Relationships, at the Commission on World Mission and Evangelism,
in WCC, put it: “the place where the world becomes kingdom is the
Eucharistic assembly, where the whole creation, represented by the bread
and the wine, is changed by the Holy Spirit into the body and blood o f the
risen Christ, into the kingdom o f God. The Eucharist itself, therefore, is a
missionary event, the dynamic heart of the ecclesial community in which
both men and women find their diaconal and missionary role.” 17
Thus, according to the aforementioned theologians and in line with
Nikos Nissiotis,18 Elias Voulgarakis,19 Archbishop Aram Keshishian,20 or
Metropolitan Geevarghese Mar Ostathios,21 Orthodoxy, both Eastern and
Oriental, has offered to the ecumenical movement a solid and profound
theology o f mission.
17 Ion Bria (ed.). Go Forth in Peace, 66; Emmanuel Clapsis, “The Eucharist as
Missionary Event in a Suffering World”, Orthodoxy in Conversation: Orthodox
Ecumenical Engagements, 191-197.
18 Cf. Nikos A. Nissiotis, “The Ecclesiological Foundation of Mission from the
Orthodox Point of View”, The Greek Orthodox Theological Review, 7 (1961-62),
22-52; idem, “The Witness and the Service of the Eastern Orthodoxy to the One and
Undivided Church”, The Ecumenical Review, 14 (1962), 192-202; idem, “La
présence dynamique et la mission de l’Eglise locale dans le monde d’aujourd’hui”,
in Eglise locale et église universelle, Chambésy: Les éditions du Centre orthodoxe,
1981,309-327.
19 Elias Voulgarakis, “Mission and Unity from the Theological Point of View”,
IRM, 54 (1965), 298-307; idem, The Greek Orthodox Missionary Philotheos: The
First Modern Greek Mission Novel, reprint from ‘Porefthentes-Go Ye’ (Athens,
1970); idem, “Missionsangaben in den Briefen der Asketen Barsanuphius und
Johannes. Einleitende Gedanken und eine Untersuchung”, in Anastasios Kallis (ed),
Philoxenia: Prof Dr. Bernhard Kotting gewidmet von semen Schiilern (Münster:
Aschendorff, 1980), 281-307; idem, “The Church of Greece”, in Ion Bria (ed),
Martyria/Mission: The Witness o f the Orthodox Churches Today (Geneva: WCC,
1980), 115-121; idem, “A Lesson in Evangelism: The Lives of Cyril and
Methodius”, IRM, 74 (1985), 230-236; “Orthodox Mission”, in Karl Müller, Theo
Sundermeier, Stephen B. Bevans, Richard H. Bliese (eds), Dictionary o f Mission:
Theology, History, Perspectives (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1998), 334-338;
idem, Mission: Paths and Structures (Athens, Armos Publications, 1989), 33-36 [in
Greek].
20 Archbishop Aram Keshishian, Orthodox Perspectives on Mission (Oxford:
Regnum Lynx, 1992).
21 Metropolitan Mar Ostathios, “Worship, Mission, Unity - These Three. Response
to Bishop Mortimer Arias”, IRM, 65 (1976), 41-42; idem, “Divine Sharing: Shape
of Mission for the Future”, IRM, 76 (1987), 18-19; idem, “Kingdom of God and
Identification with the Poor”, IRM, 69 (1980), 503-507; idem, “Conviction of Truth
and Tolerance of Love”, IRM, 74 (1985), 490-496; idem, “Divine Sharing: Shape of
Mission for the Future”, IRM, 76 (1987), 16-20.
In addition, 20th century Orthodox mission had the significant advantage

in most o f the cases o f being dissociated from colonialist attempts,
expansive political projects, or aggressive proselytism,22 to the extent that it
usually followed the missionary example and method of the early
missionaries in the Christian East such as St. Nina o f Georgia (4th century),
St. Gregory the Illuminator o f Armenia (4th century), St. Hilarion of Gaza
in Palestine (4th century), St. Frumentios o f Ethiopia (4th century), the
Monastics o f Egypt, Palestine, and Syria (4th and 5th centuries), St. John
Chrysostom (5*1 century), St. Euthymios (5th century), St. Sabbas (6th
century); Orthodox mission followed and imitated especially the 9th century
Byzantine saints Cyril and Methodius, the two brothers from Thessaloniki
and Apostles to the Slavs, chosen for this mission by St. Photius, Patriarch
o f Constantinople, who in their missionary work fully respected vernacular
language (rejecting thus the W estern medieval doctrine of the three
“sacred” languages, i.e., Hebrew, Greek, Latin), translating in it the Bible
and the liturgical texts, as well as various customs and the local culture of
the native people, and even worked for the invention and elaboration o f a
new alphabet which could fit with the requirements o f the Slavic
language.23 As rightly highlighted by Evangelical theologian and specialist
o f the Eastern Orthodox mission James J. Stamoolis,
“the translation of the Bible and the employment of the vernacular in
Christian mission has long been a hallmark of the Orthodox Church.
Missionaries from Byzantium consistently employed this method in their
efforts to bring the message of salvation to the heathen tribes. Whereas the
Roman Catholic Church insisted on the universal use of Latin as the language
of worship, Orthodox theology dictated the use of the living language of the
people.”2
But Stamoolis took one step further in his remarks and analyses: he went
even beyond the issue o f translation by pointing out that “the incamational
approach, the translation into the vernacular yet more than the translation,
the very embodiment o f G od’s truth in the language and culture o f a
people, has been the hallmark o f the best o f Orthodox mission work.”25
22 Ion Bria (ed), Go Forth in Peace, 64-65: “Orthodoxy is proud of its foreign
missionary tradition that has not been carried out in a spirit of colonialism, but
rather with the intent of adapting the faith to the manners, language, traditions and
life-styles of the people to whom it brings the gospel. Wherever Orthodoxy is now
acti ve in such mission it must retain and expand that method.”
23 Cf. Archbishop Anastasios (Yannoulatos), Mission in Christ's Way, 193-195;
Dimitri Obolensky, “Sts. Cyril and Methodius, Apostles of the Slavs”, St.
Vladimir’s Seminary Quarterly, 7 (1963), 3-13; Luke Alexander Veronis,
Missionaries, Monks and Martyrs: Making Disciples o f All Nations (Light and Life
Publishing, 1994), 28-44. Cf. Ion Bria (ed), Go Forth in Peace, 64-68.
24 James J. Stamoolis, Eastern Orthodox Mission Theology Today (Maryknoll, NY:
Orbis, 1986), 62.
25 James Stamoolis, Eastern Orthodox Mission Theology Today, 61. Cf.
Papathanasiou, “The ‘Generation o f ’60s’: Suspicion, Creativity, Embarrassment”,
The same example and missionary method was later adopted by the
Russian apostles who were inspired by the Orthodox principles o f
Byzantine missionaries, such as Stephen o f Perm (1340-1396), who worked
with the Zyrian people o f northwest Siberia; St. Tryphon of Novgorod
(+1583), who brought the Gospel to the Laps; Bishop Philotheos of
Tobolsk, the “Apostle to Siberia” (+1727), who carried out missionary
work among the pagan tribes in the remote areas o f Siberia; St. Herman of
Alaska (1756-1837), who approached with love and respect the native
Alaskans, and their culture and life-style, and is now considered by many
as the patron saint o f Orthodoxy in North America; the monk Macarios
Gloukharev (1792-1847), the Apostle to the warlike tribes o f the Altai
mountain range; Bishop innocent Veniaminov (1797-1878), who
accomplished missionary work among the Aleutians, the Eskimos, and
other Alaskan tribes, before he later become Metropolitan o f Moscow and
all Russia; the merchant Sidenikoff among the Samoyeds; the linguist and
theologian Nicholas 11minsky, who introduced new methods o f translation
and missionary work among the Tartars; Bishop Innokentiy Figurovsky, the
Apostle to China, who led the Russian Orthodox Mission in China from
1896 to 1931, and was the ruling bishop o f Beijing from 1902 to 1931 ;
Archbishop Nikolai Kasatkin (1836-1912), the Apostle to Japan, who did
every possible effort in order to adopt Japanese way o f life and cultural
tradition, and worked hardly not only for evangelization, but also for the
indigenization o f the Orthodox Church in Japan.26
The same missionary ethos and practice often (but not always)
characterized 20th century Orthodox apostles, eminently exemplified by
Archbishop Anastasios (Yannoulatos) o f Albania (born in 1929), who
initially worked (in the ’70s and ’80s) as missionary in Africa and as
Professor at the Faculty o f Theology, at Athens University, and later (after
1992) as Exarch and Archbishop o f the Orthodox Church in Albania; or
Metropolitan Sotirios (Trampas) o f Pissidia (born in 1929), the founder and
op. cit., 384-386; idem, “Slanted Eyes, Yet Wide Open. The Mission of the Church
in Japan”, Synaxi, issue 131, 2014, 80-87 [in Greek].
26 Cf. Archbishop Anastasios (Yannoulatos), Mission in Christ’s Way, 196-198;
Luke Alexander Veronis, Missionaries, Monks and Martyrs: Making Disciples o f
All Nations (Light and Life Publishing, 1994), 45-50; 59-92; Nikita Struve,
“Macaire Goukharev, a Prophet of Orthodox Mission”, I RM 54 (1965), 308-314;
Sister Thais, “Archimandrite Macarios: Founder of the Altai Mission in Siberia”,
Orthodox Alaska, 4 (1974); Paul D. Garrett, St. Innocent, Apostle to America
(Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1979); Barbara S. Smith,
Orthodoxy and Native Americans: The Alaskan Mission (Crestwood, NY: St.
Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1980); J. J. Oleksa, “Orthodoxy in Alaska. The Spiritual
History of the Kodiak Aleut People”, St. Vladimir's Theological Quarterly, 25
(1981), 3-19; Michael Oleksa, Alaskan Missionary Spirituality (New York: Paulist
Press, 1987); idem, Orthodox Alaska (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary
Press, 1993); F.A. Golder, Father Herman, Alaska’s Saint (San Francisco: St.
Herman’s Brotherhood, 2004).
organizer in recent times o f the Orthodox Church in Korea; or even the late
Athonite Hieromonk Cosmas Grigoriatis (1942-1989), who hardly worked
as missionary in Zaire, and ministered to the spiritual and basic material
needs o f Zaire’s people, leaving at the end his bones amongst the natives.
As rightly summarized by a leading Orthodox theologian o f mission, the
late Fr. Ion Bria, the Eastern Orthodox missionary ethos and practice,
Whether systematically planned or spontaneously improvised, Orthodox
missions were generally based on the attempt to make Scripture and liturgy
immediately acceptable to the new Christians, by having them translated into
their native tongue and by having a native clergy assume leadership in the
“young churches.” The greatest historical instance of this approach is that of
Sts. Cyril and Methodius in their mission among the Slavs. Their example
was followed up to modern times (St. Nicholas of Japan). In the examples
mentioned above, however, indigen ization was never seen as an end in itself;
concern was also given to cultural continuity between the mother church and
the daughter churches (liturgy, art, music, etc.) which preserved the sense of
the universal unity of the church.27
Being for centuries the victim o f both the Western Christian
aggressiveness seeking dominion, and the Muslim (Arab first, later
Ottoman Turkish) conquest,28 Eastern Christianity in general was usually
ranked to the side o f the oppressed, enjoying a moral prestige among the
colonized and oppressed peoples o f the global south and the third world. In
this respect, it suffices to recall, as an example, the unprecedented radiance
and popularity o f Archbishop Macarius III of Cyprus to the African peoples
o f all faiths, especially in Kenya29 or the way in which the establishment of
27 Ion Bria (ed). Go Forth in Peace, 64.

28 See for this period instead of many, Steven Runciman, The Great Church in
Captivity; A Study o f the Patriarchate o f Constantinople from the Eve o f the Turkish
Conquest to the Greek War o f Independence (Cambridge University Press, 1968);
Benjamin Braude, Bernard Lewis (eds), Christians and Jews in the Ottoman
Empire: The Functioning o f a Plural Society (Teaneck: Holmes & Meier
Publishers, 1982); Kenneth Cragg, The Arab Christian: A History in the Middle
East (Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1991); Youssef Courbage &
Philippe Fargues, Chrétiens et Juifs dans l ’Islam arabe et turc (Paris: Fayard,
1992); Cl. Lorieux, Chrétiens dOrient en terres d ’Islam (Paris: Perrin, 2001);
Bruce Masters, Christians and Jews in the Ottoman Arab World: The Roots o f
Sectarianism (Cambridge University Press, 2001); David Thomas (ed), Syrian
Christians: The First Thousand Years (Leiden: Brill, 2001). Cf. also Bat Ye’Or, Les
Chrétientés d Orient entre Jihad et Dhimmitude. Vlle-XXe siècles, Préface de
Jacques Ellul (Paris: Les Editions du Cerf, 1991).
29 See Bishop Makarios (Tyllirides), “The Makarios Legacy in Kenya”, in Georges
Lemopoulos (ed), You Shall Be My Witnesses: Mission Stories from the Eastern and
Oriental Orthodox Churches (Katerini, Greece: Tertios Publications, 1993), 121-
132; Brian Drohan, “Defying Decolonization: Anticolonial Nationalism and the
Greek-Cypriot Liberation Movement”, accessible at: http://imperialglobalexeter.
com/2014/10/06/defying-decolonization-anticolonial-nationalism-and-the-greek-
cypriot-liberation-movement/ (Checked: 06 Feb. 2016); Stephen Hayes, “Orthodox
130 Theological Education and Theology’ o f Life
the first Orthodox communities was initiated in Africa, i. e., by the

initiative o f some indigenous people to convert to Orthodoxy, and not as a
result o f any foreign missionary work.30 This decisive event ranked
Orthodoxy from the outset on the side o f the colonized and oppressed
African people. Referring for example to the case of Kenya, which
resembles in many points with Cyprus, we will see that,
after the Second World War, the struggle against colonial rule intensified, and
in 1952 the colonial authorities declared a state of emergency as a result of
the activities of the Mau Mau guerrillas. The Orthodox Church was banned
and its schools and temples were closed by the colonial regime. Many
churches were burnt down by the armed forces, and the clergy put in
concentration camps. During that period the Orthodox Church in Kenya was
treated by the British colonial regime in the same fashion as the Bolsheviks
treated the Russian Orthodox Church, immediately after the Second World
War the Orthodox Church had been growing rapidly, until it was banned in
the 1950s. Orthodox Christians regarded the Roman Catholic and Protestant
missions as collaborators with the regime, who sought to discredit and belittle
the Orthodox Church, and conducted hostile propaganda against it.31*
It is not then curious that the Western missions in Africa treated in the
first place African Orthodoxy with some suspicion. As characteristically
noted by Bishop Makarios (Tyllirides), the now Metropolitan o f Nairobi in
Kenya, o f the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Alexandria and All Africa, in
a relevant paper,
Mission in Tropical Africa”, an article originally published in Missionalia, the

journal of the Southern African Missiological Society, accessible at:
http://www.hchc.edu/missions/articles/articles/orthodox-mission-in-tropical-africa/
(Checked: 06 Feb. 2016); Robert Holland, Britain and the Revolt in Cyprus, 1954-
1959 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998), 25-32. On Archbishop Makarios see Stanley
Mayes, Makarios: A Biography (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1981). Regarding
the position of the Orthodox Church of Cyprus towards colonization see the chapter
6: ‘Colonialism and Ethnarchy: The Case of Cyprus’, of the work of Victor
Roudometof, Globalization and Orthodox Christianity: The Transformations o f a
Religious Tradition (New York and London: Routledge, 2014). On the Orthodox
identity as post-colonial or anti-colonial, see: George E. Demacopoulos and
Aristotle Papanikolaou, “Orthodox Naming of the Other: A Postcolonial
Approach”, in George E. Demacopoulos and Aristotle Papanikolaou, Orthodox
Constructions o f the West (New York: Fordham University Press, 2013), 1-22. Cf.
Aristotle Papanikolaou, “Tradition or Identity Politics: The Role of the ‘West’ in
contemporary Orthodox Theology”, in Tradition and Dogma: What Kind o f
Dogmatic Theology Do We Propose for the Present? (Theology Faculty of Arad,
Romania, 2010), 242-250; George Demacopoulos, “History, Post-Colonial Theory,
and Some New Possibilities for Retrieving the Theological Past”, in Pantelis
Kalaitzidis et al. (eds), Neo-Patristic Synthesis or Post-Patristic Theology: Can-
Orthodox Theology be Contextual? (Volos Academy Publications, forthcoming).
30 Stephen Hayes, “Orthodox Mission in Tropical Africa”.
Stephen Hayes, “Orthodox Mission in Tropical Africa”.
Few Wine into Old Wineskins? 131
those Orthodox missions that began before 1950 were not regarded as
“mainstream” by the established Roman Catholic and Protestant missions,
because they were identified with African independent church movements,
which at that time were regarded by the Western churches as a problem for
mission rather than a form of mission. The identification of Orthodoxy with
the struggle against colonialism was also an embarrassment at that time. One
Kenyan, writing of such attitudes, referred to “those who in their calculated
ignorance misinterpret African-Christian-Orthodoxy as ‘paganism’.’”2
The remarkable active medical, social and philanthropic activity of
Orthodox missionary centers, and their important contribution to the
economic development, and social progress into the context under
discussion, is another positive feature which has to be ascribed to the
genuine Orthodox mission and witness o f 20th century.33
However, this is not to praise Orthodox mission, but rather to raise
questions and define related problems, as well as to identify a decisive step
towards the Orthodox Christian engagement in the global demand for
justice and peace, issues which in many regards refer to the question of
mission, as well as to the pilgrim o f justice and peace which was at the core
of the 10th WCC General Assem bly’s agenda in Busan, Korea.34 It seems
therefore that, despite these achievements and positive theological
presuppositions, Orthodox mission did not considerably progress during the
20th century, while nowadays is faced with difficulties and challenges to
which it is not always ready to address in a proper way.
In our rapidly changing world, a major recent development has been the
progressive move o f Christianity from the North (mainly Europe, and the
Americas), to the Global South (mainly Asia, Africa, and Latin America). It
seems like Christianity is departing from the secularized Europe, and even
from the more religious America, to the previously missionary continents
of the South, while its center o f gravity is also similarly moves from the
traditional institutional churches (like the Roman Catholic Church or even
the Eastern Orthodox Church), to the new Protestant Evangelical,
Pentecostal churches or charismatic congregations.
j2 Bishop Makarios (Tyllirides), “The Makarios Legacy in Kenya”, in Georges

Lemopoulos (ed), You Shall Be My Witnesses, 123.
3j See e.g, Makarios Tyllirides, Metropolitan of Kenya, Testimonies o f Life, vol. 1-
3, Nairobi, 2006-2012 [in Greek]; Demetrios Aslanidis and Monk Damascene
Grigoriatis, Apostle to Zaire: The Life and Legacy o f Blessed Father Cosmas o f
Grigoriou (Uncut Mountain Press, 2001).
34 Readers are reminded that the initial version of this paper has been presented to
the 10th General Assembly of WCC, held under the theme: ‘God of Life, lead us to
justice and peace’, in Busan, Korea, from October 30 to November 8, 2013. Cf.
Erlinda N. Senturias and Theodore A. Gill, Jr. (eds), Encountering the God o f Life:
Report o f the 10th Assembly o f the World Council o f Churches (Geneva: WCC
As these dramatic global changes are detailed in the analysis offered by

Rev. Dr. Dietrich W erner,3536 based on the New Atlas o f Global
Christianity f and prepared in regard to the 2010 Edinburgh meeting:
a) While 66% o f all Christians lived in Europe in 1910, by 2010 only the
25.6% o f the faithful o f the traditional Christian churches still exist in
Europe. By contrast, less than 2% o f all Christians lived in Africa in 1910
skyrocketing to almost 22% by 2010. The Global North (defined as Europe
and Northern America) contained over 80% of all Christians in 1910 falling
to under 40% o f all Christians by 2010. However the overall percentage of
Christians in World Population did not change much.
b) Seen as Christian percentage of the population per region the shift
becomes even more obvious in Africa: While Africa had less than 10%
Christians in 1910, its population was nearly 50% Christian in 2010, with
sub-Saharan Africa well over 70% Christian.
c) While Christianity remains a minority religion in most of the Asian
countries there has still been an overall increase o f Christian population in
Asia between 1910 and today from 2,4% to 8,5 % which pushed the Asian
Christian population to over 292 million today, with a particular increase of
Christian populations in South East Asia (from 10,8% to 21,8%) (but also a
sharp decrease in Western Asia from 22,9% to 5,7%).
d) It is well-known that the general forecast concerning the
developments until 2050 is that Christianity will still grow in the Global
South (particularly Western Africa, Middle Africa and Eastern Asia
(China) and South East Asia, but will also sharply contract in the Global
North (particularly in Europe).
e) More specifically Christianity in Asia will grow particularly in
countries like China, India, Nepal and Cambodia. Increasingly inner Asian
missions play a major role in witnessing and spreading the Gospel
(examples: some 40.000 to 80.000 Indians working as missionaries and
evangelists to other ethnic groups and 250 mission organizations within
India or 15.000 foreign missionaries sent out by South Korean churches to
other Asian countries).
My impression is that Orthodoxy has not seriously taken into account
this great demographic shift, it is not aware o f these radical changes, which
are going to shape the map o f World Christianity in the forthcoming years,
35 Wemer, “The Unfinished Agenda of Ecumenical Theological Education”, 255-

256.
36 Todd M. Johnson, Kenneth Ross (eds.), Atlas o f Global Christianity (Edinburgh:
Edinburgh University Press, 2009). Cf. Dana Roberts, Christian Mission: How
Christianity Became a World Religion (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009), 78. Cf.
also, L ’Atlas des religions (Paris: La Vie/Le Monde, 2007); nouvelle edition (Paris:
La Vie/Le Monde, 2015) (inclus: le défi islamiste, dossier special). For data and
prospects regarding the period 1970-2020 see: Gina A. Bellofatto, Todd M.
Johnson, “Key Findings of Christianity in Its Global Context, 1970-2020”,
International Bulletin o f Missionary Research, Vol. 37, No. 3, July 2013, 157-164.
and will at the same time affect the presence and dynamic o f the Orthodox
Church both in the North, and the Global South. In fact, apart from some
small in size, but very dynamic Orthodox missionary communities mainly
in Africa and Asia, there is a very thin Orthodox presence in these
continents. Orthodoxy is almost absent from this religious cosmogony and
seems unable to play any role in the emergence and shaping of this non-
Western Christianity. 37 Paradoxically enough, despite its theological,
cultural, and historical rivalry with the Christian West, and its “diaspora”
now spread and rooted all over the world, East and West, North and South,
Orthodoxy is still perceived in the global scale as and remains a Western
reality and phenomenon.
In order to throw more light and clarity, take the example o f Korea,
where the 10th WCC General Assembly was hosted. Personally I very much
appreciate, value, and respect the missionary, pastoral, and theological
work o f both the founder and organizer in recent times o f the Orthodox
mission in Korea, and its first Orthodox Metropolitan, His Eminence
Sotirios o f Pissidia, as well as its successor and distinguished hierarch, His
Eminence Metropolitan Ambrosius o f Korea, who organized a public event
sponsored by the Orthodox Metropolis o f Korea and the local Orthodox
Parish in Busan. Therefore, the intention in what follows is not critique
against the very esteemed hierarchs, but my aim is primarily to define a
wider problem. Regarding the Orthodox presence in Korea, I will repeat for
the purposes o f our discussion what His Beatitude Archbishop Anastasios
Yannoulatos o f Albania said in 1989, when he was wondering “why, while
the Orthodox mission began almost simultaneously with the Protestant
mission in Korea, do the Protestants in that country today number five and
one-half million and the Orthodox a mere two thousand?”38 According to
the more updated statistic data o f the L ’Atlas des religions (2007),
Protestants number more than 20,000,000 making up more than 40% o f the
total population o f the country, while the Orthodox continue to number
about 2,000, and as a result, are not counted in the statistics.39 But
Archbishop Anastasios Yannoulatos does not limit his crucial questions
regarding Orthodox mission only to the Korean case, but also to other
countries too. As he notes:
37 See: Stavros Zoumboulakis, “The Orthodox Churches and the Geographic

Redistribution of Christianity”, in Pantelis Kalaitzidis, Thomas FitzGerald et al.
(eds), Orthodox Handbook on Ecumenism, 827-830. Cf. Papathanasiou, “Christian
witness and its study worldwide in the curious 21st Century”, Synaxi, issue 126
(2013), 81-85 [in Greek; English translation provided by Porefthentes at:
http://porefthentes.gr/en/christian-witness-study-worldwide-curious-21st-century/]
(Checked: 05 Feb. 2016).
38 Archbishop Anastasios (Yannaloutos), Mission in Christ’s Ways, 209.
39 Stavros Zoumboulakis, “The Orthodox Churches and the Geographic
Redistribution of Christianity”, 829. More recent data raised the number of the
Orthodox in Korea between 7,000 and 10,000.
The lack of continuity in Orthodox missionary' endeavors has been and

remains another of our basic weaknesses. Frequently the call to mission
appears as the sudden spiritual excitement of an era, as an exception, which
does not leave in its wake pan-Orthodox structures and institutions that
ensure an Orthodox presence on difficult fronts. It is time we asked ourselves
why the Orthodox mission to China, after centuries of hard struggle, has had
such poor results. As the snows of persecution are melting in China in our
days, and as hundreds of Protestant and Roman Catholic communities are
sprouting like wheat, the Orthodox communities are limited to only two. Was
the Orthodox mission perhaps tainted with too much nationalism? [...] Still
other painful questions need to be asked when we review sixty years of
Orthodox Church presence in Uganda. Can its development be considered
satisfactory' in comparison with the progress of the other Churches? We
should stop generalizing, simplifying and beautifying the facts. Sobriety is
needed, and an unbiased study of the past. Not, of course, in order to judge or
to condemn others, but to set out aright on the path to planning the future,
with a sense of responsibility, with sufficient seriousness of purpose, and in
accordance with our possibilities.40
An Old “Paradigm” for a N ew World? Critical Remarks

on Orthodox Mission Facing Problems, Dead Ends,
and New Challenges in the 21st Century
How then to explain this phenomenon o f which Korea, China or Uganda
are just some characteristic yet indicative examples? Which are the possible
reasons for this very thin Orthodox presence in the Global South, despite
the courageous, almost heroic work and activities o f Orthodox
missionaries? I really do not have a complete answer to these difficult
questions. Archbishop Anastasios dared to remark that “in spite o f the facts
mentioned thus far, we have to admit that the missionary work of the
Orthodox Church on new frontiers in non-Christian regions remains very
limited. O f course, we have never stopped confessing our faith in the ‘one,
holy, catholic and apostolic Church.’ Yet, it would not be an exaggeration
to say that, in many cases, the Orthodox self-awareness and faithfulness to
the catholic and apostolic dimensions o f the Church appears to be rather
weak. The excessive nationalism o f the local Churches has contributed
considerably to this situation.”41 While I agree with his statement and
remarks, 1 am not sure if one could explain this situation by appealing only
or mainly to nationalism, which, o f course, remains one o f the major
problems both for the Orthodox Church, and its mission. What 1 am going
then to do in the following part o f this paper concerning the challenging
issue we are debating here, is an attempt to pose the right questions, in
order to encourage and facilitate an honest and open discussion on these
40 Archbishop Anastasios (Yannaloutos), Mission in Christ’s Ways, 209.

41 Archbishop Anastasios (Yannaloutos), Mission in Christ's Ways, 208. Emphasis
in the original.
crucial issues. 1 will therefore list below some possible reasons, but 1 do not
in any case claim to have the final and concluding word.
a) Orthodoxy seems to be so closely identified with Byzantium that is
eventually able to follow only the Byzantine model in every domain and
aspect o f church life (theology, liturgy, preaching, administration, church
design, iconography, singing, etc.). This precise model, however, is not
necessarily the one which fits with the expectations o f the people of Global
South, who are situated in a completely different historical background, and
cultural context. Historical Orthodoxy seems then to be trapped in
Byzantium, and to this regard the greatest challenge for Orthodoxy today is
to overcome this historical and cultural fixation, by discerning its mission
to today’s world, without the continuous and exclusive reference to this
formative historical period o f the church. Yet Orthodoxy, both Greek
speaking and non-Greek-speaking (although to different extent), draws its
legitimacy from Byzantium and all its points o f references - i.e., the
sources o f its liturgical tradition, the rhetorical forms o f its kerygma, and
the theology o f the Fathers and the Councils - trace back to Byzantium.42
This critique might appear to some people as a radical one, but in reality it
is in line with the theology and the practice o f the Orthodox mission,43 as
well as the theological approach o f the relationship o f the Gospel with the
cultures.44 Sts. Herman and St Innocentius o f Alaska for instance - to recall
a quite recent example o f Orthodox mission, beyond the well-known
paradigm o f Sts. Cyril and M ethodius - when they moved to that country,
they did not bring with them the cultural elements o f their homeland, nor
they preached the Russian culture or “Russian Orthodoxy,” but were
adjusted to the cultural elements o f the local Alaskan context.45 From this
perspective, the critical remarks o f the young African Orthodox
missiologist Cosmas (John) Ngige Njoroge in relation to the transfer of
elements o f Byzantine liturgical and ecclesiastical tradition to the African
context, and the need for inculturation o f Orthodoxy in Africa are o f great
relevance for our discussion. As he put it:
We cannot stand as an obstacle to the work of the Holy Spirit who blows
where he likes, transforming people, cultures and creation anew, bringing
them into the body of Christ. Every culture in this world is God’s creation.
42 Pante lis Kalaitzidis, “La relation de l’Eglise à la culture et la dialectique de

l’eschatologie et de l’histoire”, Istina, 55 (2010), 15 ff.; idem, “Orthodoxy and
Hellenism in Contemporary Greece”, St Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly, 54
(2010), 369-370.
4j Cf. e.g. Papathanasiou, “The 'Generation of ’60s’: Suspicion, Creativity,
Embarrassment”, 382-386 [in Greek]; Métropolite Alexandre de Nigéria, “Mission
et civilization”, Istina, 55 (2010), 61-68.
44 Archbishop Anastasios (Yannoulatos), Facing the World, 79-101; loan Sauca
(ed), Orthodoxy and Cultures: Inter-Orthodox Consultation on Gospel and
Cultures, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 19-27 January 1996 (Geneva: WCC, 1996).
45 See for evidence footnote 26 above.
Whenever a new culture and a new people are transformed, it is a new

Pentecost; we have therefore to let these new people of God express the joy
of this Pentecost in their own ways, in their own worship. For us Orthodox,
so we believe, the Church is first of all a worshipping community7; worship
coming first, doctrine and discipline second. How then do we expect the
Africans to get into the depths of Orthodox worship if all its structures and
textures have been brought from the cult of Byzantine culture? In other
words, how do we expect Africans to express their joy at Christ's resurrection
without dancing and clapping? Would they ever get this joy nourished
through chanting the eight tones of Byzantine hymnology? All the church arts
and iconography, music and liturgical vestments are foreign. Liturgical
services and prayers, symbols, gestures and movements are not yet imbued
with what is African. How then can we Africans speak of the inculturation of
Orthodoxy today?46
b) If the above remarks are relevant to the today’s situation and
problems o f Orthodox mission, then there is a double emergency: in the
case o f the traditional “Orthodox” peoples, with their well-known
relationship to and dependence on the Byzantine model, and the close
bonds, even to the point o f identification with church and nation, church
and local customs and traditions, what seems to be needed most urgently is
a kind of disengagement from these particular cultures and local traditions
(déculturation). A re-ordering o f priorities is necessary vis-à-vis the
theological and cultural criteria, a new balance between the local and the
universal, between the particular and the catholic. On the other hand, in the
case o f the mission countries o f Global South, what is absolutely vital for
Orthodoxy is its incorporation and integration in each particular culture
(inculturation),47 in other words not only the translation (in the narrow
sense o f the term) o f our biblical and liturgical texts in the local languages,
but also the “translation” (in the more inclusive sense o f the term), and the
embodiment o f the whole ecclesial tradition in the local cultures, i.e., the
“translation” in the local cultures o f our profound Christology and
incarnational theology, o f our Trinitarian theology and its sense of
personhood and personal communion, o f our rich and beautiful worship
and liturgical tradition.48 The same effort should be done in order to really
inculturate the Orthodox iconography, church design, and church chant and
music in the local traditions, and not just to transfer or imitate the
Byzantine style to all these ecclesiastical arts. It is very problematic, for
instance, to import Byzantine music into the worship o f the African
46 Cosmas (John) Ngige Njoroge, “incarnation as a Mode of Orthodox Mission:

Intercultural Orthodox Mission - Imposing Culture and Inculturation”, in
Vassiliadis (ed), Orthodox Perspectives on Mission, 248-249.
47 Kalaitzidis, “La relation de l’Eglise à la culture et la dialectique de l’eschatologie
et de l’histoire”, 15-16.
48 To go further in this discussion cf. Papathanasiou, “The Last Enemy to Be
Destroyed is Christ? Fr. Georges Florovsky’s ‘Christian Hellenism’ and Mission”,
Theologia, 81.4 (2010), 313-336 [in Greek].
Orthodox, while Africa is famous for its very rich and various musical
traditions. The same could be said regarding the import in sub-Saharan
settings o f Greek or Mediterranean wine, made from grapes, for the
celebration o f Eucharist, and the refusal to accept as Eucharistic gifts local
products like the palm wine.49 By doing so, it is like to annul in practice the
theology o f Incarnation and the possibility for the eternal truth o f God to be
incarnate in every place and culture, in every time and historical period. In
the words o f M etropolitan Alexander o f Nigeria o f the Greek Orthodox
Patriarchate o f Alexandria,
But now our turn has come to preach to our people, those both near and far
from the Truth. In order for us to manifest the Church, here and now, within
the parameters of our own culture - that is, the continuing incarnation of God,
and the assumption of the created into the uncreated’s manner (tropos) of
existence. If the Church, as we believe, is the Body of Christ or Christ
extended through the ages, this means that Christ is present in history, that He
has flesh; “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (Jn 1:14). Christ
Himself wants “to fully realize the mystery of His incarnation always and
everywhere” (Maximus the Confessor, PG 91 1084 C-D). If we accept the
truth of these words, then we are led, ineluctably, to the conclusion that the
Truth and the Life, Christ and His Church, must be clothed at every moment
in the cultural flesh of the world, the characteristics of each people. The flame
of Pentecost, which did away with linguistic, national, and cultural barriers,
continues to bum. Every moment, every minute is a Pentecost. It is a new
descent of the Holy Spirit, which does not belong exclusively to one culture
and one people and their expressions.50
c) In order to meet this demanding challenge, Eastern Orthodoxy has to
free itself from another fixation: the almost exclusive recourse to the
ontological language exemplified by contemporary Orthodox theologians,
clerics, and some missionaries in their theology and preaching, even when
they come to Global South, where most o f the people and languages are
completely devoid, o f the use, or the very concept of “being,” or even the
verb to be. The adoption o f the ontological language by Christian theology
was a great achievement realized mainly thanks to the efforts o f the great
church Fathers, especially the Cappadocians o f the fourth century, who
were the pioneers o f the encounter between Christianity and Hellenism, and
o f the Christianization o f the Hellenistic philosophic categories, without of
course neglecting the important contribution o f Fathers o f previous period -
mainly the apologists and Irenaeus o f Lyons.51 It seems that Eastern
49 Cf. Métropolite Alexandre de Nigéria, “Mission et civilization”, 65-66;

Papathanasiou, “Only with bread? Only with wine? The possibility of using other
materials in the holy Eucharist”, Synaxi, issue 105, 2008, 55-73 [in Greek].
50 Métropolite Alexandre de Nigéria, “Mission et civilization”, 63-64.
51 The text of reference for this topic remains John D. Zizioulas’ (now Metropolitan
of Pergamon at the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople), “Hellenism and
Christianity: The Meeting of Two Words”, in History o f the Hellenic Nation, vol. 6,
519-559 [in Greek; also published separately by Apostoliki Diakonia, Athens, 2003.
Î38 Theological Education and Theology o f Life.
Orthodoxy as a whole, Greek-speaking and not Greek-speaking cannot

depart from its strong connection with the Hellenistic world, and its mode
o f thinking. It is not yet able to understand and to accept that we are not any
more leaving in a Hellenistic world, and that (Greek) Ontology is not the
dominant philosophical language o f our time, that ontological philosophy is
not any more the only, or the main vector of the relationship between
church and the world. Without refusing or neglecting the major
achievements that came out from the encounter between Christianity and
Hellenism, and especially the classic and unsurpassed dogmatic formulae
o f the ecumenical councils which decisively shaped the ecclesial faith,
Orthodoxy has to recover and rediscover its biblical roots, and its narrative
and non-philosophical treasures like the ones preserved in the tradition o f
the Oriental Orthodox churches, especially when it comes to non-Western
peoples like the ones o f Global South.5253This does not relate to any project
for re-Judaizing Christian faith,5j nor to Asianize or Africanize the
traditional - and final or perennial for many - definition and wording of the
ecclesial creeds, but rather it concerns an appropriate response to the
theologically legitimate demand for contextualization and inculturation of
the Orthodox faith, teaching, and practice, something that Orthodoxy used
to do in the past, but seems too afraid to do it again in our rapidly changing
global world. To this end, the on-going discussion about the relevance, the
possibilities, and the extent o f the narrative theology,54 as well as the
English translation by Fr. Gregory Edwards with a Foreword by Nikolaos

Asproulis, forthcoming by WCC Publications in the series ‘Doxa & Praxis:
Exploring Orthodox Theology’]. The issue of the relationship between Hellenism
and Christianity, and the related question of ontology and theology appears as the
framework upon which Metropolitan John D. Zizioulas develops the basic axes of
his program. In this respect one could take into account among others, the first two
chapters “Personhood and Being” and “Truth as Communion” of his classic work
Being as Communion'. Studies in Personhood and the Church (Crestwood, NY : St.
Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1985), 27-65, 67-122, respectively, and his study “The
Contribution of Cappadocia to Christian Thought”, in Froso Pimenides, Stelios
Roidis (eds), Sinassos in Cappadocia (Athens: Agra Publications, 1986), 23-37.
52 Cf. Kalaitzidis, “Towards a Post-Patristic theology?”, in Kalaitzidis et al., Neo-
Patristic Synthesis or Post-Patristic Theology, Volos Academy Publications,
forthcoming.
53 Cf. the serious objections of the late Fr. Georges Florovsky in this regard in
Andrew Blane (ed), Georges Florovsky: Russian Intellectual, Orthodox Churchman
(Crestwood, NY : St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1993), 155.
s4 On the wider question of the legitimacy and relevance of the systematic discourse
in theology, as well as the theological use of narrative (i.e., story, parable,
biography and auto-biography), and furthermore the “narrative theology” as a
method of doing theology, out of an extensive bibliography on the subject, see
among others: M. Goldberg, Theology and Narrative: A Critical Introduction
(Nashville: Abingdon, 1982); T.R. Whright, Theology and Literature (Oxford:
Blackwell, 1988); St. Hauerwas, L.G. Jones (eds), Why Narrative? Readings in
Narrative Theology (Grand Rapids, MI, Eerdmans, 1989); H.W. Frei, Theology and
particularly promising attempts o f contemporary Orthodox theologians at

articulating a Christology relevant to the African mentality and tradition,
and at addressing moral, canonical, and sacramental issues in a contextual
perspective, could contribute to a renew theological approach.55
d) It is becoming increasingly clear that one of the major reasons for the
Orthodox inertia regarding mission is to be found in contemporary
Orthodox churches’ close relationship with the national idea and national
narrative, in other words in the phenomenon o f “national Orthodoxy,” i.e.,
the identification o f Orthodoxy with every single “Orthodox” nation or
state, and the understanding o f the church in “national terms.” As
pertinently pointed out by Archbishop Anastasios o f Albania,
Every nation that has become Orthodox owes a lot to Orthodoxy, which has
strengthened not only the personal dignity, but also the value of its entity as a
people. But this national gratitude and self-consciousness has often led to a
turning inward, to a dangerous deviation theologically, and to a nationalistic,
psychological imperviousness. There is thus a syndrome that often inhibits
Orthodox mission: the idea that our own responsibility is restricted to our
own area, and that the problems of others are “not our problems.” But on this
planet, no one people or social unit can live in isolation. There is a reciprocal
influence, and in our times, interdependence is increasing with geometric
progression.56
Orthodox mission today is therefore suffering a lot from the export in the
“mission settings” in Asia, Africa, and Latin America o f religious
nationalism and the traditional ethnic Orthodox divisions, which in many
cases annuls the preaching o f the Gospel, as well as ecclesial witness and
diakonia. In the words o f the Greek Christian intellectual Stavros
Zoumbouiakis (former Director o f the oldest and most respected Greek
literary journal, N ea Hestia, and currently President of the Biblical
Foundation “Artos Zoes”),
Narrative: Selected Essays, edited by George Hunsinger and William C. Placher

(New York: Oxford University Press, 1993); G. Lough 1in, Telling God’s Story:
Bible, Church, and Narrative Theology (Cambridge/New York, Cambridge
University Press, 1996); G. Sauter, J. Barton (eds), Revelation and Story: Narrative
Theology and the Centrality o f Story (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2000); C.S. Song, In the
Beginning Were Stories, Not Texts: Story Theology (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books,
2011). Cf. Kalaitzidis, “Theology and Literature: The Case of Nicolae Steinhardt”,
Journal o f Eastern Christian Studies (forthcoming publication).
55 Papathanasiou, “Christ, the Ancestor and Brother: An African Christology”,
Bulletin o f Biblical Studies (Deltio Biblikon Meleton), 25.1 (2007), 59-82 [in
Greek]; idem, “African Marriage and Christianity: Introduction to Missionary and
Social Questions”, in Academic Yearbook o f the Faculty o f Theology o f Athens
University, 30 (1995), 815-852 [in Greek]; idem, “The Traditional African
Marriage. An Attempt at Empirical Research”, Bulletin o f Biblical Studies (Deltio
Biblikon Meleton), 21-22 (2002-2003), 365-381 [in Greek],
56 Archbishop Anastasios (Yannaloutos), Mission in Christ’s Way, 208-209.
Orthodox Christianity today does not have any mission, primarily because it
has been crushed by national ideas and has dedicated itself to every kind of
national struggle. National claims have absorbed all its energies and nothing
has been left for the spread of the Gospel. Not only has the nationalistic
ideology, which all the Orthodox Churches have espoused, brought them into
conflict among themselves; it has also hindered any permanent and
coordinated Orthodox missionary collaboration (of the sort which the
Protestants have broadly achieved). Moreover, it has distorted the very
evangelic nature of their missionary enterprise, wherever and however faintly
this is attested, and has often turned that enterprise into little more than
exporting nationalism.
Orthodox Christians have not been mission-conscious. They are willing to
respond to any national call, even the most outrageous, but do not have ears
to hear the command of the risen Christ: “Go therefore and make disciples of
all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the
Holy Spirit, and teaching them to observe all that 1 have commanded you”,
perhaps because they do not have faith in His assurance: “And remember, I
am with you always, to the end of the age” (Mt 28:12-20). We believe that
the command to engage in missionary witness is relevant only to the history
of the early Church, not to its present condition each time. We are more
moved by the national anthem or the flag than by the Cross of Christ and His
Gospel. Now we have to pay the price. What do I mean? Today, when
Christianity is collapsing in Europe and is moving elsewhere, the shrinking of
Orthodoxy to the geographical bounds of the European continent will, sooner
or later (probably sooner than later, when the dynamic of re-evangelizing the
former Communist countries is exhausted), result in a historic decay.57
e) If religious nationalism is one o f the main reasons for Orthodox
inertia regarding mission, it is not the only one. As Valentin Kozhuharov
notes, Orthodox churches do lack mission (with one significant exception,
according to him, the Russian Orthodox Church),58 and without any
exception this time, do lack mission awareness, annulling eventually the
previous optimistic statement. Thus, besides the reasons o f the thin and
limited Orthodox activity in mission mentioned above, Kozhuharov lists
and proposes nine points which could improve Orthodox awareness in the
field o f mission, and which could be summarized as follows: i) Awareness
o f Jesus’ Great Commission; ii) Awareness o f the nature o f the church and
its missionary character; iii) Awareness o f the history o f the church (and its
mission throughout history); iv) Awareness o f the apostles’ mission (and of
the apostolic succession); v) Awareness o f missio Dei; vi) Awareness of
Christian theology and Christian mission research; vii) Awareness o f the
“believers’ common work” (the “leitourgia”) and the missionary character
o f liturgy; viii) Awareness o f the difference between “us” and the “other;”
57 Zoumboulakis, “The Orthodox Churches and the Geographic Redistribution of

Christianity”, 829-830.
58 Valentin Kozhuharov, Orthodox and Inter-Christian Perspectives in Mission
(Veliko Tamovo, Bulgaria: Vesta Publication, 2015), 174-177.
ix) Awareness o f the wider church (of the inter-Christian/ecumenical

imperative).59 W hile recognizing the validity o f some o f these points, I
personally doubt for the overall validity and universal application o f this
missiological hermeneutical key. The problem o f the Orthodox mission is
closely interlinked with the wider problem o f the Orthodox Church and
theology in our time, i.e., the fixation and trapping in dated theological
“paradigms’' and models o f the relationship between the church and the
world, indeed the problematic relationship o f church and theology within
histoiy, o f Orthodoxy with Modernity and post-Modemity, as well as the
still pending demand for a new incarnation o f the Word both in the context
of the modern Western secularized and pluralistic societies, and the non-
Western traditional, but de facto multi-ethnic, and multireligious societies
of the Global South.60
f) We cannot address today’s global challenges when as Orthodox we
are constantly and persistently refusing the reality o f globalization, a fact
which in my understanding betrays a lack o f awareness regarding the world
in which we are living today! There is a predominant anti-globalization
discourse in many Orthodox settings (as well as in many Christians o f other
traditions), but when the Orthodox (with some exceptions) speak against
globalization or call for resistance, they do not invoke theological
arguments or criteria, but cultural and national ones, arguments in favor of
the defense o f national independence, and language and identity, otherwise
being in danger. However, they neglect to point out the negative financial
and social consequences o f globalization upon the poor and the
marginalized. W hat is at stake here is the complete inversion o f the criteria
o f the Gospel: the defense o f the poor, which was a priority in Christ’s
teaching, recedes, and it is replaced by the defense o f national and cultural
identity. Such values were, to Jesus, o f minor importance while being
sometimes serious obstacles to the coming Kingdom of God, as it was the
case with the national-religious movements o f zealots in which Judas, who
betrayed Jesus, participated.61 1 am aware o f the Christian anti-globalization
movements, like AGAPE (Alternative Globalization Addressing People
59 Kozhuharov, Orthodox and Inter-Christian Perspectives in Mission, 177-186.

60 Kalaitzidis, “From the ‘Return to the Fathers’ to the Need for a Modern Orthodox
Theology”, St Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly, 54 (2010), 5-36; cf. idem,
“Challenges of Renewal and Reformation Facing the Orthodox Church”, The
Ecumenical Review, 61 (2009), 136-164.
61 Kalaitzidis, “The Temptation o f Judas. Church and National Identities”, The
Greek Orthodox Theological Review, 47 (2002), 357-379. It is interesting that in the
recent developments on mission, the struggling with the marginalized, and even
doing mission from the margins, is in the center of theological reflection and
discussions. Cf. the new WCC mission and evangelism statement, Together
Towards Life: Mission and Evangelism in Changing Landscapes, prepared by the
Commission on World Mission and Evangelism. See Jooseop Keum (ed), Together
Towards Life: Mission and Evangelism in Changing Landscapes (Geneva: WCC
and Earth), acting and struggling at the ecumenical level against global
capitalism.62 But on the other hand, I have always supported the idea that
we cannot bypass today’s world, and the on-going reality o f a global world
beyond borders and national limitations, which in these particular aspects
echoes very much the wider socio-cultural context in which the Gospel was
originally preached, and Christianity prevailed. It is one thing to struggle in
changing the negative effects o f globalization, to go against the injustice
and economic exploitation at the global level, and it is another thing to
simply refuse the reality o f globalization, and the world in which we live.
From an Orthodox point o f view, a very balanced approach to this crucial
issue o f globalization has been offered by Archbishop Anastasios
(Yannoulatos) o f Tirana and all Albania, in which His Beatitude discusses
the challenges o f universalism and the dangers o f globalization with
theological and biblical arguments and criteria.63
g) Orthodoxy is therefore mainly identified with spirituality, accepting
for itself to be relegated to the realm o f mysticism and the exotic or
mystical version o f Christianity,64 thus self-resigning from a catholic,
holistic, and inclusive vision of the world and its salvation. In my view,
what is at stake here is not a separation or dissociation of spirituality from
62 Cf. World Council of Churches, AGAPE: A Background Document (Geneva:

WCC Justice, Peace and Creation Team, 2005). Cf. Ulrich Duchrow, Franz
Hinkelammert, Property for People, Not for Profit: Alternatives to the Global
Tyranny o f Capital (Geneva: WCC Publications, 2004); Ernest M. Conradie,
Christianity and Ecological Theology: Resources for Further Research
(Publications of the University of the Western Cape, Stellenbosch: Sun Press,
2006), 147-150. For an Orthodox assessment of and participation to the AGAPE
process see Stylianos Tsompanidis, “The Ecumenical Process of AGAPE: An
Orthodox Perspective”, in A Testimony to the Nations: A Vigintennial Volume
Offered to the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew (Thessaloniki: Aristotle
University of Thessaloniki, School of Theology), 2011, 905-923; Petros Vassiliadis
and Stelios Tsompanidis, “ Economia Mondiale, Cambiamenti Climatici, Dibattito
Interreligioso: La Testimonianza Cristiana nell’era della Globalizzazione”, in Luca
Bianchi (ed), La Testimonianza della Chiesa nel mondo contemporaneo. Atti del XII
Simposio intercristiano, Tessalonica, 30 agosto-2 settembre 2011 (Padova: Edizioni
San Leopoldo, 2013), 63-86; Petros Vassiliadis, “Biblical Perspectives of
Economy”, Theologia 83.2 (2012), 25-36 [in Greek]; also idem, “Economy for Life,
Justice and Peace for All”, Theologia 83.4 (2012), 205-217 [in Greek],
63 Archbishop Anastasios (Yannoulatos), Facing the World, 15-48, 179-199.
64 Vladimir Lossky’s, The Mystical Theology o f the Eastern Church (translated
from the French by members of the Fellowship of St. Alban and St. Sergius)
(London: J. Clarke, 1957), with its translation in different languages and wider
circulation for many decades now contributed decisively to this ‘mystical” and
“exotic” understanding of Orthodoxy. It is very characteristic that there is no
mission perspective in this classic work of Lossky. For the critique of this a-
historical theology, cf. Kalaitzidis, “La théologie comme science et doxologie:
logocentrisme, apophatisme et théologie mystique chez quelques auteurs
orthodoxes contemporains”, Contacts, issue 241,2013, 101-118.
revolution,65 or o f Eucharist from liberation, but on the contrary a

connection o f Eucharist with liberation, by giving a spiritual meaning to
revolution, in the way, for example Metropolitan o f Mount-Lebanon
Georges Khodr - perhaps the greatest intellectual and theological
personality in Arab Orthodoxy and in the field o f the Greek Orthodox
Patriarchate o f Antioch - elaborates in his writings.66 In a world dominated
by injustice and inequality, Orthodoxy has to highlight its rich theological
and Patristic resources in favor o f social justice and liberation, peace and
reconciliation.67
h) But despite the socially sensitive theology of the Church Fathers, and
their fervent preaching and commitment to social justice, and against social
inequalities and economic exploitation,68 political and liberation theology
are still remaining an underdeveloped domain of contemporary Orthodox
theology.69 In spite o f its very rich activity in charitable and philanthropic
domain, and even in development projects (mainly in missionary
countries), and its explicit affirmation and engagement in favor o f peace,
social justice and the integrity o f the creation confirmed by its pan-
Orthodox pre-conciliar meetings - especially the Third Pre-conciliar Pan-
Orthodox Conference in Chambésy, Geneva, in 198670 - and during the
65 Cf. Papathanasiou, The Clash with the Null: Some Sips o f Political Theology
(Athens: Armos Publications, 2015), 172-182 [in Greek].
66 Métropolite Georges Khodr, “Eucharistie et libération”, Service Orthodoxe de
Presse (SOP), issue 338, mai 2009, and Suppléments 330.A. Cf. idem, L'appel de
l'Esprit. Eglise et société, textes choisis et mis en forme par Maxime Egger,
traductions de l’arabe par Raymond Rizk, Georges Ghandour, Youakim Moubarac,
A. Manzi et Adeline Asfour (Paris/Pully: Cerf/Le sel de la terre, 2001).
67 Papathanasiou, “Liberation Perspectives in Patristic Thought. An Orthodox
Approach”, in Academic Yearbook o f the Graduated Program ‘Studies in Orthodox
Theology', Vacuity oj Human Sciences, Hellenic Open University, vol. 2 (Patras,
2011 ). 422-423.432: idem. ' . ’· ly:
Vi ' Ê *!.>> '< U ' < •'iii’ T . ' b " U> a A I Λ ί'Ί ·_Η .·! i h U <; t a * , .· Κ·ί'! iCs l* G \
. Geneva: YYCC :■ ■ ■.
! S A >< >.'t Hi < h ‘• i i ' l · ’ ,’ ΐ ϋ ' ί ί Η ί ί ι 1 i " ! 1* i ·>} l e i ( , <0 n s y
* \ *r ‘ I » V * * M s ' ÈIU u Ji N M v hEi f d ' i i l U (f 1 l [ h f i Gt fU f
oK C/ * ι ^ τ ι <π 'V t ,l i \ V ‘ i ! fr h ii* ( , G **c /Gi / * * »ti\ i c \ ! i Hg \ !A ,

Social Justice
and Orthodox Theologv (Athens: Akritas Publications. 2001) 1in Greek]. Cf. Petros
Vassiliadis, “Reconciliation as a Pneumatological Mission Paradigm: Some
Preliminary Reflections by an Orthodox”, IRM, 94 (2005), 30-42.
68 Cf. Papathanasiou, “Liberation Perspectives in Patristic Thought. An Orthodox
Approach”.
69 Cf. Kalaitzidis, Orthodoxy and Political Theology, transi. Fr. Gregory Edwards,
‘Doxa and Praxis: Exploring Orthodox Theology’ series (Geneva: WCC
70 See the Official text: “The Contribution of the Orthodox Church to the
Prevalence of Peace, Justice, Freedom, Fraternity and Love Among People, as well
ecumenical gatherings or at the occasion o f the issuing o f the official

ecumenical documents, Eastern Orthodoxy as ecclesial body and
community o f theologians, with few exceptions, has not developed a
“political theology” in the radical and liberating sense of the term, while is
facing a serious lack o f social and political praxis, and of genuine
theological reflection on these issues, since prominent Orthodox
theologians have underestimated or misunderstood the meaning and content
of liberation and political theology.71 Thus Orthodoxy seems to remain
marked by its imperial, pre-modern and monarchical past, facing great
difficulties not only in adapting to the today’s demand for a fairer society,
to democracy and political liberalism,72 but also to its missionary work in
the countries o f Global South, sharply affected by poverty, social
inequalities, and economic exploitation. In this regard the following
statement by one o f the leading Orthodox missiologists o f our time is of a
great relevance and importance for our discussion: “Orthodoxy insists and
has always insisted that the Church will remain the Church only if it
mediates the communion of man with God, but that any one-dimensional
interpretation o f that communion will fail to encompass the totality o f the
act o f salvation. Therefore, not only theosis - deification - but freedom,
liberation, justice: all are part o f the total reality of salvation.”73
as the Elimination of Racial and Other Discrimination”, in Episkepsis, no. 360,

December 15, 1896, 24-25 [in Greek]. English translation taken from the book by
Fr. John Chryssavgis and Konstantnos Delikostantis, The Patriarch o f Solidarity
(Istanbul: Istos Publications, 2013), 133-135.
71 This is the case, among others, of the great liturgical scholar and preeminent
theologian of the Russian diaspora Fr. Alexander Schmemann, and the very
influential Greek theologian and philosopher Christos Yannaras. The first, sharply
criticized liberation theology (see for example the Prologue of his book, The
Eucharist: Sacrament o f the Kingdom, transi. Paul Kachur (Crestwood, NY: St.
Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1987), 9-10, and firmly opposed social concern and
political involvement of the faithful. Cf. the insightful remarks by Athanasios N.
Papathanasiou, “The Church as mission: Fr. Alexander Schmemann’s liturgical
theology revisited”, Proche-Orient Chrétien, 60 (2010), especially 35-41. The
second has adopted a very cautious attitude against the progressive political
theology, to the extent as it is perceived in his view as a one-sided, ideological,
activist and secularized way of thinking based on a utilitarian and individualistic
reading of the Bible and understanding of the Christian faith. Cf. for example
Yannaras, Chapters on Political Theology (Athens: Papazissis, 1976) [in Greek];
idem, “A Note on Political Theology”, St Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly, 27
(1983), 53-56. Cf. idem, The Freedom o f Morality, transi, by Elizabeth Briere
(Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1984), 199-200 and 216-217, n. 19.
72 A positive and optimistic approach to liberal democracy and political liberalism is
proposed by the ground-breaking work of the Greek-American Orthodox theologian
Aristotle Papanikolaou entitled: The Mystical as Political: Democracy and Non-
Radical Orthodoxy (Notre Dame, in Notre Dame University Press, 2012).
73 Ion Bria, “Renewal of the Tradition Through Pastoral Witness”, IRM, 65 (1976),
182; idem, The Liturgy after the Liturgy, 25-26. Athanasios N . Papathanasiou, “The
i) The church is a synaxis, a gathering o f the scattered people o f God,

and the fragmented humanity, a community o f men and women marching
together towards the Kingdom o f God and the eschatological fulfillment of
history. The new and radical element characterizing the theology and praxis
o f Christian church from the very beginning - as a result of its Eucharistic
and eschatological identity - is the overcoming o f all kinds o f division and
fragmentation (gender, tribe, nation, language, culture, social class and
origin). Christianity, in contrast to the ideas and practices o f the male-
dominated milieu in which it appeared, revalued the position and role of
woman, whereas its eminent representatives, such as St. Gregory of
Nazianzus, did not hesitate to denounce the unjust laws against women.74 In
the person o f a woman, the Theotokos Mary, a human being was counted
worthy to give birth within history to the Son and Word of God, while the
establishment o f the institution o f Deaconess in the early church and
throughout almost the entire Byzantine period witnesses to this new reality.
In addition, missionary activity, as well as the liturgical and social function
and life o f the first Christian communities led, perhaps for the very first
time in history, women moving outside home, taking on roles or vocations
within the church, parallel to those o f traditional wife and mother, for
example as missionary, as charismatic or as social worker.
At the same time, however, parallel to this liberating attitude, tendencies
o f disparagement o f women were not absent in the ecclesiastical milieu, as
very often woman was associated with evil and sin. The hierarchical
submission o f women to men - ’’heritage” from the ancient Greek and
Jewish world - has penetrated to a certain degree into the life and
institutions o f the church, and especially to the monastic milieu,
propagating forms and ecclesial structures in obvious discrepancy with its
theological and eschatological self-consciousness. The depressing burden
o f history and o f social conformism and conservatism was often even more
o f a weight in the history and the life o f the church than evangelical truth,
as witnessed by the current ecclesiastical and pastoral reality which is far
from being friendly towards women, to such an extent that Professor
Marios Begzos stresses that “the everyday practice o f the church is in
contradiction to Orthodox tradition. Our everyday life is anti-feministic
whereas Orthodox tradition is matriarchal, that is feministic. The whole
question consists in this: Orthodox Christians must be consistent with their
selves.”75
Images of the Kingdom: Some invisible points of Cabasilas, and Some Temptations
of Eucharistic Theology”, Synaxi, issue 114 (2010), 13-21 [in Greek], from his side
maintains that the image of the Kingdom can be found not only in the Eucharist, but
also in the solidarity with the poor, the ecclesial witness and the mission.
74 Gregory of Nazianzus, Discourse 36, J.-P. Migne, G. 36,289B.
75 Marios Begzos, Phenomenology o f Religion (Athens: Ellinika Grammata
Publications), 1995, 282 [in Greek]. Cf. Pantelis Kalaitzidis, “From the Division of
Gender to the Unity of the New Life in Christ: Orthodox Theology Facing
The fall o f Byzantium to the Ottoman Turks (1453), and the consequent
introversion and defensive attitude adopted by the Orthodox Church in
order for it and its peoples to survive the Islamic conquest, contributed
decisively to the sacralisation o f the social conservatism and the structures
o f the traditional societies. It is a great theological and pastoral problem
that Orthodox missionaries bear very often all these conservative elements
taken from the Middle East or the Balkan patriarchal societies to another
socio-cultural milieu, i.e., that o f the mission settings, instead of preaching
the Gospel o f Jesus Christ, and its eschatological vision o f the “new heaven
and new earth,”76 the expected new world o f love, peace, justice, and
equality. It is even more serious, and ironic, that this happens in a moment
when many o f the Christian missions in the Global South - and not only the
Protestant ones - try to re-envision the position and role o f woman in the
church, and reassess her service and commitment to the missionary work.
Gender justice, and liberation from the sacralized burdens o f patriarchal
society are urgent theological, pastoral, and missionary imperatives, and
therefore Orthodoxy in the global scale - mission settings included - has to
decide to what extent will be inspired by the promising Orthodox
theological renewal that took place in the so-called diaspora, and in many
Orthodox countries during the second half o f the 20th century, or if it will
persist in defending anachronistic interdictions and prohibitions, which
make women a second rank faithful in both traditional Orthodox and
missionary settings, and which are more closely related to social
stereotypes, and to the fundamentalist interpretation of tradition rather than
to the eschatological and Eucharistic ethos o f the church, which is called to
transform the world and history, human beings and inter-human/inter-
gender relations.77
Women’s Quest for Equality and Participation in Church Life”; Introduction to

Kalaitzidis, N. Ntontos (eds), Gender and Religion - The Role o f Women in the
Church, the proceedings of the 2002-03 winter program of the Volos Academy for
Theological Studies (Athens: Indiktos Publications, 2004), 9-29 [in Greek],
76 Rev 21:1.
77 For the issues discussed in this last section cf. Elisabeth Behr-Sigel, The Ministry
o f Women in the Church, transi, by Steven Bigham (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s
Seminary Press, 1999); Elisabeth Behr-Sigel and Kallistos Ware, The Ordination o f
Women in the Orthodox Church (Geneva: WCC Publications, 2000); Kyriaki
Karidoyannes FitzGerald, Women Deacons in the Orthodox Church. Called to
Holiness and Ministry (Brookline, MA: Holy Cross Orthodox Press, 1998); Kyriaki
Karidoyannes FitzGerald (ed), Orthodox Women Speak: Discerning the ‘Signs o f
the Times ’ (Geneva/Brookline, MA: WCC Publications/Holy Cross Orthodox Press,
1999); Christine Breaban, Sophie Deischa, Eleni Kasselouri-Hatzivassiliadi (eds),
Women’s Voices and Visions for the Church: Reflections from Orthodox Women
(Geneva: WCC Publications, 2006); Eleni Kasselouri-Hatzivassiliadi, Fulata Mbano
Moyo, Aikaterini Pekridou (eds), Many Women Were Also There. The Participation
o f Orthodox Women in the Ecumenical Movement. Past, Present, Future
(Geneva/Volos, Greece: WCC and Volos Academy Publications, 2011); Eleni
Conclusion
After listing all these negative phenomena, let me conclude my discussion
by referring to a positive and encouraging sign, i.e., the revalorization of
mission, and the rediscovery o f mission, especially in today’s Greek
Orthodox theological context, as a co-constitutive element of the making of
the church. After mission being associated with pietistic and activist
religious fellowships such as “Zoe,” and consequently being undervalued
or neglected as W estem-influenced by many theologians o f the “return to
the Fathers” movement, and the Greek theology o f the ’60s,78 thanks to the
work o f theologians, missiologists, and missionaries such as Archbishop
Anastasios (Yannoulatos) o f Tirana and All Albania, Elias Voulgarakis
(1927-1999), Luke Veronis, loan Bria, Metropolitan Geevarghese Mar
Ostathios, Petros Vassiliadis, Metropolitan Geevarghese Mar Coorilos or
Athanasios N. Papathanasiou, we recently began to realize in the Orthodox,
and more specifically in the Greek context, some problematic aspects o f the
previous theological generation, and o f the previous theological
“paradigm,” by finally accepting that mission is not the consequence o f the
catholicity o f the church but the condition for ecclesial catholicity; in other
words that mission is o f the very essence o f the church, that mission is no
less constitutive o f the church than the Eucharist, and that mission is the
implementation and continuation o f C hrist’s command in history, to “go ...
and make disciples o f all nations, baptizing them in the name o f the Father
and o f the Son and o f the Holy Spirit” (Mt. 28:19, NRSV).79
I do hope that this encouraging sign is just the beginning o f a wider
movement o f ecclesial and spiritual renewal, and o f a deeper awareness of
the global challenges o f today’s world, to which a mission-oriented church
and theology cannot remain indifferent or, even worst, impermeable.
Kasselouri-Hatzivassiliadi, “Mission, Gender, and Theological Education: An

Orthodox Perspective”, IRM, 104 (2015), 37-45; Rastko Yovic, “Doing Gender
Justice as a Mission Imperative: God's Justice and Ours”, IRM, 104 (2015), 26-36.
Cf. also, “Communiqué at the Conclusion of the International Theological
Conference: ‘Deaconesses, Ordination of Women and Orthodox Theology’”, IRM,
104 (2015), 134-140.
78 Cf. Papathanasiou, “The ‘Generation of ’60s’: Suspicion, Creativity,
Embarrassment”, 401-411 [in Greek].
79 Cf. Papathanasiou, “Is Mission a Consequence of the Catholicity of the Church?”
IRM, 90 (2001), 409-416. Cf. also, Ion Bria, “Reflections on Mission Theology and
Missiology”, IRM, 73 (1984), 66-72.

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Series Preface

Julie C. Ma Oxford Centre for Mission Studies, Oxford, UK

A full listing o f titles in this series

A Festschrift for Dietrich Werner

Edited by Atola Longkumer,

First published 2016 by Regnum Books International

Regnum is an imprint of the Oxford Centre for Mission Studies

The right of Atola Longkumer, Po Ho Huang and Uta Andrée to be identified as

All rights reserved. No part o f this publication may be reproduced, stored in a

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

Typeset by Words by Design

Cover image: James He Qi

The editors wish to acknowledge the generous financial

Theological Education: Hope for a Theology of Life

Biblical Vision for a Learned/Learning Community and Some First

Theological Education and Transformative Leadership

Part II: M ission and Theological Education

Theological Education and Theology of Life as Christian Mission

New Wine into Old Wineskins? Orthodox Theology of

Brain Drain to Brain Gain: Asian North American

All Things Hyphenated: Chinese Christian

Mission, Education, and the Theology of the Church

Diversity in Theological Education and Ecumenical Engagement -

Asian Realities and Challenges for Peacebuilding

Women’s ordained ministry in Presbyterian church of Myanmar

P art IV: T heological Education and G lobal Trends

Ecumenical Formation in Theology (EcuFiT)

The Potential of Globalized Religions for Peace

Theology of Life - A Perspective from Pastoral Ministry

Select Bibliography of Dietrich Werner 277

Mission and Theological Education

4 Bishop Gore, Chairman of Commission 111, in World Missionary Conference,

heart o f the natives o f any country if it finds expression in their native

7 Quoted in Dietrich Werner, “The Unfinished Agenda”, 251.

Education, and Ecumenism,10 I made the choice to contribute to his

The Orthodox Contribution towards the Renewal

10 Pantelis Kalaitzidis, “Orthodox Theological Education in the Postmodemity Era:

church which when seen from a pneumatological (based on the distinct

c) the mission as diakonia and “liturgy after the Liturgy” : in the

Ioannis Petrou, Stylianos Tsompanidis, Moschos Gkoutsioudis (eds), The

remarks made by the Greek Orthodox lay theologian Athanasios N.

14 Athanasios N. Papathanasiou, “Journey to the Center of Gravity: Christian

e) the understanding o f Eucharist as a missionary event: as the late Fr.

In addition, 20th century Orthodox mission had the significant advantage

27 Ion Bria (ed). Go Forth in Peace, 64.

the first Orthodox communities was initiated in Africa, i. e., by the

Mission in Tropical Africa”, an article originally published in Missionalia, the

j2 Bishop Makarios (Tyllirides), “The Makarios Legacy in Kenya”, in Georges

As these dramatic global changes are detailed in the analysis offered by

35 Wemer, “The Unfinished Agenda of Ecumenical Theological Education”, 255-

37 See: Stavros Zoumboulakis, “The Orthodox Churches and the Geographic

The lack of continuity in Orthodox missionary' endeavors has been and

An Old “Paradigm” for a N ew World? Critical Remarks

40 Archbishop Anastasios (Yannaloutos), Mission in Christ’s Ways, 209.

42 Pante lis Kalaitzidis, “La relation de l’Eglise à la culture et la dialectique de

Whenever a new culture and a new people are transformed, it is a new

46 Cosmas (John) Ngige Njoroge, “incarnation as a Mode of Orthodox Mission:

49 Cf. Métropolite Alexandre de Nigéria, “Mission et civilization”, 65-66;

Orthodoxy as a whole, Greek-speaking and not Greek-speaking cannot

English translation by Fr. Gregory Edwards with a Foreword by Nikolaos

particularly promising attempts o f contemporary Orthodox theologians at

Narrative: Selected Essays, edited by George Hunsinger and William C. Placher

57 Zoumboulakis, “The Orthodox Churches and the Geographic Redistribution of