Dear Sister,
I hope I was not pointing fingers. I was simply responding to the point that the OC was waiting for Rome; there is not one OC. That is a sad fact; as my caveat made clear, I was blaming no one for this state of affairs.
Hey Bro... Anglian
There is one OC for sure since we do believe in creed at least the same. If you consider the OO or the CO (coptic orthodox) the same in practice but still not united still that does not make it "many OC" either. Thanks for trying to be fair...no need to blame at this point we know the schism between OC and OO churches is a shared and mixed bag
Actually we are not the innocent party in this one...
We have neglected that issue tremendously..
Neither, I think, was the OP just about EO countries; I suspect there is a great deal more such evangelising in the countries with which I am most familiar - Egypt, Syria and India, than in Russia or Greece.
ok so ....
It is relevant in an obvious but rather saddening way. The schisms within the historic Churches have helped create the situation in which their countries have become 'mission fields'. The point has been raised several times that no one is forcing any Orthodox Christian to 'convert'; that some do has certainly made my own Church aware of the defects in its own catechesis; Pope Shenouda has put a tremendous emphasis on Sunday schools, and did so thirty years ago because of the evidence that our own people were not well enough informed about their own Church and its beliefs. At that time many just wanted the Government to ban foreign missions. Now, some of us can see that they were a sign that we needed to do better.
Why the schisms are the problem sorry but I do not see this.. I think it is better to say that just like the RC we are being sitting in our "laurrels" for too long and forgot how to missionize and evangelize... our own people. In that I do agree with you.
We do have laws that forbid foreigners to come in and missionize (in Greece) at will. We do have a state religion just as England has and my complain is that although they do also have a state religion it is the EO state religion that most object too...Strange
Anyhow. I do not see how one can still go to an already evangelized country with a christian state religion and expect to be welcome furthermore is this action moral or not? According to Christ is it justified?
In that sense I have ambivalent feelings about the question in the OP. I have a natural instinct against it at one level: 'we are Christians, leave us alone and convert the Muslims'; on another level, if we are doing our job properly in preaching and teaching the Faith once received, then we should have nothing to fear from foreign missions.
I agree with the latter but still there is no justification...here either when the church in Corinth fell into corruption did the same evangelist come to the rescue? yep he did....
Reading some of our Evangelical brothers and sisters here, I can see their point of view, and whilst instinctively disagreeing with it, I am not wholly in sympathy with the idea that in Orthodox countries where nationality and religion are closely tied up, there should be some sort of exclusion clause. If we really do have the fullness of the Truth, why exclude foreign missions - are we frightened of them? Why would that be?
We are not frightened...is it moral to do it? that is my beef to be honest... And I think that is one part that EO does not and refrains from doing it... It is in a way stealing sheep. period.
I do rejoice when i hear so and so lapsed so and so went back to their church.. No problem here
As I wrote earlier, I have seen some sad effects in Egypt, and I am not convinced that the foreign missionaries quite understand why Islamic governments let them in. The situation in Greece and Russia is somewhat different; I doubt that those Governments would be wanting foreign missionaries to undermine the native Christian Church. Russia, in particular, has a long history of reacting strongly to what it considers Western influence; understandable, but it the sphere of Christianity ultimately pointless, surely? Would a well-taught Orthodox 'convert'? Protectionism, whether in religion or commerce, sometimes protects lax practice; not always. But if we have done our task of spiritual formation aright, what is it we are worried about?
The question you should be asking would be "would it be fair for a russian to convert"?
And if one family converts or a hundred is it fair for this family to be singled out from the rest? We are creating an ethos within another ethos and IMHO the Christian religion of a given land has its own ethos... They are both Christian saying we as orhtodox have neglected the "internal mission" is true but to expect another tradition to come in from the outside of that tradition to cover up the gap is not IMHO the solution. That is why i do not see how America would ever be totally Orthodox it will not be fair as it will also be impossible...I say it is okay to have a "presense" defenately ok...but to "push" a product cause the local one is not enough and esp. a foreign product is hardly ethical or suitable.
My 0.2 cents.
