I thought, having recently felt compelled to state the following history in a few different topics, for those unfamiliar with the three great televangelists, Dr. James Kennedy, Archbishop Fulton Sheen, and Rev. Robert Schuller, or the important work done in the Soviet Union by Billy Graham, the greatest evangelist of the 20th century, with the blessing of the Russian Orthodox Church, on multiple visits to the Soviet Union, which was of massive benefit to all of the many churches that were oppressed by that atheistic, communist kleptocracy, helping pave the way for the rapid growth of the churches in Russia, Georgia, Armenia and other former Soviet Socialist Republics after the end of the Communist dictatorship, that I would provide a summary of these four Christian leaders and their work.
Dr. James Kennedy was the founding pastor of Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church, which during his tenure was the crown jewell of the Presbyterian Church in America, and also one of the three great televangelists, along with Archbishop Fulton Sheen and Rev. Schuller of the Crystal Cathedral, now Christ Cathedral, which before it financially collapsed around the time of his retirement, was the crown jewell of the Reformed Church in America. Robert Schuller was a great evangelist, Dr. Kennedy, a great moralist and advocate for the renewed application of Christian morality to public life, and Archbishop Fulton Sheen was the most skilled at preaching in an easy to understand way otherwise complex and challenging aspects of Christian theology, such as the Doctrine of the Incarnation, the nature of the devil and hamartiology, and so on, and once did a joint program with Rev. Schuller. I don’t count Rev. Billy Graham among this group, because while he did televangelism, he was really the greatest all around evangelist in the 20th century, and he had a specific focus on outdoor preaching.
The work he did in the Soviet Union with the blessing of the Moscow Patriarch was extremely helpful to the Russian Orthodox Church, and other churches in the Soviet Union, such as the Georgian Orthodox Church, the Armenian Apostolic (Orthodox) Church, the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, and various Lutheran churches, whose ability to do evangelism was effectively denied by the Communist authorities, and which experienced absurd restrictions even in catechizing their members, including children and seminarians, and in preaching. But Rev. Billy Graham was untouchable, and with the blessing of the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia, who is the presiding bishop of the Russian Orthodox Church and the autonomous churches under its supervision, including the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, the Latvian Orthodox Church, the Lithuanian Orthodox Church, the Byelorussian Orthodox Church, roughly half of the Estonian Orthodox Church, the Chinese Orthodox Church, the Korean Orthodox Church and the Japanese Orthodox Church, and the Eastern Orthodox churches in Central Asia, and since 2007, the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia, which had in the 1920s broken off relations with the Moscow Patriarchate in accordance with a directive issued by Patriarch Tikhon, who anticipated his arrest and an attempted Soviet subversion of the church, but ROCOR and the Moscow Patriarchate were able to reconcile after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the clear demonstration of orthodoxy by the MP and its remarkable success in the post-Soviet era.
Dr. James Kennedy was the founding pastor of Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church, which during his tenure was the crown jewell of the Presbyterian Church in America, and also one of the three great televangelists, along with Archbishop Fulton Sheen and Rev. Schuller of the Crystal Cathedral, now Christ Cathedral, which before it financially collapsed around the time of his retirement, was the crown jewell of the Reformed Church in America. Robert Schuller was a great evangelist, Dr. Kennedy, a great moralist and advocate for the renewed application of Christian morality to public life, and Archbishop Fulton Sheen was the most skilled at preaching in an easy to understand way otherwise complex and challenging aspects of Christian theology, such as the Doctrine of the Incarnation, the nature of the devil and hamartiology, and so on, and once did a joint program with Rev. Schuller. I don’t count Rev. Billy Graham among this group, because while he did televangelism, he was really the greatest all around evangelist in the 20th century, and he had a specific focus on outdoor preaching.
The work he did in the Soviet Union with the blessing of the Moscow Patriarch was extremely helpful to the Russian Orthodox Church, and other churches in the Soviet Union, such as the Georgian Orthodox Church, the Armenian Apostolic (Orthodox) Church, the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, and various Lutheran churches, whose ability to do evangelism was effectively denied by the Communist authorities, and which experienced absurd restrictions even in catechizing their members, including children and seminarians, and in preaching. But Rev. Billy Graham was untouchable, and with the blessing of the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia, who is the presiding bishop of the Russian Orthodox Church and the autonomous churches under its supervision, including the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, the Latvian Orthodox Church, the Lithuanian Orthodox Church, the Byelorussian Orthodox Church, roughly half of the Estonian Orthodox Church, the Chinese Orthodox Church, the Korean Orthodox Church and the Japanese Orthodox Church, and the Eastern Orthodox churches in Central Asia, and since 2007, the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia, which had in the 1920s broken off relations with the Moscow Patriarchate in accordance with a directive issued by Patriarch Tikhon, who anticipated his arrest and an attempted Soviet subversion of the church, but ROCOR and the Moscow Patriarchate were able to reconcile after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the clear demonstration of orthodoxy by the MP and its remarkable success in the post-Soviet era.
