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Making Mission from the Model of Christ

Internal and external mission of the Church


ISBN 978-606-8520-41-4
Pr. Prof. Dr. Pavel Aurel

Pr. Lect. Dr. Daniel Buda Lect. Dr. Ciprian Iulian Toroczkai

Making Mission from the Model of Christ


Internal and external mission
of the Church

Published with blessing of His Eminence


Laurenţiu Streza,
Archbishop of Sibiu and Metropolitan of Transylvania

ASTRA Museum Publishing


Sibiu – 2014
Descrierea CIP a Bibliotecii Naţionale a României
PAVEL, AUREL

Making Mission from the Model of Christ. Internal and external


mission of the Church / pr. prof. dr. Aurel Pavel, pr. lect. dr. Daniel Buda,
lect. dr. Ciprian Iulian Toroczkai. - Sibiu : Astra Museum, 2014
ISBN 978-606-8520-41-4

I. Buda, Daniel
II. Toroczkai, Ciprian Iulian

23

Volume conducted
in the Research Center for Theology
and Research Center for Ecumenical Studies
of “Lucian Blaga” University of Sibiu, Romania
Contents

Foreword of editors  .... . .... . .... . .... . .... . .... . .... . .... . .... . .... . .... . .... . .... . .... .7
Contributors list.... . .... . .... . .... . .... . .... . .... . .... . .... . .... . .... . .... . .... . .... . .... .9
Metropolitan Geevarghese Coorilos
Syrian Orthodox Church in India: Mission Within and Without.. ... .. ... .11
Archim. Prof. Jack Khalil
St Paul’s Case Against Proselytism ..... . .... . .... . .... . .... . .... . .... . .... . .... . .... 21
Andreas Heiser
Johannes Chrysostomus und die (Heiden-)Mission ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ....27
Rev. Prof. PhD Valer Bel
The kenotic dimension of the Christian mission.... . .... . .... . .... . .... . .... . ...51
Prof. Dr. Ciprian Streza
La parole de Dieu dans l’histoire du salut et dans la Liturgie comme
moyen missionnaire de l’Eglise..... . .... . .... . .... . .... . .... . .... . .... . .... . .... . .... 61
Assist. Prof. PhD Cristian Sonea
Theology and Theologies. The Ambivalence and the Limitation
of Language in History..... . .... . .... . .... . .... . .... . .... . .... . .... . .... . .... . .... . .... 77
Protos. Teach. Assist. PhD Vasile Bîrzu
The Menorah Lamp – Ante-type of the Mind of Christ. A Cyrilian
Exegesis with Mistagogical and Missiological Meanings..... ..... ..... ..... ....85
Assist. Prof. PhD Ciprian Iulian Toroczkai
The Mission of the Orthodox Church Today. A Model and
Some Challenges ... .. ... .. ... .. ... .. ... .. ... .. ... .. ... .. ... .. ... .. ... .. ... .. ... .. ... .. 103
Revd. Prof. PhD Cristinel Ioja
Ecclesial Experience – a Missionary-Apologetical Principle in Apostolic
Fathers and Apologists Thinking.... . .... . .... . .... . .... . .... . .... . .... . .... . .... . .114
Revd. Prof. PhD Aurel Pavel
Preaching the Gospel and Establishing Local Churches.
Important Goals of the Mission..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..127
Assoc. Prof. PhD Ioan Mircea Ielciu
A Fourth-century Proto-Romanian Ecumenical Theologian. Saint John
Cassian: the Synergism between Grace and Freedom of Will ... .. ... .. ... .. 138
Assoc. Prof. PhD Nicolae Moşoiu
Missio Dei Triunius – some considerations on the Christian mission, the
unity of the Church and the theological education..... . .... . .... . .... . .... . ...150
PhD Dragoş Boicu
Augustine and the Legitimisation of Violence in Christian Mission..... ..166
Assoc. Prof. PhD Daniel Buda
New understandings of the Notion of internal and external Mission ... .. 187
Assoc. Prof. PhD Sebastian Moldovan
Christ is the Mission ... .. ... .. ... .. ... .. ... .. ... .. ... .. ... .. ... .. ... .. ... .. ... .. ... .. 195
Revd. Assoc. Prof. PhD Constantin Necula
Intergenerational Catechesis – Present Time and the Perspective
of a Pastoral Catechumenal Alternative..... . .... . .... . .... . .... . .... . .... . .... . ...207
Foreword of editors 

This year as well the editors of this volume have continued their initiative
to organize annually, within “Andrei Şaguna” Faculty of Orthodox Theology,
from Sibiu, a series of missionary themed conferences held under the general
theme “Making Mission from the Model of Christ”.
For the second edition of the conference, which was held from June
20th to 21st, 2013, the sub-theme was “Internal and external Mission of the
Church”. The title, deliberately formulated as a topical issue, allowed the ref-
erents to provide the most diverse approaches for this subject.
This volume contains sixteen papers presented at the second edition of
the conference. The conference was attended by Archimandrite Jack Khalil,
Professor of New Testament Exegesis at “St John of Damascus” Institute of
Theology, University of Balamand – Lebanon, who presented a special intro-
duction to this theme analysing St Paul’s Case against Proselytism, and open-
ing thus the debate over the legitimacy of the Christian mission.
The list of authors includes fifteen other contributors, including Metro-
politan Geevarghese Coorilos, who describes the way of making mission in
the Syrian Orthodox Church in India, and Andreas Heiser, who remembers
the mission created by John Chrysostom for those pagans living in Phoenicia.
The Romanian contributors have approached the theme “Internal and
external Mission of the Church” from very different perspectives and so some
of them tried to present the theoretical aspects involved by the Christian Mis-
sion such as the unique relation between Christ and the Church’s mission
(Assoc. Prof. PhD Sebastian Moldovan), or the right understandings of the
Notion of internal and external Mission (Assoc. Prof. PhD Daniel Buda).
Others have had highlighted the limitations of the Mission (Assist. Prof. PhD
Cristian Sonea), its important goals (Revd. Prof. PhD Aurel Pavel), and its
challenges (Assist. Prof. PhD Ciprian Iulian Toroczkai).
Four of the authors have regarded the Mission from a patristic perspec-
tive bringing forward the missionary principles found in the works of Saint
Cyril of Alexandria (Protos. Teach. Assist. PhD Vasile Bîrzu), of the Apos-

7
tolic Fathers and Apologists (Revd. Prof. PhD Cristinel Ioja), of Saint John
Cassian (Assoc. Prof. PhD Ioan Mircea Ielciu) and of Augustine of Hippo
(PhD Dragoş Boicu).
Aside from these points of view two of the contributions published here
deal with the kenotic dimension of the Christian Mission (Rev. Prof. PhD
Valer Bel) and the special role of the Liturgy for both Internal and external
Mission of the Church (Prof. Dr. Ciprian Streza), while other two papers pre-
sent some considerations on the impact of Christian mission over the theo-
logical education (Assoc. Prof. PhD Nicolae Moşoiu) and on the needs for
shaping a pastoral catechumenal alternative as an Intergenerational Cateche-
sis (Revd. Assoc. Prof. PhD Constantin Necula)
The mere listing of the topics approached reveals both their diversity and
cohesion existing between the various papers submitted.
The hope of the editors of this volume is that it will be useful equally
to specialists in mission, to priests in their ministry, to students in theology
and, why not, to believers; to all those who in one way or another, make
mission after the model of Christ.

The editorial team

8
Contributors list

Valer Bel, Revd. Prof. PhD, is Professor for Systematic Theology at the
Orthodox Theological Faculty of “Babeş Bolyai” University of Cluj-
Napoca, Romania.
Vasile Bîrzu, Protos. Teach. Assist. PhD, is Teaching Assistant for Orthodox
Spirituality at the Orthodox Theological Faculty “Andrei Şaguna” of
“Lucian Blaga” University, Sibiu, Romania.
Dragoş Boicu, administrative assistant at the Research Center for Theology
of “Lucian Blaga” University of Sibiu, Romania.
Daniel Buda, Revd. Assist. Prof. PhD, is Assistant Professor for Church
History at the Orthodox Theological Faculty “Andrei Şaguna” of „Lu-
cian Blaga” University, Sibiu, Romania and Program Executive for
Church and Ecumenical Relations in the World Council of Churches,
Geneva, Switzerland.
Geevarghese Mor Coorilos, PhD is Metropolitan of the Niranam diocese
of the Syrian Orthodox Church in India and also the Moderator of
the Commission on World Mission and Evangelism (CWME) of the
World Council of Churches (WCC).
Andreas Heiser, Prof. PhD, Professor for Church History at the Institute of
Theology Ewersbach, Germany; Rector of the same Institute.
Ioan Mircea Ileciu, Revd. Assoc. Prof. PhD, is Associated Professor for Pa-
tristics at the Orthodox Theological Faculty “Andrei Şaguna” of „Lu-
cian Blaga” University, Sibiu, Romania.
Cristinel Ioja, Revd. Prof. PhD, is Professor for Systematic Theology at the
Orthodox Theological Faculty “I. V. Felea » of « Aurel Vlaicu » Univer-
sity, Arad, Romania; President of the same University.
Jack Khalil, Archim. Prof. PhD, Professor of New Testament Exegesis at
“St John of Damascus” Institute of Theology, University of Balamand,
Lebanon.

9
Sebastian Moldovan, Assoc. Prof. PhD, is Associated Professor for Ethics at
the Orthodox Theological Faculty “Andrei Şaguna” of „Lucian Blaga”
University, Sibiu, Romania.
Nicolae Moşoiu, Revd. Assoc. Prof. PhD, is Associated Professor for Dog-
matics at the Orthodox Theological Faculty “Andrei Şaguna” of „Lu-
cian Blaga” University, Sibiu, Romania.
Constantin Necula, Revd. Assoc. Prof. PhD, is Associated Professor for
Homiletics at the Orthodox Theological Faculty “Andrei Şaguna” of
„Lucian Blaga” University, Sibiu, Romania.
Aurel Pavel, Revd. Prof. PhD, is Professor for Missiology and Ecumenism in
the Orthodox Theological Faculty “Andrei Şaguna” of „Lucian Blaga”
University, Sibiu, Romania.
David Pestroiu, Assoc. Prof. PhD, is Associated Professor for Missiology in
the Orthodox Theological Faculty „Patriarhul Justinian” of Bucharest
University.
Evangelia Voulgaraki-Pissina, PhD, is Teacher for Religion in Athens,
Greece, specialist in Missiology.
Cristian Sonea, Revd. Teach. Assist. PhD, is Teaching Assistant for Missiol-
ogy at the Orthodox Theological Faculty of Babeş-Bolyai University,
Cluj Napoca, Romania; Vice-Dean of the same Faculty.
Ciprian Streza, Assoc. Prof. PhD, is Associated Professor for Liturgical
Studies at the Orthodox Theological Faculty “Andrei Şaguna” of Uni-
versity “Lucian Blaga”, Sibiu, Romania.
Ciprian Iulian Toroczkai, Assist. Prof. PhD, is Assistant Professor for Eth-
ics at the Orthodox Theological Faculty “Andrei Şaguna” of University
“Lucian Blaga”, Sibiu, Romania.

10
Syrian Orthodox Church in India:
Mission Within and Without

Metropolitan Geevarghese Coorilos

Introduction
The question whether Orthodoxy and Mission can go together contin-
ues to be a debate of much interest. The fact, though, is that mission and
evangelism are essential aspects of Orthodoxy. In fact, ecclesiology and missi-
ology are integrally intertwined in Orthodox theology. The Church is because
there is a mission to be carried out. As Archbishop Anastasios puts it, “Mis-
sion is the undoubted obligation of the Orthodox”1. However, the Orthodox
understanding of mission and evangelism is different from the traditional
Protestant views on mission. Orthodoxy views mission basically as an act of
the Holy Trinity, itself the source and fountain of mission. Mission is the
way the Church exists in its Trinitarian essence and nature. It is a process of
inter-communion (perichoresis), a process of approximating the Trinitarian
communion of love and interdependence among the whole creation. Mission
is incarnational as the eternal Logos took the form of flesh. Mission therefore
is the contextual expression and application of the embodiment of the word
of God in the person of Jesus Christ. Church is essentially the extension of
God’s incarnation in Jesus Christ. God’s Mission (Missio Dei) is also kenotic
(self emptying), and necrosis (cross bearing) is the way mission is carried out.
In Orthodox spirituality, this is often reflected in the way daily life is lived out
by individuals and communities – askesis. Mission in other words is not only
what we do in mission, but also how we live out mission2. The being mode of

1
Archbishop Anastasios, Mission in Christ’s Way, Holy Cross Orthodox Press and
WCC, Geneva, 2010, p. 25.
2
See my “Mission Towards Fulness of Life”, an article to be published in International
Review of Mission, WCC, Geneva, 2014.

11
Metropolitan Geevarghese Coorilos

mission tends to take precedence in the Orthodox world, especially as it has


been manifested in the monastic tradition and ascetic spirituality, themselves
expressions of counter-cultural and alternate Christian witness. Liturgical life
is part and parcel of this missionary ethos. Participation in the divine liturgy
is then extended to daily life where it becomes the mission of “the liturgy after
the liturgy” and where “all of life must be transfigured into a liturgy”3. In a
nutshell then, the Orthodox mission ethos is one that is characterized not so
much by an “aggressive going out” approach as it is by a “persuasive drawing
in” mode, particularly through it’s distinct liturgical and ascetic spirituality.

Mission and the Syrian Orthodox Church in India


The Syrian Orthodox Church in India is one of the ancient churches
which traces its liturgical and theological roots from the Syrian Orthodox
Patriarchate of Antioch and All the East. In existence for centuries, the Syrian
Orthodox Church in India has not been particularly known for it’s empha-
sis on mission and evangelism. The reason for this apparent lack of accent
on mission and evangelism is mainly two fold. Firstly, as has been already
seen, Orthodoxy, on the whole, has maintained a low profile in mission and
evangelism activities due to it’s distinct mission ethos of ‘staying in’ rather
than ‘going out’ in mission. Syrian Orthodox Church has not been an excep-
tion to this world wide Orthodox mission spirituality and ethos. Secondly
and perhaps more importantly, this also has got to do with the caste system
and mentality that the Syrian Orthodox Christianity in India has internal-
ized from the Hindu caste system in India. Although the adjective “Syrian”
in “Syrian Christians” originally referred to those Christians who came into
contact and accepted the theological and liturgical tradition of the Syriac Ori-
ent, the term “Syrian”4 gradually began to assume sociological connotations.
Those Christians who embraced the Syrian theological and ecclesial tradition
also embraced the Hindu cultural tradition of caste system. They constructed,
3
Archbishop Anastasios, op .cit., pp. 94-95.
4
The adjective “Syrian” is used here not in its theological sense as it refers to the Syrian
Orthodox liturgical tradition but in it’s sociological sense as it refers to the (“upper”) caste
status of a community. The main Church traditions that are almost exclusively “Syrian” ( in
the sense of “upper caste”) are the Syrian Orthodox, the Orthodox Syrian (also known as the
Indian Orthodox), the Mar Thoma Syrian, the Chaldean Syrian, the Syro Malabar Catholic,
the Malankara Catholic and the Thozhoyoor Independent Syrian Churches. Some of the
major South Indian Protestant Churches as the Church of South India too have significant
number of members hailing from the Syrian (caste) community.

12
Syrian Orthodox Church in India: Mission Within and Without

albeit for their own convenience, a myth which would make the claim - one
that is historically and theologically untenable- that they came to Christi-
anity as converts from the highest social strata, the Brahmin Hindu caste
group. Once constructed, they made sure that the myth survived and this
was made possible by strictly enforcing caste system and values within their
Christian fold. Thus, Syrian Christianity in India, by and large, has been and
still continues to be a casteist and clannish dispensation, an exclusive caste
community which has not welcomed, until recently, “lower” caste groups and
Dalits into Syrian Christian churches. It is this aspect of Syrian Christianity,
with a specific focus on Syrian Orthodox Church in India, that discriminates
Dalits and other caste communities in the name of caste, that this essay strives
to focus on. Whilst the article tries to see how the caste mentality effectively
strangles the mission work of the Church in general, it also dwells on how the
newly found interest and vigor in mission and evangelism within the Church
has been able to challenge the Church both ecclesiologically and missiologi-
cally, internally and externally, leading to spiritual and social renewal within
the Church.

Traditional Mission activities of the Syrian Orthodox Church


As a church which has not been attuned to “outreach” mission and evan-
gelism, both due to historical as well as sociological reasons, as already seen,
the Syrian Orthodox Church in India has felt content with traditional mis-
sion activities in the areas of education and health care. Here again, the Syrian
Orthodox Church, unlike the Roman Catholic and Protestant Churches, did
not contribute much as it probably did not want to upset the social (caste)
make up and configuration of the Syrian Orthodox church. The Church
knew quite well that the mission work in the fields of education and health
care, if exercised with the gospel vision and commitment, had the potentials
to challenge the social discrimination on the basis of caste. The schools and
hospitals that were started by some among the Western missionaries of Prot-
estant and Catholic persuasions took the gospel imperative of challenging
the discriminatory and inhuman practice of caste system seriously. This was
a revolutionary move in mission in that thousands of Dalits and other lower
caste people were able to educate themselves and enjoy medical care without
any discrimination. However, precisely because of this revolutionary potential
and due to it’s casteist orientation, the Syrian Orthodox Church in India did
not bother to invest much mission energy in providing education and medi-

13
Metropolitan Geevarghese Coorilos

cal care to the the most oppressed sections of the Indian society, the Dalits.
Of course, there have been a few individual exceptions such as the late bishops
Pathrose Mor Osthathios and Geevarghese Mor Gregorios (later canonized
as a saint) who had made some important initiatives in starting educational
institutions for Dalits and backward communities5.
Having said this, it must be noted that the Syrian Orthodox Church
in India has tried to catch up with other churches in mission work through
education and medical care in the recent past. However, this was at a time
when almost all churches have clearly deviated from the original vision of em-
powering the poor and the needy through educational ministry. The churches
today have effectively converted this arena of prophetic mission into a lucra-
tive money making enterprise.
As already indicated, the early mission of the Church in India especially
vis-a-vis educating people had been done with it’s main focus on providing
literacy and quality education to the Dalits and the poorer sections of the
society who have been deprived of their right to education for too long due to
social discrimination on the basis of their caste identity. At a time when even
literacy was an unimaginable dream for the Dalits, Church’s mission in the
field of educational sector helped them acquire quality education, especially
modern education through English medium training. By providing educa-
tion to Dalits and other marginalized communities, the missionary Church
in India had also challenged, albeit indirectly, the unique system of social dis-
crimination in India, namely casteism. The educational institutions that were
run by churches in India (again mostly Protestant and Catholic) not only
provided quality education, but also instilled Christian moral values among
the taught. Today, though, Christian mission in the sphere of education and
medical care, has by and large, betrayed it’s missionary call and commitment
to the gospel values of Jesus Christ. The educational and medical ministry of
the Church in India today appears to be driven not so much by the gospel
imperatives of equality and justice, but more by the market motives of gener-
ating undue monetary profit. As already noted, the Syrian Orthodox Church
wasn’t quite active in these mission fields when other churches exhibited the
missionary zeal to challenge the unjust values of caste discrimination and in-
equality. Worse still is the fact that the Orthodox Church off late has shown
enthusiastic interest in these sectors of education and hospital “ministry” with

5
See my New Beings and New Communities: Theological Reflections in a Postmodern
Context, KCC, Tiruvalla, 1998, pp. 50-51.

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Syrian Orthodox Church in India: Mission Within and Without

the ulterior motive of accumulating undue wealth. Consequently, in the name


of ‘mission’, the Church has started institutions of education and medical care
that cater to the interests and needs of the upper caste and elite sections of
the society. This lopsided vision of Christian witness by the Church in India
is described by Mithra Augustine thus:
“The earlier distinct ‘plus’ of service to the disadvantaged is no longer
noticeable in these institutions. Along with most other institutions,
Christian schools and colleges too have jumped the bandwagon
seeking and serving with great zeal values as merit, efficiency, and
success as against values of sacrifice, justice, service, relevance, com-
mon humanity etc. It is here that contemporary Christian education
has come close to loosing it’s precious moorings, the Gospel perspec-
tive and imperative”6.
As already indicated, the Syrian Orthodox Church in India too seems
to have developed considerable interest in running institutions of education
and medical care that are not accessible to the Dalits and other economically
and socially marginalized sections of society. The gospel vision of mission here
is completely betrayed. Mor Osthatheos Geevarghese, the late Metropolitan
of the Orthodox Syrian Church had made a strong and clarion call to the
Church to reverse this direction and return to the gospel mandate by starting
institutions for the sake of the poor and the marginalized, especially Dalits7.

St Paul’s Mission of India: Mission of a double edged sword


within the Syrian Orthodox Church in India
The inclusive nature of the Body of Christ, the Church, is rooted in the
very nature of Godhead- the Holy Trinity. The Triune God is a community
of various identities, each with it’s own particularity and individuality. They
are a community characterized and bound by equality, collegiality, and inter-
dependence. Within the Trinitarian vision, there is no room for subordina-
tion and discrimination. The Church is meant to be an icon of the Holy
Trinity, a window of Godhead. In this sense, all believers, whether they are
Dalits, tribals, Adivasis or Syrian Christians, are all equal and full members
of the divine community of the Triune God. However, the reality of the

6
Quoted in New Beings and New Communities, op .cit., p. 85.
7
See Mor Osthatheose Geevarghese, Raksha Christuvil Mathramo (Malayalam), St.
Paul’s Book Depot, Mavelikkara, 1980, p. 160-161.

15
Metropolitan Geevarghese Coorilos

Indian Church in general and of the Syrian Orthodox Church in particular


is far from this vision of a Trinitarian inclusive and egalitarian community.
The caste system which has been given theological and religious grounding
and credibility by the Brahminic Hinduism has been a missiological and ec-
clesiological challenge for the Being (Nature) and the Becoming (Mission)
of the Church in India. Christianity which embodies essentially a counter
cultural world view to that of Brahminic Caste system hasn’t really lived up
to it’s missionary calling in India. As Deenabandhu Manchala opines, just
the way people talk about two Indias- the rich and the poor- the same can
be said about Indian Christianity too. There are those churches that are pre-
dominantly Dalit, yet dominated by the caste elite. On the other side of the
spectrum, there are those churches that are almost exclusively non-Dalit or
“Syrian” that continue to exclude and discriminate Dalits. In both versions,
caste plays a crucial role in perpetuating injustice and oppression. The divide
between the Syrian and Dalit communities is so obvious. It is beyond com-
prehension that the Syrian Orthodox Church in India for whom the Holy
Trinity constitutes the central theological paradigm, could betray it’s inclu-
sive vision through it’s systematic exclusion and alienation of Dalits from
their ecclesial fold and structures. The Syrian Orthodox Church along with
other Syrian churches in India have consistently maintained their casteist
and clannish existence. The following questions8 therefore are crucial and
ought to be answered by the Syrian Churches:
How can they (Syrian churches) possibly claim to be a credible worship-
ping community if they are still far from being able to practice equality, jus-
tice and mutuality in their ecclesial and social engineering?
How can they possibly call themselves a liturgical community if they
continue to discriminate people on the bases of caste, gender, race and so on
within their worship life?
What would Holy Communion mean without social communion?
The Syrian Orthodox Church in India has been particularly challenged
by these questions for a long time. It is in this rather dismal and challenging
context of the Church having lost it’s missionary vision and vocation that
in the recent past the Syrian Orthodox Church has experienced a sudden
renewal in it’s missionary calling and vocation through a missionary organiza-
8
I have raised these questions in my response to the Keynote Presentation at the Edin-
burgh 2010 Mission Conference.

16
Syrian Orthodox Church in India: Mission Within and Without

tion called St. Paul’s Mission of India9. Founded in 1989 by a few committed
members of the Syrian Orthodox Church, after years of prayerful prepara-
tion, St. Paul’s Mission of India was launched as a mission organization with
the specific objective of outreach evangelism which was a foreign concept for
the Orthodox church. Therefore, the people who launched this initiative did
not find much support initially from within the church. However, they per-
sisted and continued their sincere efforts in reaching out to the hitherto “un-
touchable” and “outcaste” communities of Dalits and economically backward
communities. Not many realized then that this was going to mark the genesis
of a silent and a steady revolution within the Syrian Orthodox Church in
India. Seeing the impact of the mission work, especially in terms of the large
number of Dalits and Adivasis converting to Christ and Christianity, the Syr-
ian Orthodox Church decided to own the work of St. Paul’s Mission of India.
Today it has been formally recognized as the official Missionary organization
of the Syrian Orthodox Church in India10.
With almost 60 mission fields spread across as many as twenty States in
India, St. Paul’s Mission of India is actively engaged in outreach evangelism,
especially among Dalits and Adivasi communities. Thousands of Dalits and
Adivasis have joined the Syrian Orthodox Church as a result of this mis-
sion endeavor and they are in the process of getting fully integrated into the
“mother church”.
As the Bible reveals, outreach evangelism that results in conversion is a
powerful tool to challenge systems of discrimination. Acts 10 is a classic case
in point. Cornelius was an outcaste and wasn’t included into the fellowship of
Christ on account of his Gentile (Dalit) background. This ideology of exclu-
sion was challenged through a vision that Peter beheld. The vision convinced
Peter that what God had cleansed could not be deemed impure or unclean by
human beings and that God had no partiality. Every human being was equal
before the eyes of God. This is also the vision that St. Paul’s Mission of India
has beheld on behalf of the Syrian Orthodox Church in India and by approxi-
mating this vision it is transforming the Church.

9
www.stpaulsmission.org. Besides the outreach evangelical mission that it does among
Dalits and Adivasi communities in various parts of India which also include running schools,
medical clinics and programs of empowerment of women, St. Paul’s Mission also organizes
charismatic gospel conventions and meditations in the Syrian Orthodox Church, at parish
and diocesan levels.
10
The author has been serving St. Paul’s Mission of India as it’s President since 2006.

17
Metropolitan Geevarghese Coorilos

Here is one among many conversion stories of St. Paul’s Mission of


India11:
Shivaji (not the actual name) is one among the several marginalized peo-
ple who accepted Jesus Christ and joined the Syrian Orthodox Church in In-
dia through the mission work of St. Paul’s Mission of India. My own encoun-
ter with Shivaji while I was on a visit to the mission field in the North Indian
State of Bihar was a profoundly moving one. Shivaji before his conversion to
Christ was a terror in his village. He was a criminal who had served a seven
year imprisonment for having murdered a farmer in a village feud. The Hindu
fundamentalists used Shivaji to terrorize the missionaries of St. Paul’s Mission
of India who were working among the Dalits and the most vulnerable people
in the village. Under the leadership of Shivaji, several of the converts were se-
verely persecuted. To my pleasant surprise I was told that Shivaji who used to
persecute Christians had now become a Christian himself. His wife accepted
Christ first and Shivaji followed suit. For the church people today Shivaji is
“the St.Paul of St. Paul’s Mission”. Like St. Paul who once was an enemy and
persecutor of Christ and Christians, Shivaji is being used by God as a great
source of missionary inspiration and challenge. Due to Shivaji’s presence in
the Church no one dares to come and disturb the converts any more. His
participation in the Divine Liturgy of the Eucharist was a touching experi-
ence for me. It was a spiritually moving experience to share the Holy elements
with Shivaji and other converts. The mission work of St. Paul’s Mission of
India which led to the conversion of people such as Shivaji may be called “the
liturgy before the liturgy” which made the actual liturgy more meaningful.
It wasn’t Shivaji alone who was liberated through his conversion experi-
ence, but through him and other converts and the mission work, the Syrian
Orthodox Church in India too was challenged to come out it’s casteist mind-
set and power structures. The conversion of people like Shivaji is bringing
about a mini-revolution as caste walls within the Church structures are begin-
ning to crack due to the power of Christ’s gospel. Thus, the mission work of
St. Paul’s Mission of India is proving to be a “double edged sword” in that it
liberates not just “the evangelized” (Dalits and Adivasis who are being freed
from the yokes of caste slavery and socio-economic discrimination) but also
“the evangelists” (the Syrian Orthodox Church in India which is being chal-
lenged about its caste mentality and structures). St.Paul’s Mission of India
has been able to break the middle wall of partition that existed in many of
11
See Jooseop Keum (Ed), Together Towards Life, WCC, Geneva, 2013, pp. 67-68.

18
Syrian Orthodox Church in India: Mission Within and Without

the Syrian Orthodox Churches, both in terms of structures within ecclesial


contexts and also in terms of casteist mindsets of it’s members. Jesus Christ,
through his death on the Cross had dismantled the divisive walls of hostility
that existed between Jews and Gentiles in the Jerusalem temple (Eph. 2:14)12
and therefore discrimination of all sorts has been overcome once and for all.
The rift between the two communities was intense and the divide was abso-
lute. This was reflected in the Temple where walls separated clergy, Jewish
men, Jewish women, and the Gentiles from one another. Josephus described
the wall as follows:
When you went through these first cloisters into the second court of the
Temple, there was a partition made of stone all around, whose height was
three cubits. It’s construction was very elegant, upon it stood pillars at equal
distance, from one another, declaring the law of purity, some in Greek and
some in Roman letters that no foreigner should go within the sanctuary13.
Paul knew quite well the implications of breaking this wall of partition.
In Acts 21: 28,29 we read that Paul brought into the Temple an Ephesian
Gentile, Trophimus, who went beyond the barrier or the middle wall of parti-
tion. The Jews accused Paul of having brought a Gentile into the Temple and
thus defiled it.
...he has actually brought Greeks into the Temple and has defiled the
holy place (Acts. 21:27)
The walls of separation and hostility that exclude Dalits still exist in many
Syrian Orthodox churches. The death of Christ on the Cross broke this wall
of discrimination and thus reconciliation has been brought about. Therefore
to exclude people on the basis of caste from the body of Christ is to betray the
Cross of Christ. This is the challenge that St. Paul’s Mission of India has taken
up within the Syrian Orthodox Church in India, albeit with a great sense of
success and impact. The mission work of St. Paul’s Mission of India has been
able to break the middle walls that separated Dalits and Syrians for ages in
many parts of India. This is nothing short of a spiritual and social revolution
as common fellowship, joint worship and inter-communion with Dalits are
still deemed unimaginable to several caste minded Syrian Christians within
the Orthodox Church in India.

12
“For he is our peace, who has made both one, and has broken down the middle wall
of partition...” (Ephesians 2:14).
13
William Barclay, The Daily Study Bible: Galatians and Ephesians, TPI, Bangalore,
1987, pp. 61.

19
Metropolitan Geevarghese Coorilos

In Sum
The Orthodox Churches worldwide have maintained a low profile ap-
proach to outreach mission and evangelism activities as they have not been
part of the Orthodox mission ethos. However, this has changed in many parts
of the world where Orthodox mission is engaged in charismatic and evange-
lization activities. St. Paul’s Mission of India, the mission program of the Syr-
ian Orthodox Church in India is one such example of this shift in Orthodox
mission praxis. In a Church which has been largely lethargic when it comes to
mission and evangelism, St. Paul’s Mission of India has instilled a new sense
of vigor and mission enthusiasm. Whilst it has resulted in a revival of interest
in mission and evangelism in the Syrian Orthodox Church in India, it has
also radically altered the ecclesial demography and landscape of the Church.
It has concurrently challenged the caste mindset and system of discrimination
and exclusion both within and outside the Church. The gospel of liberation
and human dignity in Jesus Christ has given the Dalits and Adivasis who
have joined the Church a new sense of worth and human dignity which was
otherwise denied to them within the Hindu caste system. It has also liberated
the Syrian Orthodox Church, to some extent, from it’s casteist mentality and
structures and has helped the Church to become a much more inclusive and
egalitarian fellowship.
It has yet again proved the fact that in the caste-ridden hierarchical con-
text of India, outreach evangelical mission that results in conversion of Dalits
and poorer sections of the society has a particular social pertinence. It liber-
ates them from the clutches of caste slavery and gives them a new sense of dig-
nity and equality. Syrian Orthodox Church in India, due to it’s “upper caste”
psyche and values that it inherited and internalized from within Brahminic
Hinduism has until recently shied away from the mission challenge of pro-
claiming and actualizing the gospel values of equality, justice and Inclusivity.
One of the fundamental ecclesiological and missiological challenges before
the Syrian Orthodox Church in India, therefore, is to Dalitize the Church
and this is precisely what St. Paul’s Mission of India has managed to initiate
through it’s outreach evangelism work, although much more needs to be con-
sciously attempted in this direction.

20
St Paul’s Case Against Proselytism

Archim. Prof. Jack Khalil

Preaching the Gospel is essential at all times and in all places. The com-
mandment of our Lord and God could not be clearer: “Go, therefore, make
disciples of all nations; baptize them in the name of the Father and of the
Son and the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 28:19).  The Apostle Paul, whom God
entrusted in preaching the Gospel, strongly felt the need to do so and uttered
his famous words: “Woe to me if I do not preach the Gospel!” (1 Co 9:16).
We may ask ourselves at this point: are there any principles or constraints
to which the genuine missionaries should be held to? Are we to consider mis-
sionary activities in traditionally Christian countries and among Christians
who have lived and witnessed from very early in the New Testament era, as
they occur nowadays, a favorable observance of Christ’s commandment to
preach to all nations? Or does evangelizing in the interest of certain denomi-
nations contradict the commandment of brotherly love? Does it interfere, or
at worst, prevent evangelization in those areas where God’s Word has not yet
been disseminated?
The aim of this article is to help elucidate the difference between evan-
gelism and proselytism, by attempting to compare the characteristics of
each. St. Paul, who is second to none as missionary of God’s Gospel in all
nations, provides us with basic guidelines in this respect, starting with verses
Rom 15:18-21. These verses emphasize St Paul’s enduring principle of not
preaching where others have labored to preach before, and not meddling in,
or exploiting others’ work.   St Paul reiterates this doctrine in many places
elsewhere in his epistles as well.  
Examining the difference between evangelizing and proselytizing comes
at a critical moment in inter-Christian dialogue, and thus merits our full at-
tention. This inter-Christian dialogue initially stemmed from a point of mu-
tual respect among the churches, whereby churches sought to exhibit restraint

21
Archim. Prof. Jack Khalil

in their prospects for potential adherents within the flock of other churches.
This practice of scouting for “converts” is commonly known as “Sheep steal-
ing”. Today, however, the negative connotation of proselytism is being re-
considered on the basis of some verses from the New Testament that call on
Christians to evangelize the world. It appears then that there is some confu-
sion as to the distinctions between evangelizing and proselytizing. And indeed
the issue is to be examined and clarified exegetically.
Undoubtedly, fair-minded missionary work stems from the sole priority
of glorifying Christ through proclaiming His name everywhere. The aim of
authentic missionary work is for the Good News to reach everyone, as we all
need forgiveness, reconciliation and the hope of glory through Jesus Christ
our Lord. The Apostle Paul is a prime example of genuine evangelization as
he did not rest despite the success God accomplished through him in vari-
ous cities, nor did he seek or desire the comfort and earthly goods of those he
preached. He did not pride himself in any form of earthly success, nor did he
strive for stability or indulge in gratification or contentment among the faith-
ful with whom he labored in preaching, teaching and in pastoral caring. He
was satisfied with the power of Christ, a power that accompanied him (Rom
15:18) and was evident to all “by the power of signs and wonders, through the
power of the Spirit of God” (Rom 15:19). St Paul would experience no relief or
gratification as long as he had not fully proclaimed the Gospel of Christ (Rom
15:19). In fact, he reveals his aspirations in life by stating: “And thus I aspire
to preach the Gospel, not where Christ was already named” (Rom 15:20a).
I would like to add an exegetical note within this context. St Paul intro-
duces his thought in Rom 15:20 with the expression οὕτως δὲ. The adverb
οὕτως refers to the previous description of St Paul’s missionary activity in vv
18-19, and the adversative δὲ stresses a principle that restricts it. St Paul as-
signs limits to his missionary zeal when he says that he intends to proclaim the
Gospel only in those places where the Good News had not yet been heard or
accepted. His intent to act within this particular constraint is unequivocally
explained in v. 15:20b: “so that I would not be building on someone else’s
foundation” (Rom 15:20 NIV). The verb “to build” in this instance refers to
laying the groundwork and fundaments of God’s building, and to the hard-
ships endured during its edification (1Co 3:9). This verb is part of missionary
work terminology.
In verse Rom 15:20, the Apostle Paul holds on to a fundamental prin-
ciple which he alludes to in Corinthians 3. More precisely, he intimates that
an authentic missionary is one who struggles to lay down a foundation while

22
St Paul’s Case Against Proselytism

facing all kinds of difficulties and obstacles, and never intrudes in other peo-
ple’s labor to spoil and steal. St Paul delivers similar ideology in 2 Co 10:5:
“Neither do we go beyond our limits by boasting of work done by others”
(2 Co 10:15 NIV).  
It is noteworthy that in 1 Corinthians 3, St Paul insists that his function
as first builder, as one who has laid the foundation, is irreplaceable, and ac-
cordingly cannot be claimed by any of the builders after him. In Rom 15:20,
he applies the same rule but now refers to himself. He refuses to meddle with
other communities, especially because “the harvest is plentiful but the work-
ers are few” (Mat. 9:37 NIV), and many places around the world are still
awaiting the word of Christ. Rivalry is inappropriate in those whom Christ
our Lord has made “adequate as servants of a new covenant, not of the letter
but of the spirit” (2Co 3:6 NAS). Rivalry and selfish ambition were at no
point a “spiritual fruit”, i.e. a form of spiritual conduct; on the contrary, St
Paul mentions these vices among the “works of the flesh” (Gal 5:20), and he
forewarns, “those who practice such things shall not inherit the Kingdom of
God” (Gal 5:21). How can such people then preach the Kingdom’s Gospel to
others and promise them salvation?  
To clarify his rule regarding preaching the Gospel as well as his godly
“ambition” in his missionary activity, St Paul quotes Is 52:15: “Those who
were not told about him will see, and those who have not heard will under-
stand” (Rom 15:21 NIV). St Paul realized that he was invited to preach to
those who neither knew Christ, nor called on His name or worshipped Him
yet. More specifically, he aimed to reach those who needed Christ’s salvation,
not people that he himself needed for boasting and aggrandizing. He was not
laboring for the sort of success that would increase his influence and power
in society. It is very improbable that the Apostle Paul would boast of human
achievements or of anything that is according to human standards; on the
contrary, in the context we are examining he declares: “So I can be proud, in
Christ Jesus, in my service to God” (Rom 15:17).  
In Rom 10:13-15, St Paul writes the following:
Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”  How
then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how
can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how
can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can
anyone preach unless they are sent? As it is written: “How beautiful
are the feet of those who bring good news!” (Rom 10:13-15. NIV).

23
Archim. Prof. Jack Khalil

If we follow this rationale and look at it from a different angle, we can


perhaps assume that carrying the good news is a privilege endowed to those
whom God has sent to preach among unbelievers, who have not yet heard of
The Lord’s name. Thus Rom 10:13-15 indirectly provides another endorse-
ment of St Paul’s rule concerning preaching the Gospel “not where Christ was
already named”, nor where we would “build on someone else’s foundation”
(Rom 15:20).
In compliance with his regulation on preaching the good news, St Paul
planned to go to Spain after having finished his work in the East. His sole
ambition for this journey was to preach the Good News to those who needed
to hear it. He chose the “narrow gate”, a way full of affliction, and proceed-
ed into the unpredictable future, as opposed to taking the easier way which
“leads to destruction”. His choices were well justified as he never sought after
his own benefit, but rather he strove for the good of those nations who still
ignored God’s Gospel.
St Paul’s rules concerning the parameters of proper evangelization and
his ideology in describing his Apostleship and missionary activity lead us to
conclude that the real missionary is the one who rejoices in the completion
of preaching the Gospel and spreading Christ’s name in the entire world.
Furthermore, the missionary serves God’s word of reconciliation and justifica-
tion, by proclaiming the Gospel, without any selfish or sectarian perspective,
as it frequently happens today. In other words, the genuine missionary does
not rejoice in achievements with sectarian interest, nor does he take pride in
an overflow of increasing add-ons in one’s sect or church group. He does not
boast nor hope for wider privileges. When missionary work is performed un-
der the direction of human calculations and interests, it ceases to be the work
of God. A mission can only be God’s work when human boasting is excluded,
and when its sole ambition is to please God, not the self, or mortals.
Nowadays, in certain cases, preaching Christ as Lord and God has be-
come so distorted with selfish endeavors, foreign to the Bible’s ideals. This is
evident as we notice the systematic proselytizing activity, being programmed
for encouraging breakaways from local churches in many countries of the
Middle East, such as Iraq and Syria, in Ethiopia, and several countries in
Eastern Europe. The sorrowful fact is that those blessed countries, where over
the ages many saints had reached deification (sainthood) as promised by
Christ, now witness invasive “missionary” activity that lacks innocence and
transparency. The more regretful fact is that these invasions are carried out by

24
St Paul’s Case Against Proselytism

church groups that have been in dialogue with the Orthodox Churches for
many decades, either within the framework of the World Council of Church-
es (WCC) or other instances of ecumenical forums. Some of these newly
emerging groups are now negotiating to join the WCC. Their ambition is
to establish a stronger ecclesial entity, with impressive numbers of adherents,
and they use this to aggrandize whenever possible and claim more respec-
tive rights. Consequently, preaching the Gospel has warped into a disgraceful
practice of proselytism.
In its report “Christian Witness, Proselytism, and Religious Liberty in
the World
Council of Churches” the WCC has plainly warned against the vices of
proselytism. The statement reads as follows:
Proselytism is not something absolutely different from witness: it
is the corruption of witness. Witness is corrupted when cajolery,
bribery, undue pressure or intimidation is used — subtly or openly
— to bring about seeming conversion; when we put the success of
our church before the honour of Christ; when we commit the dis-
honesty of comparing the ideal of our own church with the actual
achievement of another; when we seek to advance our own cause
by bearing false witness against another church; when personal or
corporate self-seeking replaces love for every individual soul with
whom we are concerned.
As the starting point of these activities is “according to the flesh” and not
“according to the spirit”, they greatly diverge from St. Paul’s principles con-
cerning preaching the Gospel. In fact, they are more linked to the principles
of the Judaizers, who were contesting the work of St Paul, and whose aim
was to boast in human achievements. These Judaizers were not engaging in
struggles to proclaim the Gospel of God, but to appropriate those churches
that St Paul strove to establish. The Judaizers of the first century and the cur-
rent proselytizers of Christians in Apostolic countries and elsewhere exhibit
some significant similarities in their mission’s purpose, namely to boast “in
the flesh” (See Gal 6:13), as St Paul so accurately admonishes.
Whatever the case may be, proselytism is contrary to the Biblical prin-
ciple that St Paul greatly emphasized and includes forbidding the building
“upon someone else’s foundation”. This rejected form of proselytism becomes
a stumbling block to inter-Christian dialogue, as it replaces light with dark-
ness and schism.

25
Archim. Prof. Jack Khalil

In the nineteenth century, when the well-known phrase “preaching the


Gospel to the world in this generation” became the motto of enthusiastic
missionaries, Christians represented a third of the world’s population. Today,
this percentage remains the same. How are we to assess this fact? Where does
our responsibility lie in relation to this truth? Isn’t it regretful and wasteful to
expand efforts and finances in order to proselytize some Christians from a cer-
tain confession to another, when we could be more effective by evangelizing
“not where Christ was already named”? Are we that estranged from Christ’s
exhortation to His disciples of “teaching all nations” (Mt 28:19) and “preach-
ing the Gospel to all creation” (Mk 16:15)? Proclaiming the Bible is of utmost
holiness. God the Father sent us his only Son for our salvation in the same
way that Christ sent forth his disciples to spread the word of God (Jn 17:18,
20:21). Therefore, mission should not be tainted by the blasphemy of using
it for earthly gains. 
Proselytism is the corruption of evangelism, because it is moved by self-
seeking love and egoism. It looks for the “wide gate” by prospecting among
Christians who belong to other churches, and uses methods that are foreign
to Christian Ethics and to Christ’s example of preaching as well as that of the
Apostles. On the other hand, evangelism aims at preaching to those who nei-
ther know Christ, nor call on His name or worship Him yet.  Evangelism oc-
curs when God entrusts proclaiming the Gospel to those whom He sent, and
this proclamation is directed by God’s love to the world, a love that became
manifest when He sent His beloved Son so that people may have everlasting
life (Jn 16:3). A mission can only be God’s work when human boasting is
excluded and when its sole ambition and motivation is to please God and
not humans. When one properly evangelizes the Gospel of Christ, “all things
are of God” (2 Cor 5:18), the proclamation is God’s work, the Gospel is the
Gospel of God, and the sole purpose is God’s glory.

26
Johannes Chrysostomus und die (Heiden-)Mission

Andreas Heiser

Einleitung
Liest man die Biografien des Johannes Chrysostomus, fällt auf, dass unter
dem Stichwort „Mission“ mindestens dreierlei, sehr unterschiedliche Aktiv-
itäten verhandelt werden: Zum einen die Etablierung einer bestimmten Form
von Christentum in seinen eigenen Gemeinden1, zum anderen der Kampf ge-
gen (christliche) Irrlehren wie Marcioniten, Arianer, Manichäer u.a., sodann
aber auch die Gewinnung von Gruppen für den christlichen Glauben, die
bislang vom Christentum unberührt geblieben sind. Ich möchte auf diesen
dritten Aspekt herausnehmen und vier historische Fragen stellen. Ich frage
zunächst 1) nach den Grundlagen und 2) nach den Motivationen chrysos-
tomischer Mission. In einem zweiten Teil versuche ich 3) seine historisch
verlässlichen Missionsaktivitäten nachzuzeichnen, um aus ihnen 4) eine Mis-
sionsstrategie des Chrysostomus abzuleiten. In einem kurzen Schlussteil wird
diese Strategie auf heutige christliche Mission bezogen.

1. Was bedeutete Mission für Chrysostomus?


Eigentlich wäre Mission nach Chrysostomus gar nicht nötig. Die Apo-
stel hatten seiner Ansicht nach bereits allen Völkern das Evangelium verkün-
digt2. Dennoch waren in seiner Gegenwart nicht alle Menschen Christen in
seinem Sinne. Der Grund dafür lag darin, dass sich nicht alle Menschen auf
1
Phyllis Rodgerson Pleasants, „Making Christian the Christians: The Baptismal Inst-
ructions of St. John Chrysostom“, Greek Orthodox Theological Review 34, 1989, S. 379–392
und Johannes Chrysostomus, Catecheses baptismales. Taufkatechesen, übersetzt u. eingeleitet
v. Rainer Kaczynski, FC 6/1–2, Freiburg u.a. 1992; meiner Hilfskraft, Herrn Moritz Groos,
danke ich für allerlei Hilfe bei der Erstellung des Manuskripts.
2
Belege bei Ivo Auf der Maur, „Mönchtum und Glaubensverkündigung in den Schrif-
ten des hl. Johannes Chrysostomus“, Paradosis 14, Freiburg/Schweiz 1959, S. 124 Anm. 3.

27
Andreas Heiser

das Wort der Apostel hin bekehrt hatten3. Die Frage, warum die Mission der
Apostel nicht umfassend gewirkt hatte, nötigte zu einer theologischen Be-
gründung. Sie bestand darin, dass der Glaube eine Gnade sei, zu der Gott kei-
nen Menschen zwinge4. Gott senkte lediglich einen Keim der Empfänglich-
keit für seine Botschaft in die Seele des Menschen5. Gleichzeitig formulierte
Chrysostomus die Gründe, die diesen Kern überlagerten, seine Entfaltung
verhinderten und Menschen vom Glauben abhielten: Stolz, Schlechtigkeit,
Einflüsse des Teufels6, aber – noch wirkungsvoller – der üble Einfluss und das
schlechte Vorbild anderer Christen7.
Die Begriffe, die Chrysostomus für „Mission“ verwendet, deuten auf die
Art und die Kontexte der Mission8: Seelen retten, gewinnen, bekehren, heilen;
sodann das Himmelreich verkündigen; auch aus der Finsternis, dem Irrtum
losreißen; dann säen; ferner die Herde Christi sammeln, die Kirche aus Seelen
auferbauen und nicht zuletzt die Kirche einpflanzen (was er hauptsächlich im
Kontext der Auseinandersetzung mit dem Judentum verwendete)9.
Was konnte aber nach Chrysostomus ein Missionar dazu tun, damit sol-
che vielfältige Mission zu ihrem Ziel kam? Er konnte zumindest die Voraus-
setzungen schaffen. Dazu gehörte, dass er das Evangelium verkündigte10. Vom
Missionar war dazu sunkata/basij gefragt, wie sie auch Christus und Paulus an
den Tag gelegt hatten11. Man senkte sich auf das Niveau des Hörers herunter.
Dazu gehörte auch die Verkündigung in der Landessprache12. Zuerst wurden
die Verstehensvoraussetzungen geschaffen, dann erklärte der Missionar die
Grundüberzeugungen des Christseins13. Aber schon hier ging es nicht um
3
Auf der Maur, „Mönchtum“ (wie Anm. 2), S. 124 Anm. 4.
4
Ebd., 124 Anm. 5. Ähnlich beschreibt Theo Sundermeier das Wesen von Mission. Es
erfordert eine Vorstellung von Monotheismus, eine die Wahlfreiheit des Menschen, eine in-
kludierende Anthropologie und eine Religionsfreiheit; vgl. Theo Sundermeier, Art. „Mission.
Systematisch“, in: RGG4 5, Tübingen 2002, 1272f.
5
Auf der Maur, Mönchtum (wie Anm. 2), S. 138 Anm. 6.
6 Ebd., S. 125 Anm. 1 und 3.
7
Ebd., S. 125 Anm. 2.
8
Vgl. Ebd., S. 124 Anm. 2.
9
Belege ebd.
10
Ebd., S. 138 Anm. 2.
11
Ebd., S. 138 Anm. 8; zur sugkata/basij s. Andreas Heiser, „Die Paulusinsze-
nierung des Johannes Chrysostomus. Epitheta und ihre Vorgeschichte“, STAC 70, Tübingen
2012, 25-28; S. 493-495.
12
Auf der Maur, Mönchtum (wie Anm. 2), S. 139 Anm. 1.
13
Ebd., 138 Anm. 7; das Verstehen durch Verwendung der Landessprache schilderte
auch Vasile Gh. Sibiescu, „Activitatea misionară a sfântului Ioan Hrisostom printer Goți“,

28
Johannes Chrysostomus und die (Heiden-)Mission

eine reine Wortverkündigung, sondern Menschen sollten zuerst durch Liebe


und Güte gewonnen werden14. Die diakonische Arbeit ging der Verkündi-
gung voran oder zumindest mit ihr Hand in Hand15.
Es überrascht vielleicht wenig. Der Inhalt der Mission ist bei Chrysosto-
mus nicht lediglich durch eine angemessene Verkündigung des Evange-
liums beschrieben16. Seine Botschaft zielte auf die Konversion zu einem
Christentum in asketischer Form: Christus, Kreuz, Jungfräulichkeit, Ar-
mut, Fasten17. Diese Form des Christentums sah Chrysostomus bereits bei
den Aposteln18. Der Benediktinerabt Ivo Auf der Maur war vor allem durch
Theodorets Schilderung der Auffassung, das Missionsziel des Chrysostomus
sei die „asketische Lebensweise“. Die „apostolische Philosophie“ bedeute:
„radikale Entsagung“19.

2. Was motivierte nach Chrysostomus zur Mission?


Der Missiologe Romuald Heiss wollte den Missionsgedanken aus dem
Leben des Chrysostomus, besonders aus einem Sinneswandel begründen.
Zunächst sei Chrysostomus ganz zurückgezogener Asket gewesen, dann erst
habe er sich der Welt zugewandt20. Wir wissen heute, dass das Asketentum
in Antiochien immer engste Kontakte mit den Menschen der Stadt pfleg-
te21, so dass es keines Sinneswandels oder biografischen Bruchs zur Motivati-

Glasul Biserici 32. Jahrgang, Nr. 3–4, 1973, S. (375–388) 378 als wichtigen Grundsatz der
chrysostomischen Mission.
14
Ebd., S. 138 Anm. 3.
15
Ebd., S. 138 Anm. 5.
16
So beispielsweise in Hom. in Mt. 1,1 (57, 15).
17
Auf der Maur, Mönchtum (wie Anm. 2), 138 Anm. 11.
18
Ebd., S. 139 Anm. 6.
19
Thdt., h.e. 5,29,1 (Theodoret, Kirchengeschichte, hg. v. Léon Parmentier, 3., durch-
gesehene Auflage v. Günther Christian Hansen, GCS, Berlin 1998, 329,19–330,9) = 5,30
(Des Bischofs Theodoret von Cyrus Kirchengeschichte aus dem Griechischen übersetzt und
mit Einleitung und Anmerkungen versehen von Andreas Seider, Des heiligen Bischofs Theo-
doret von Cyrus ausgewählte Schriften Bd. 2, BKV 51, Kempten/München 1926, S. 313).
20
Romuald Heiss, Mönchtum, Seelsorge und Mission nach dem heiligen Johannes
Chrysostomus, in: Lumen caecis. Festschrift zum silbernen Abts-Jubiläum des Dr. Norbert
Weber O.S.B., Erzabtes v. St. Ottilien 1903–1928, St. Ottilien 1928, S. 1–23; „Chrysosto-
mus war also in seiner Jugend ein Mönch, und zwar einer von echtester Sorte.“ (S. 3) „mona/
zwn kat ) e)coxh/n er war Einsiedler. Und doch fand er den Weg von seiner Einsiedelei
zurück in die Welt und den Trubel der Großstadtseelsorge.“ (S. 3)
21
Vgl. Martin Illert, Johannes Chrysostomus und das antiochenisch-syrische Mönchtum.
Studien zu Theologie, Rhetorik und Kirchenpolitik im antiochenischen Schrifttum des Johannes

29
Andreas Heiser

on der Heidenmission bedurfte. Auch Ivo auf der Maur betonte die genuin
weltzugewandte Seite des Asketentums bei Chrysostomus. Paul Andres sah
die Mission bei Chrysostomus durch eine ganze Reihe von Gründen mo-
tiviert22: Durch den Missionsbefehl, die Güte und Barmherzigkeit Gottes,
den Predigtauftrag aus Jer 15,19, das eigene Heil der Seele, die menschliche
Gemeinschaft, die Tugend der Liebe, die Verpflichtung, Licht zu sein und die
Nachahmung der Apostel.
Ivo Auf der Maur differenzierte die Gründe und erweiterte die Liste der
Motivationen des Chrysostomus. Zunächst beschrieb er den Auftrag jedes
Christen, als Licht in die Welt zu scheinen23. Vor allem der Schöpfungsauf-
trag, der den Menschen als geschaffenes Wesen dazu bestimmte, anderen zu
nützen, habe die Mission motiviert24. Da alle Menschen gleich geschaffen
seien, sei es ihr Auftrag, sich gegenseitig um sich zu kümmern25. Der Missi-
onar ahme aber nur Gott, Christus und die Apostel nach, die sich alle dem
Menschen zugewandt hätten26. Gott selbst legte dabei aber den größten Wert
auf das Heil der Seele. Und nun hinge das Heil der eigenen Seele davon ab,
weitere Seelen zu gewinnen27. Die Mission würde zudem von Gott mit Lohn
für den Missionar vergolten werden28. Chrysostomus betonte die Liebe zu
Christus und die Verherrlichung Gottes, die die Mission motivierte29. Er habe
Mission aber auch einfach als Pflicht jedes Christen beschreiben können30.
Diese Motive stammten meistens aus der Bibel31. Bei der Analyse der
biblischen Bezüge fällt aber auf, dass Chrysostomus heute geläufige Begrün-
dungen der Mission wie beispielsweise den Missionsbefehl (Mt 28,19)32

Chrysostomus, Zürich 2000, S. 95–105 und Heiser, Paulusinszenierung (wie Anm. 11), 533f.;
auch Wendy Mayer, „What Does It Mean to Say that John Chrysostom Was a Monk?“, StPa-
tr 41, 2006, S. 451–455.
22
Paul Andres, „Der Missionsgedanke in den Schriften des hl. Chrysostomus“, Missi-
onswissenschaftliche Studien 8, Hünfeld 1935.
23
Auf der Maur, „Mönchtum“ (wie Anm. 2), S. 145 Anm. 3.
24
Ebd., S. 145 Anm. 5–7.
25
Ebd., S. 145 Anm. 8f. und 146 Anm. 1–6.
26
Ebd., S. 147 Anm. 5–11.
27
Ebd., S. 146 Anm. 7–10.
28
Ebd., S. 146 Anm. 11f. und 147 Anm. 1–4.
29
Ebd., S. 148 Anm. 1–7.
30
Ebd., S. 148 Anm. 8 zum kato/rqwma.
31
Ebd., S. 150f.
32
Freilich folgt Chrysostomus einer breiten Auslegungstradition, die den Missions-
befehl ausschließlich an die Apostel ausgerichtet sieht: Hom. in Mt. 25,2 (57, 330); 33,1. 3
(57, 389; 391); Hom. in Eph. 4,3 (62, 34; Sancti patris nostri Joannis Chrysostomi interpre-

30
Johannes Chrysostomus und die (Heiden-)Mission

nur selten oder das Wort von der großen Ernte (Mt 9,36ff.)33 gar nicht
heranzog.
Die Missionsaktivitäten des Chrysostomus ließen sich also nicht mono-
kausal auf eine Motivation zurückführen. Die Diversität der Begründungen
bot den Anlass für Jean-Marie Leroux34, die vielen Motivationen der Mission
in einer Grundlinie zusammenzuführen. Er zeigte, dass die missionarische
Verkündigung bei Chrysostomus aus der Antwort des Menschen auf die In-
karnation des Christus zu verstehen sei35. Dabei hob er die Rolle des heiligen
Geistes hervor. Der Geist erinnere an die Wohltaten des Erlösers in der Inkar-
nation36. Weil mit der Inkarnation Versöhnung geschehen sei, sei der Geist
als Erinnerer an die Versöhnung auch der Geist der Versöhnung37. Indem er
tatio omnium epistolarum Paulinarum per homilias facta, Tomus 6: continens commentaria
in epistolas ad Galatas et Ephesios, Bibliotheca patrum ecclesiae catholicae qui ante orientis
et occidentis schisma floruerunt, Oxford 1852, 29AB) und Hom. in Jo. 80,1 (59, 433f.). Aber
in Hom. in 2Thess. 5,4 (62, 498; Sancti patris nostri Joannis Chrysostomi interpretatio omnium
epistolarum Paulinarum per homilias facta, Tomus 5: continens homilias in epistolas ad Philip-
penses, Colossenses et Thessalonicenses, Bibliotheca patrum ecclesiae catholicae qui ante orientis
et occidentis schisma floruerunt, Oxford 1855, 542E–543A) bezieht er den Befehl auch auf
die Hörer, wenn er sagt, dass ihn selbst ein Kind durch einen guten Lebenswandel erfüllen
könne. Der präzise Satz „Dies ist nicht allein zu jenen gesagt, sondern auch zu uns ou) mo/mon
tau=ta pro\j e)kei/nouj ei)/rhtai, a)lla\ kai\ pro\j h(ma=j“ (PG 62, 498) ist sekundär
(vgl. Field 5, 492 Anm. t). Aber auch nach Fields Edition ist der Missionsbefehl bei Chrysos-
tomus an alle gerichtet und ist aktuelle Motivation missionarischen Handelns: „Denn dass es
nicht allein jenen aufgetragen ist, wird auch daran deutlich, dass er sagt: ‚bis zur Vollendung
der Ewigkeit‘ (/Oti ga\r e)kei/noij ou)k e)ph/ggeltai mo/non, dh=lon e)k tou= ei)pei=n, ‚e(/
wj th=j suntelei/aj tou= ai)w=noj.‘“ (5, 542F Field) So leitet er auch in Hom. in Mt. 90,3
(58, 790) aus dem Befehl eine Pflicht für alle Christen ab; s. dazu auch Andreas Seumois, Vers
une définition de l’activité missionaire, Schriftenreihe der Neuen Zeitschrift für Mission-
swissenschaft = Auf dem Wege zu einer Definition der Missionstätigkeit, übersetzt v. Joseph
Peters, hg. v. Generalsekretariat des Priester-Missionsbundes in Aachen, Gladbach 1948.
33
Hom. in illud: Messis quidem multa (63, 515–524).
34
Jean-Marie Leroux, „Saint Jean Chrysostome. Mission de l’esprit dans le salut du
monde“, Spiritus 19, 1964, S. (149–156) 151.
35
Leroux, „Mission“ (wie Anm. 34), S. 151.
36
In Pent. 2,1 (50, 465–467).
37
So beschrieb Chrysostomus die Aufgabe von Pfingsten in hom. in Ac. 4,1 (60, 41–
44); vgl. Leroux, „Mission“ (wie Anm. 34), S. 156. Sodann diene alle missionarische Aktivi-
tät der Auferbauung des Leibes Christi (hom. in 1Cor. 36,3; 25,3 [61, 309–311; Sancti patris
nostri Joannis Chrysostomi interpretatio omnium epistolarum Paulinarum per homilias facta, To-
mus 2: continens homilias in epistolam ad Corinthios priorem, Bibliotheca patrum ecclesiae
catholicae qui ante orientis et occidentis schisma floruerunt, Oxford 1857, 336B–337E]). Als
Motivation der Mission führt Leroux an: a) Nachahmung der Apostel und Christi (Philogon.
= anom. 6,3 [PG 48, 752]), b) Biblische Bilder: Zehn Jungfrauen; Gleichnis vom Sauerteig

31
Andreas Heiser

die Rolle des Geistes betonte, markierte Leroux zugleich, wie unverfügbar die
Heidenmission für Menschen sei.
Zuletzt fokussierte Chris L. de Wet auf die spezielle Rhetorik der Mission
des Chrysostomus zu den Goten38. Er zeichnete präzise nach, dass die hier ange-
wandte Terminologie ihr Spiegelbild in eben derjenigen Rhetorik hatte, die die
Bewohner des Imperium Romanum gegenüber den Barbaren pflegten. So wie
beispielsweise der Historiker Ammianus Marcellinus über die Barbaren sprach,
dass sie eben roh, ungezügelt und ungebildet seien, so habe Chryostomus über
die rohe, ungezügelte und ungebildete Art der heidnischen Religion gespro-
chen. Nun habe nach Ammianus das Imperium zur Bewahrung von Einheit
und Ordnung die Barbaren friedlich integrieren müssen. Ganz analog habe die
Etablierung der christlichen Mission in der nachkonstantinischen Zeit durch
Chrysostomus, die durch Überlegenheitsrhetorik gegenüber den Heiden ge-
prägt sei, der Ordnung und gesellschaftlichen Stabilisierung des Reichs gedient.
Die von de Wet vorgetragene Stabilisierungsfunktion der Mission ist evi-
dent. Man sollte allerdings diese reichsstabilisierenden Elemente nicht als pri-
märe Motivation der christlichen Mission deuten, auch wenn Chrysostomus
später zum Repräsentanten einer byzantinischen Reichsideologie geworden
ist39. Dazu stand Chrysostomus dem Kaiserhaus viel zu kritisch gegenüber40

(hom. in Mt. 46,2; [58, 477–479), c) nicht nur Rückgriff auf Motive aus den Evangelien:
vielmehr mystische Erbauung des Leibes Christi: Er ist der Arzt schlechthin, der alle heilt.
Gegen individuelle Erlösung. Das Heil liegt in der Gemeinschaft (Jud. 1,1 [48, 843–845),
d) Mystische Erlösung: Christus ist das Haupt und die Leiter (= Weg) der Gemeinde; ist
ausgebildet in dem Zentralmotiv der Nachahmung Christi (Jud. 8,9 [48, 941f.]); vgl. Leroux,
„Mission“ (wie Anm. 34), S. 151.
38
Chris L. de Wet, „John Chrysostom and the Mission to the Goths. Rhetorical and
Ethical Perspectives“, HTS Theological Studies 68, 2012 (http://www.hts.org.za/index.php/
HTS/article/view/1220/2260, letzter Zugriff: 27.10.2013).
39
Stephan Verosta, Johannes Chrysostomus. Staatsphilosoph und Geschichtstheologe, Graz
u.a. 1960; in dessen Tradition steht Konstantinos Bosinis, Johannes Chrysostomus über das
Imperium Romanum. Studie zum politischen Denken der Alten Kirche, Texts and Studies in
the History of Theology 10, Mandelbachtal/Cambridge 2005 und ders., Nachwirkungen der
Kanzelreden des Johannes Chrysostomos in der byzantinischen politischen Philosophie, in:
Chrysostomosbilder in 16000 Jahren. Facetten der Wirkungsgeschichte eines Kirchenvaters, hg.
v. Martin Wallraff/Rudolf Brändle, AKG 105, Berlin/New York 2008, S. 111–138; Martin
Wallraff, Sonnenkönig der Spätantike. Die Religionspolitik Konstantins des Großen, Freiburg
u.a. 2013, S. 41.
40
Claudia Tiersch, Johannes Chrysostomus in Kontantinopel (398–404). Weltsicht und
Wirken eines Bischofs in der Hauptstadt des Oströmischen Reiches, STAC 6, Tübingen 2002,
(111–378) 183–205.

32
Johannes Chrysostomus und die (Heiden-)Mission

als sich zum Lakaien kaiserlicher Ordnungspolitik instrumentalisieren zu las-


sen. Zudem ist die Überlegenheitsrhetorik unsicherer als de Wet annimmt,
denn Chrysostomus, der als kleiner Junge die heidnische Restauration Kaiser
Julians erlebt hatte, war sich der unsicheren Christianisierung des Imperiums
durchaus bewusst41.

3. Welche Missionsaktivitäten des Chrysostomus sind historisch


verlässlich bezeugt?
Wenn man ausschließlich nach der Heidenmission des Chrysostomus
fragt, dann fallen die Lebensbeschreibungen des Palladius, Sokrates und
Sozomenus als Quelle aus, denn sie sagen gar nichts über die Mission des
Chrysostomus unter den Heiden.
Erst Theodoret von Cyrus berichtete von einer Missionstätigkeit in
Skythien (dem Land der Goten), in Phoenizien und in Syrien42. Dabei un-
terschied er sehr genau die Reformmaßnahmen von den missionarischen
Aktivitäten. Warum sollte Chrysostomus auch in Gebieten missionieren, in
denen – wie Theodoret43 aufführte – ebenso „berühmte Lehrer“ wie er selbst
arbeiteten.
Die angebliche Heidenmission bei den Goten („skythischem Volk“)
war zwar nach Theodoret breit angelegt44. Hier arbeiteten Priester, Diako-
ne und Vorleser in einer bereits konsolidierten Kirche. Auch Chrysostomus
selbst predigte beizeiten dort und ließ sich dolmetschen. Zudem sendete er
andere begabte Prediger. Aber diese „Mission“ fand innerhalb der Stadt statt.
Sie richtete sich auch nicht an Heiden, sondern an Christen mit einem ari-
anischen Gottesverständnis. Sie sollten von der „Wahrheit der apostolischen
Predigt“ überzeugt werden45.
41
Robert L. Wilkens, John Chrysostom and the Jews. Rhetoric and Reality in the late 4th
Century, The Transformation of the Classical Heritage 4, Berkeley 1983 = ND Eugene, OR
2004, 29–33.
42
Thdt, h.e. 5,27–30 (GCS Theodoret [wie Anm. 19], 328,11–330,19 Parmentier/
Hansen); 5,28–31 (BKV 51, 1926 [wie Anm. 19], 311–313 Seider).
43
Thdt., h.e. 5,27,1 (GCS Theodoret [wie Anm. 19], 328,11–179 Parmentier/Hans-
en); 5,28 (BKV 51, 1926 [wie Anm. 19], 311f. Seider).
44
Thdt., h.e. 5,30,1f. (GCS Theodoret [wie Anm. 19], 330,9–18 Parmentier/Hansen);
5,31 (BKV 51, 1926 [wie Anm. 19], S. 313 Seider).
45
Thdt., h.e. 5,30,2 (GCS Theodoret [wie Anm. 19], 330,17f. Parmentier/Hansen);
5,31 (BKV 51, 1926 [wie Anm. 19], S. 313 Seider). Die „Bekehrung“ der Goten, von der
Auf der Maur, Mönchtum (wie Anm. 2), 126 spricht, sollte demnach auf einen Wechsel von
der einen christlichen Auffassung zur anderen verstanden werden. Dafür, dass Chrysostomus

33
Andreas Heiser

Alle weiteren Quellen, die von dieser Mission bei den Goten zeugen,
bringen gegenüber Theodoret nichts Neues.46

3.1. Die Mission unter skythischen Nomaden


Missionsaktivitäten unter Menschen, die bislang in keinem oder nur ge-
ringen Kontakt mit dem Christentum standen kann sind unter den skythi-
schen Nomaden belegt47. Diese Nomaden hatten, wie Theodoret berichtete,
ihre Zelte am Ister ( )/Istroj) aufgeschlagen. Der Name war in der Antike ver-
breitet für den Unterlauf der Donau und wurde auch noch benutzt, als längst
der ganze Fluss Da/nubij genannt wurde48. Ein Streifgebiet von mehr als 500
Kilometern erscheint für solche Nomaden durchaus als wahrscheinlich.
Leider bleibt offen, über welche Kanäle Chrysostomus von ihnen hörte
und wie er erfuhr, dass sie „nach dem Heil dürsteten“. Da es aber im eigentli-
chen Skythien bereits einen Bischof, nämlich den hochgeachteten Theotimus
in Tomi gab, ist auch hier anzunehmen, dass Chrysostomus keine Pionierar-
beit leistete, sondern mit ihm zusammenarbeitete49.

Baur, Der Heilige Johannes Chrysostomus und seine Zeit, Bd. 2: Konstantinopel, München
1930, S. 69 annimmt, dass alle diese Goten katholisch waren, besteht kein Grund. Zur
Bekehrung s. auch ebd., S. 332.
46
Cassiodor, Historia ecclesia tripartita 10,5 (Cassiodori Epiphanii, Historia ecclesiastica
tripartite. Historiae ecclesiasticae ex Socrate, Sozomeno et Theodorito in unum collectae et nuper
de Graeco in Latinum translatae libri numero duodecim, recensuit Waltarivs Jacob, edidit cura-
vit Rudolphus Hanslik, CSEL 71, Wien 1952, 588f.), Symeon, Vita s. Joannis Chrysostomi 20
(PG 114, 1096f.) und Nicephor, h.e. 13,3 (146, 936).
47
Thdt., h.e. 5,31,1–3 (GCS Theodoret [wie Anm. 19], 330,19–331,10 Parmentier/
Hansen); 5,32 (BKV 51, 1926 [wie Anm. 19], 313 Seider).
48
Wohl seit Strabo, Geografica 8,3; vgl. Walter Spoerri, Art. Istros 2., KlP 2, München
1979, S. 1477; sowie Karl Georg Brandis, Art. Istros, PRE 4, Stuttgart 1901, S. 2103–2133.
49
Soz., h.e. 7,26,6 (Sozomenus, Historia ecclesiastica. Kirchengeschichte, dritter Teil-
band, übersetzt und eingeleitet v. Günther Christian Hansen, FC 73/3, Turnhout 2004,
934f.): „In dieser Zeit leitete die Kirche von Tomis und ganz Skythia (minor) der Skythe
Theotimus, ein Mann, der mit Philosophie aufgewachsen war.“ Sozomenus verwandte sonst
nicht die archaisierende Redeweise, in der Skythe mit Gote gleichzusetzen war. Darum könn-
te er Theotimus als einheimischen Bewohner der Provinz Scythia auffassen. Er war dort seit
mindestens 392 Bischof. Hieronymus schrieb, er habe ihn selbst gehört (Hier., vir. ill. 131
[Gerolamo, Gli uomi illustri. De viris illustribus a cura di Aldo Ceresa-Gastaldo, Biblioteca
Patristica 12, Florenz 1988, 228f.]). Palladius, Dial. 13 (Palladios, Dialogue sur la vie de Jean
Chrysostome, Synode du Chêne, Chrysostome, Lettre 1 au pape Innocent, vol. 1: Introduc-
tion, texte critique, traduction et notes par Anne-Marie Malingrey avec le collaboration de
Philippe Leclercq, SC 341, Paris 1988, S. 272,146–274,162; Das Leben des heiligen Johannes
Chrysostomus, hg. und übers. v. Lothar Schläpfer, Heilige der ungeteilten Christenheit, dargestellt

34
Johannes Chrysostomus und die (Heiden-)Mission

Chrysostomus missionierte nun auch nicht selbst, sondern suchte ge-


eignete Männer, die er als „Missionare“ aussandte50. Theodoret berichtete, er
habe einen Brief des Chrysostomus an Leontius von Ancyra gelesen, in dem
Chrysostomus die Bekehrung der Skythen (wohl dieser Nomaden am Ister)
mitteilte und um Männer für die Leitung der Gruppe gebeten habe51.
Aus diesen Gruppen entwickelte sich eine blühende Arbeit. Chrysosto-
mus unterstellte sie dem Bischof Unilas. Der 14. Brief an Olympias unter-
richtet uns über die Regelung der Nachfolge52. Chrysostomus erfuhr im Exil
von den marischen Mönchen, eben Goten, dass der Diakon Moduarius den
Tod des Bischofs Unilas angezeigt hätte. Jetzt baten die Goten um einen neu-
en Bischof. Chrysostomus sah darin eine doppelte Gefahr: Die schismati-
schen Konstantinopolitaner hätten einen Kandidaten senden können (was sie
seiner Auffassung nach weder nach göttlichem noch nach kirchlichen Recht
gedurft hätten)53. Oder die Goten hätten ohne Wahl und Prüfung irgendwen
zum Bischof bestimmen können.
Chrysostomus spekulierte darauf, die Wahl zu verzögern, rechnete er
doch mit seiner baldigen Rückkehr. Darum bat er Olympias, sie solle den Di-
akon Moduarius in dieser Angelegenheit zu ihm senden. – Was dann jedoch
aus der Gotenmission nach Unilas Tod wurde, wissen wir nicht54.

von den Zeugen ihres Lebens, hg. v. Walter Nigg/Wilhelm Schamoni, Düsseldorf 1966, 148f.)
schildert den Kontakt zwischen Chrysostomus und Theotimus; Theodoret beschreibt nur die
organisatorische Tätigkeit: Thdt., h.e. 5,30,1f. (GCS Theodoret [wie Anm. 19], 330,9–18
Parmentier/Hansen); 5,31 (BKV 51, 1926 [wie Anm. 19], S. 313 Seider); die Vermutung
äußerte bereits Sibiescu, Activitatea (wie Anm. 13), S. 377.
50
Thdt., h.e. 5,30,1 (GCS Theodoret [wie Anm. 19], 330,11f. Parmentier/Hansen);
5,31 (BKV 51, 1926 [wie Anm. 19], 313 Seider) bietet keinen eigenen Begriff für die Mis-
sionare. Es handelt sich lediglich um Bischöfe, Diakone und Vorleser (presbu/teroi, dia/
konoi und oi( ta\ qei=a u(panagignw/skontaj lo/gia).
51
Thdt., h.e. 5,30,1f. (GCS Theodoret [wie Anm. 19], 330,9–18 Parmentier/Hansen);
5,31 (BKV 51, 1926 [wie Anm. 19], 313 Seider).
52
52, 618.
53
Die Furcht erschien als berechtigt, denn Chrysostomus sprach von a)nabolh/. Auch
mahnte er in ep. 206 ad Theodulum (52, 726) umgehend den ihm noch treuen Klerus in der
Hauptstadt, besonders wachsam zu sein.
54
Vgl. Auf der Maur, „Mönchtum“ (wie Anm. 2), 127 sowie Thdt., h.e. 5,29,1–30,2
(GCS Theodoret [wie Anm. 19], 329,19–330,18 Parmentier/Hansen); 5,30f. (BKV 51,
1926 [wie Anm. 19], 313 Seider); Jacques Zeiller, Les origenes chrétiennes dans les provin-
ces Danubiennes de l’Empire Romain. Bibliothèque des écoles françaises d’Athénes et de
Rome, series 1, fasc. 112, 1918, S. 415. 544–549 = Studia historica 48, Rom ²1967; Kurt
Dietrich Schmidt, Die Bekehrung der Germanen zum Christentum, Heft 3, Göttingen
1936, S. 215; Joseph Mansion, Les origenes du christianisme chez des Gots, AnBoll 33,

35
Andreas Heiser

3.2. Die Mission in Phönikien und Gaza


Sicher belegt sind die Missionsaktivitäten in Phönikien, besonders in der
Provinzhauptstadt Gaza. Eine untrügliche Quelle für diese Vorgänge sind die
Briefe des Chrysostomus, die er um 406/407 aus seinem Exil schrieb55. Wes-
entlich vorsichtiger ist die Vita Porphyrii des Marcus Diaconus zu behandeln.
Sie beinhaltet zwar einen historischen Kern, nämlich die Zerstörung eines
heidnischen Tempels in Gaza und dessen Umwandlung zur Kirche. Auch die
behandelten Personen sind sicher historisch: Arcadius, Eudoxia, Theodosius
II., Chrysostomus und Eutropius (nur in griechischer Version erwähnt)56.
Etliches darüber hinaus ist dem Erfindungsgeist des Diakons zuzuschreiben.

3.2.1. Das Heidentum in Gaza


Versuchen wir, eine Skizze des Missionsfeldes herzustellen. Das Heiden-
tum in Gaza hatte einen kultischen Mittelpunkt: das Marneion, den Tempel
des Marnas, des kretischen Zeus, in Gaza57. Es war kreisförmig und mit einer
hohen Kuppel gekrönt. Zwei konzentrische Portiken überwölbten es58. Mar-
cus Diaconus berichtet von einem polyreligiösen Setting in Gaza. Es habe
außer dem Marneion noch weitere öffentliche Heiligtümer des Helios, des
Apollo gegeben59. Zudem bestanden Kultstätten der Aphrodite, der Kore, der
Hekate, ein Heroon und ein Tychaion. Dazu eine hohe Dunkelziffer von Sta-
tuen und Heiligtümern in Privathäusern60.

1914, S. (5–31) 5 Anm. 2; Cassiodor, h.e. trip. 10,5 (CSEL 71, 1952 [wie Anm. 49], 588f.
Hanslik).
55
Warum John N.D. Kelly, Golden Mouth. The Story of John Chrysostom. Ascetic, Prea-
cher, Bishop, London 1995, 264, von der Mission in den „Libanon“ spricht, bleibt rätselhaft,
da Gaza viel weiter südlich liegt. – Die spätere Überlieferung bei Symeon, Vita s. Joannis
Chrysostomi 20 (PG 114, 1097) ist ganz von Theodoret abhängig.
56
Marcus Diaconus, Vita Sancti Porphyrii. Leben des Heiligen Porphyrius, eingeleitet
und übersetzt v. Adelheid Hübner, FC 53, Freiburg u.a. 2013.
57
So Karl Preisendanz, Art. Marna, Marnas, PRE 14/2, Stuttgart 1930, 1899–1906;
dieses heidnische Hauptheiligtum der Stadt erscheint auf einer Münze Hadrians (George
F. Hill, Catalogue of the Greek coins of Palestine, London 1914, S. (143–168) 146 Tafel 15
Nr. 10f. Das lässt vermuten, dass der Tempel von Hadrian anlässlich eines Besuchs in Gaza
gebaut worden ist.
58
Earl Baldwin Smith, The Dome. A Study in the History of Ideas, Princeton-Mono-
graphs in Art and Archeology 25, Princeton 1950, S. 14–16.
59
Jos., AJ 13, 364 (Flavius Josephus, Antiquitatum Iudaicarum libri 1–20, ed. et ap-
paratu critico instruxit Benedictus Niese, vol. 3, Berlin 1892 = 21955, 218,18–20).
60
Marc. Diac., v. Porph. 64 (FC 53 [wie Anm. 56], 174,17–176,7; Übers. 175.177 Hübner).

36
Johannes Chrysostomus und die (Heiden-)Mission

Schon die hier erwähnten Monumente lassen auf ein hohes kulturelles
Niveau der Stadt schließen, das durch den antiochenischen Stadtrhetor Li-
banius bezeugt wird. Er sprach voller Hochachtung von dem rhetorischen
Unterricht, den man in Gaza besuchen konnte61. Die Pflege der Rhetorik
setzt voraus, dass es in Gaza eine Schicht von griechisch sprechenden Ge-
bildeten gab62.

3.2.2. Das Christentum in Gaza


Was ist über das Christentum auf diesem Missionsfeld bekannt? Adolf
von Harnack hielt nach der Lektüre der Briefe des Chrysostomus von 406/7
und aus den rekonstruierten Zuständen, wie sie noch in der zweiten Hälfte
des 6. Jahrhunderts in Gaza bestanden haben fest, dass es ganz klar sei, „daß
das Christentum nur an der Küste festeren Fuß gefaßt hat; das Innere Phö-
niziens blieb ganz wesentlich heidnisch.“63 Von Harnack bemerkte zudem64,
dass man für das innere Phöniziens ausrüstete wie heute (= Anfang des 20.
Jahrhunderts) für rein heidnische Länder. Es musste dort volkreiche Städte
und Gebiete gegeben haben, in denen das Christentum noch völlig unbe-
kannt war oder von der Bevölkerung nicht geduldet wurde65. Von Harnack
sah die Gräzisierung und die Christianisierung sich gegenseitig bedingen.
Die Gräzisierung auch Gazas nahm er für das zweite Jahrhundert an66. Aber
„von einer Christianisierung Palästinas vor Constantin“ hätte man nicht
sprechen können67.
Christen waren überhaupt nur in hellenisierten Städten zu finden, aber
auch hier nicht sehr zahlreich. Große alte heidnische Städte an der philistä-
ischen Küste setzten ihnen erheblichen Widerstand entgegen und duldeten
die Christen nicht.
Nach Gaza wurde das Christentum zuerst durch den Diakon Philippus
gebracht. Er war an der Straße von Jerusalem nach Gaza mit dem Eunuchen
der Königin von Aethiopien zusammengetroffen. Nach seiner Taufe hatte er
61
Libanius, Oratio 55, 33f. (Libanii opera, recensuit Richard Foerster, vol. 4: Orationes
51–64, BSGRT, Stuttgart/Leipzig 1908 = ND Hildesheim 1963, S. 125,16–127,3).
62
Vgl. Glanville Downey, Art. „Gaza”, RAC 8, Stuttgart 1972, S. 1127.
63
Adolf von Harnack, Die Mission und Ausbreitung des Christentums in den ersten drei
Jahrhunderten, vierte verbesserte und vermehrte Auflage mit elf Karten, Band 2: Die Verbrei-
tung, Leipzig 1924, S. 659.
64
Ebd., S. 659 Anm. 3.
65
Ebd.
66
Ebd., 633.
67
Ebd., 643.

37
Andreas Heiser

an weiteren Orten des philistäischen Küstenstreifen von Askalon nach Gaza


missioniert68. Wenn das Christentum in Gaza damals seine ersten Anhänger
gefunden haben sollte, so blieb es jedoch lange Zeit ohne Einfluss.
So gab es nachweislich keine christlichen Bauten in der Zeit vor 32569.
Das wird daran deutlich, dass die Kirche in Gaza, die Asclepas zur Zeit der
Diocletianschen Verfolgung und zur Zeit Konstantins gebaut hat (bald nach
325), als „alte Kirche“ bezeichnet wurde70. Sie lag wie auch ein erwähnter
Gebetsplatz außerhalb der Stadtmauern. Dort befanden sich auch die Gräber
des Märtyrers Timotheus, der unter Diocletian in Gaza hingerichtet worden
war71, sowie des Maior und der Thea72.
Eine kleine, vielleicht geheime christliche Gemeinschaft ist schon für
die Verfolgungszeit unter Diokletian bezeugt73. Aber in Gaza residierte kein
christlicher Bischof. Den Beleg bietet Eusebius in seiner Kirchengeschichte
(h.e. 8,13), wo ein Bischof Silvanus zur Zeit der großen Verfolgung als Bi-
schof „der Kirchen um Gaza“ bezeichnet wird74. Auch in Nicaea 325 war
ein Bischof von Gaza anwesend75. Aber dieser Asclepas76 ist auch nur Bi-
schof der Kirchen um Gaza herum gewesen. Zu ihnen gehörte die Ha-
fenstadt Gaza Maiuma. Andere Städte um Gaza herum waren noch ganz
heidnisch. Nach Sozomenus war sein eigener Großvater nebst Familie der
erste, der in Bethelia (= Bathylion) zum Christentum übergetreten war77.
68
Apg 8, 26–40.
69
Harnack, Mission (wie Anm. 63), 645.
70
Marc. Diac., v. Porph. 18,6 (FC 53 [wie Anm. 56], 120,19–29; Übers. 121 Hübner).
71
Eus., Mart. Pal. 3,1 (Eusebius Werke, Zweiter Band/Zweiter Teil: Die Kirchenge-
schichte, hg. v. Eduard Schwartz/Theodor Mommsen, zweite, unveränderte Auflage v. Frie-
drich Winkelmann, GCS, Berlin 1999, 910,1–10).
72
Marc. Diac., v. Porph. 20 (FC 53 [wie Anm. 56], 122,27–124,4; Übers. 123f. Hüb-
ner); weitere Sakralbauten verzeichnet Downey, „Gaza” (wie Ann. 62), 1131f.
73
Nach Eus., Mart. Pal. 8,4 und 3,1 (GCS Eusebius 2/2 [wie Anm. 71], 925,21–926,1
Schwartz/Mommsen und s.o. Anm. 71) in der Stadt selbst anzunehmen. Eusebius berichtet
von einer Christin aus dem Land(?) Gaza th=j Gazai/wn xw/raj. (Mart. Pal. 8,8 [GCS
Eusebius 2/2 [wie Anm. 71], 926 (20–29) 27 Schwartz/Mommsen]); vgl. Harnack, Mission
(wie Anm. 63), 643.
74
S. auch Eus., Mart. Pal. 13,4 [GCS Eusebius 2/2 [wie Anm. 71], 948,2f. Schwartz/
Mommsen]): e)k th=j Gazai/wn e)pi/skopoj o((rw/menoj Silbano/j; vgl. Harnack, Mis-
sion (wie Anm. 63), 643.
75
Ebd., 641.
76
So Epiph., haer. 69,4,3 (Epiphanius 3: Panarion haer. 65–80. De fide, hg. v. Karl
Holl, 2., bearbeitete Auflage, hg. v. Jürgen Dummer, GCS, Berlin 1985, 155,29).
77
Soz., h.e. 5,14 (Sozomenos, Historia Ecclesiastica. Kirchengeschichte, zweiter Teil-
band, übersetzt und eingeleitet v. Günther Christian Hansen, FC 73/2, Turnhoult 2004,

38
Johannes Chrysostomus und die (Heiden-)Mission

Nebenbei erfährt man auch, dass neben den Heiden auch noch Juden an
dem Ort waren.
Aus der Geschichte der Christen in Gaza bekommen wir auch Auf-
schluss über die fehlgeschlagenen Versuche Konstantins, das Christentum an
der philistäischen Küste heimisch zu machen. Dazu genügt ein Blick in den
Reisebericht der reichen Pilgerin Egeria aus dem späten vierten Jahrhundert78
und in die Kirchengeschichte des Sozomenus79.
Lediglich von Kirchen und Kapellen an heiligen Stätten berichtet Har-
nack, von der Ansiedelung von Mönchen und dem Durchzug von Wallfah-
rern. „… aber eine wirkliche Christianisierung wurde nicht erreicht“80. Die
Dörfer bei der Stadt waren noch ganz heidnisch81. So war Gaza noch um 400
eine wesentlich heidnische Stadt82. Bevor Porphyrius Bischof wurde, waren
nur wenige Christen zu verzeichnen, „nämlich nur 127“, wie Marcus Diaco-
nus schrieb83.

3.2.3. Die Mission des Chrysostomus


Welche Rolle spielt Chrysostomus für die christliche Mission in diesem
Gebiet? Seine Rolle lässt sich in zwei Schritten beschreiben, indem zuerst
die a) politische und dann die b) christlich missionarische Komponente der
Mission dargestellt wird. Nehmen wir den historischen Kern der Lebensbe-
schreibung des Bischofs Porphyrius von Gaza Vita Porphyrii (Episkopat 395–

624,21–24, Übers.: 625): „ … bei Gaza, einer dicht bewohnten Siedlung mit Heiligtümern,
die den Einwohnern durch ihr Alter und ihre Bauweise ehrwürdig sind, besonders mit einem
Pantheon kw/m$ Gazai/# poluanqrw/p% te ou)/s$ kai\ i(era\ e)xou/s$ a)rxaio/thti
kai\ kataskeu$= semna\ toi=j katoikou=si, kai ma/lista to\ Pa/nqeon.“
78
Etheria, Peregrinatio. Petrus Diaconus (ca. 1100–ca. 1153), De locis sanctis V7–Y3
(Egeria, Itineraruium. Reisebericht mit Auszügen aus Petrus Diaconus, De Locis sanctis. Die
heiligen Stätten, übersetzt und eingeleitet v. Georg Röwekamp unter Mitarbeit v. Dietmar
Thönnes, FC 20, Freiburg u.a. 1995, 312) bezeugt die Reise der Egeria durch Gaza.
79
Soz., h.e. 7,15,11 (FC 73/3 [wie Anm. 49], 884,1–5; Übers.: 885 Hansen): „Noch
aber verteidigten in einigen Städten die Hellenisten mit Nachdruck ihre Tempel, … in Paläs-
tina die von Rhaphea [sc. Hafenstadt südwestlich von Gaza] und Gaza, … .“
80
Harnack, Mission (wie Anm. 63), 645.
81
Marc. Diac., v. Porph. 16 (FC 53 [wie Anm. 56], 120,4–18; Übers. 121 Hübner);
Harnack, Mission (wie Anm. 63), Band 2, 645.
82
Soz., h.e. 7,15,11 (FC 73/3, [wie Anm. 49], 884,1–5; Übers. 885 Hansen) und
Marc. Diac., v. Proph. (FC 53 [wie Anm. 56], 98–216; Übers. 99–217 Hübner). Die Lage in
Gaza ist mit der in Emesa zu vergleichen: Starkes Heidentum in der Stadt; im Randbereich
Christen (Harnack, Mission [wie Anm. 63], Band 2, 658).
83
Marc. Diac., v. Porph. 12 (FC 53 [wie Anm. 56], 124,21–23; Übers. 125 Hübner).

39
Andreas Heiser

420) ernst, dann hat Chrysostomus mit Auftrag und Hilfe der Regierung die
Schließung der heidnischen Tempel an der palästinischen Küste vorangetrie-
ben und später ihre vollständige Zerstörung gefördert. Zudem wissen wir, aus
seinen Briefen, dass er Missionare in dieses Gebiet aussandte.
a) Schauen wir zunächst auf die politische Komponente der Mission in
Gaza. In Kapitel 26 der Vita Porphyrii schildert Marcus Diaconus seine eigene
Reise nach Konstantinopel im Jahr 39884. Er sei von seinem Bischof Porphy-
rius mit einem Brief an Chrysostomus, den Bischof der Hauptstadt, ausge-
stattet worden. Darin sei die Bitte um staatliche Hilfe bei der Schließung
der heidnischen Tempel formuliert gewesen. Chrysostomus habe nun den
praepositus sacri cubiculi Eutropius informiert und dieser habe bei Arcadius
die Schließung der Tempel erwirkt.
Tatsächlich ist das Edikt vom 10. Juli 399 im Codex Theodosianus er-
halten85. Es wurde jedoch schon knapp über einen Monat später, am 20.
August 399 widerrufen86. Diese Gesetzeslage scheint für den Diaconus der
Grund zu sein, von einem Hilarius zu erzählen, der nach Gaza geschickt
worden sei, aber dort nur mäßigen Erfolg gehabt hätte. Hilarius habe zwar
mit Hilfe von Soldaten die kleineren Tempel geschlossen. Aber er sei besto-
chen worden und darum nicht weiter gegen den Haupttempel des Gottes
Marnas vorgegangen87.
Einige Jahre später hörte Chrysostomus, dass das Marneion immer noch
in Betrieb gewesen sei und die Heiden aufmüpfig geworden seien. Eine An-
deutung darauf liegt in ep. 126 vor, in der Chrysostomus von einer erneuten
Verfolgung der Christen in Gaza sprach88.
84
Marc. Diac., v. Porph. 26 (FC 53 [wie Anm. 56], 132,11–134,3; Übers. 133f. Hübner).
85
Cod. Theod. 16,10,16 (Theodosiani libri 16 cum constitutionibus Sirmondianis et
leges novella ad Theodosianum pertinentes consilio et auctoritate Academiae litterarum Re-
giae Borussicae ediderunt Theodor Mommsen/Paulus M. Meyer, Vol. 1/pars 2, Berlin 1905,
902): Si qua in agris templa sunt, sine turba ac tumult diruantur. His enim deiectis atque sublatis
omnis superstition material consumetur.
86
Cod. Theod. 16,10,18 (ebd., 902): Aedes inlicitis rebus vacuas nostrarum beneficio
sanctionum ne quis conetur evertere. Decernimus enim, ut aedificiorum quidem sit integer status,
si quis vero in sacrificio fuerit deprehensus, in eum legibus vindicetur, depositis sub officio idolis
disceptatione habita, quibus etiam nunc patuerit cultum vanae superstitionis inpendi..
87
Marc. Diac., v. Porph. 26f. (FC 53 [wie Anm. 56], 132,11–134,21; Übers 133f.
Hübner); Kelly hält diese Passage für vertrauenswürdig: „Although doubt has been thrown
on large portions of Mark’s narrative, there is no reason to suspect the authenticity of this
section.“ (Golden Mouth [wie Anm. 55], 142; wiederholt S. 168)
88
Chrys., ep. 126 (52, 685).

40
Johannes Chrysostomus und die (Heiden-)Mission

Wie Chrysostomus nun im Februar/März 401 seinen Einfluss am Hof


nutzte, um die endgültige Schließung des heidnischen Kultzentrums zu ver-
anlassen89, ist nur durch Marcus Diaconus, Vita Porphyrii 32–54 bekannt90.
Porphyrius soll zusammen mit dem Metropoliten Johannes von Caesarea
(Palästina) nach Konstantinopel gereist sein. Der Weg führte über Rhodos,
wo sie den prophetisch begabten Procop trafen. Dieser prophezeite, dass sie
die Unterstützung des Hofs gewinnen könnten, wenn Sie Eudoxia die Geburt
ihres Sohnes vorhersagten. Sie reisten nach Konstantinopel, zunächst zum
Bischof91. Chrysostomus sah kaum Chancen für eine Eingabe bei Hof. Er
delegierte den Fall an den Christen Amantius, einen Eunuchen Eudoxias, der
großen Einfluss auf sie hatte. Amantius trug die Prophetie vor. Doch Eudoxia
mochte nicht eingreifen. Ihr Mann Arcadius wollte sich die Steuereinnahmen
bei den Heiden in Gaza nicht durch Schließung ihrer Tempel verderben92.
Wenige Tage darauf am 10. April 401 gebar Eudoxia ihren Sohn: Theo-
dosius II.93. Die Prophetie war erfüllt, und die Kaiserin war von der Integ-
rität der beiden reisenden Bischöfe überzeugt. Sie schmiedete neue Pläne.
Die Bischöfe sollten ihr Anliegen schriftlich formulieren. Am Tauftag des
Kindes (an Epiphanias 402)94 sollten sie die Schrift dem überreichen, der
das Kind trug. Der sollte dann den Kopf des Kindes so bewegen, als würde
es bejahend nicken.
Auf diese Weise sollte der kleine Theodosius seinen ersten Befehl geben.
Und der Vater Arcadius fühlte sich verpflichtet, ihm zu folgen. Eudoxia ließ
ein Dekret aufsetzen und von Arcadius unterschreiben. Es regelte die Zerstö-
rung der heidnischen Tempel sowie die Rechte und Einkünfte der Kirche von
89
Vgl. Kelly, Golden Mouth (wie Anm. 55), 142.
90
Freilich beinhaltet die Vita „strongly fictional elements“ (Kelly, Golden Mouth [wie
Anm. 55], 168). Dennoch rät er, sie als Quelle für die Chrysostomusvita heranzuziehen:
„Although scepticism about it has deterred scholars from drawing on its evidence, there can
be little doubt that, used with discrimination, it remains a valuable historical source, and that
it is astonishingly accurate about contemporary institutions and practices, and in particular
recaptures much of the atmosphere and style of the Byzantine court.“ (168)
91
Marc. Diac., v. Porph. 37 (FC 53 [wie Anm. 56], 146,6–28; Übers. 147 Hübner).
92
Marc. Diac., v. Porph. 41 (FC 53 [wie Anm. 56], 150, 20–31; Übers. 141 Hübner);
Kelly, Golden Mouth (wie Anm. 55), 169.
93
Marc. Diac., v. Porph. 39 (FC 53 [wie Anm. 56], 148,25–33; Übers. 149 Hübner);
Kelly, Golden Mouth (wie Anm. 55), 170.
94
Bis dahin mussten Porphyrius und Johannes von Caesarea warten. Sie konnten oh-
nehin im Herbst nicht über Rhodos zurückreisen: Vom 24. September bis 10. November
empfand man die Schifffahrt als gefährlich, vom 11. November bis 10. März wurde gar nicht
geschifft; vgl. Kelly, Golden Mouth (wie Anm. 55), 169.

41
Andreas Heiser

Gaza und Caesarea. Ein Mann namens Cynegius wurde mit der Durchfüh-
rung beauftragt. Nach dem Winter brachen die Bischöfe auf. Sie bekamen
Geld95. Porphyrius baute davon eine Kirche, die zu Ehren der Kaiserin „Eu-
doxiana“ genannt wurde, und eine Fremdenherberge in Gaza96.
Freilich mutet der eigenartigen Trick, der die Mission in Gaza begünsti-
gen sollte, äußerst fiktional an, und wir besitzen keine verlässlichen Daten für
die Hauptstadtreise der beiden Bischöfe. John N.D. Kelly sah aber dennoch
keinen Grund, das historische Faktum der Intervention der beiden Bischöfe
bei Chrysostomus in Frage zu stellen97. Verlässlich ist zumindest die Zerstö-
rung der Tempel in Palästina, die Privilegien für die dortigen Christen und
der Bau der Eudoxiana in 40698. Die Schilderung von Arcadius und Eudoxia
erscheint nicht überzogen. Und gerade das Verhalten des Chrysostomus wird
so dargestellt, wie man es von ihm erwarten würde99. Das Argument, die
von Marcus geschilderte Spannung zwischen Chrysostomus und Eudoxia sei
Fiktion, denn Chrysostomus sei doch eben noch in Asien mit der Autorität
des Hofes aufgetreten und jetzt in unüberwindbarem Streit mit dem Hof,
ist nicht haltbar. Kelly argumentiert mit Eudoxias unstetem und aufbrau-
sendem Temperament, das auch Zosimus bezeugt100. Zudem mag es bereits
zuvor Konflikte zwischen dem „censorious bishop“ und der „hot-tempered
Augusta“ gegeben haben101.
b) Neben dieser politischen Komponente hatte die Mission des
Chrysostomus eine christlich missionarische Komponente. Diese besteht da-
rin, dass er Missionare nach Gaza aussandte. Es ging eben nicht nur darum,
95
Eudoxia spendete nach Marc. Diac., v. Porph. 53 (FC 53 [wie Anm. 56], 164,18–24;
Übers. 165 Hübner) zwei centenaria, zudem 32 Marmorsäulen aus Karystos (ebd., 79. 84
[FC 53 [wie Anm. 56], 196,16–19; Übers. 197 Hübner]).
96
Marc. Diac., v. Porph. 37–54 (FC 53 [wie Anm. 56], 43,21–25; Übers. 153 Hübner)
ist die Absicht des Baus der Eudoxia belegt; die Kirche wurde nach fünfjähriger Bauzeit an
Ostern 407 eingeweiht (92f. [204,11–206,9; Übers. 205f. Hübner]) berichtet.
97
Kelly, Golden Mouth (wie Anm. 55), 169.
98
Marc. Diac., v. Porph. 92 (FC 53 [wie Anm. 56], 204,11–26; Übers. 205 Hübner);
Downey, Gaza (wie Anm. 62), 1131 zur Eudoxiana.
99
Marc. Diac., v. Porph. 37 (FC 53 [wie Anm. 56], 146,6–28; Übers. 147 Hübner).
100
Zos., h.e. 5.24,1f. (Zosime, Histoire nouvelle, Tome 3: 1re partie, livre 5, texte établi
et traduit par François Paschoud, CUFr 307, Paris 1986, 35,26–36,12) bezeugt (Kelly, Gol-
den Mouth [wie Anm. 55], 170).
101
Kelly, Golden Mouth (wie Anm. 55), 171; vgl. Tiersch, Chrysostomus (wie Anm.
40), 206–228 und Wendy Mayer, „Constantinopolitan Women in Chrysostom’s Circle”,
Vigiliae Christianae 53, (265–288) 265. 267.

42
Johannes Chrysostomus und die (Heiden-)Mission

dass Handwerker das Marneion rückbauen sollten, sondern es ging zugleich


darum, die Heiden von ihrer falschen Gottesverehrung zum Christentum zu
führen102.
Über die weiteren, meist nur Theodoret ausschreibenden, byzantini-
schen Quellen ist es nicht nötig zu schreiben. Sie verfolgen mit der bunten
Schilderung von weiteren Missionsgebieten die Tendenz, die Berechtigung
der kirchlichen Vorherrschaft von Konstantinopel im Interesse von Byzanz
möglichst weit zurückzudatieren103.

4. Welche Missionsstrategie verfolgte Chrysostomus?


Um die Strategie der Mission zu beschreiben, lassen sich Informationen
aus allen geschilderten Missionsgebieten ziehen:
Es ist das Verdienst Ivos auf der Maur, gezeigt zu haben, dass Chryosto-
mus beim Personal in der Heidenmission weniger auf den meist verheirateten
Weltklerus setzte, sondern vielmehr auf Asketen104.
102
Marc. Diac., v. Porph. 65 (FC 53 [wie Anm. 56], 176,8–27; Übers. 177 Hübner);
Thdt., h.e. 5,29 (GCS Theodoret, 329f. Parmentier); Cassiodor, h. e. trip. 10,4 (CSEL 71,
1952, 588 Hanslik); Symeon, Vita Jo. Chrys. 20 (PG 114, 1096); Nicephorus, h.e. 13,3 (PG
146, 936) spricht von der Aussendung zh/l% qei/% purpoloume/nouj a)/ndraj nach
Phönizien.
103
Der wahrscheinlich in die zweite Hälfte des fünften Jahrhunderts zu datierende
Pseudo Martyrius von Antiochien weitete die Missionstätigkeit des Chrysostomus in sei-
ner Oratio in funebris in laudem sancti Iohannis Chrysostomi auf Persien aus (Mart. Ant. 25
[Oratio funebris in laudem Sancti Iohannis Chrysostomi. Epitaffio attributo a Martirio di An-
tiochia (BHG 871, CPG 6517), edizione critica di Martin Wallraff, traduzione di Cristina
Ricci, Quaderni della rivista di Bizantinistica 12, Spoleto 2007, 74,32–76,5). Die Angaben
von Georg Alexandrinus, Kap. 23 (Tou en hagiois patros hemon Ioannou archiepiskopou
Konstantinoupoleos tou Chrysostomou ton heuriskomenon tomos (a–h) – Di’epimeleias
kai analomaton Henrikou tou Sabiliou ek palaion antigraphon ekdotheis, Bd. 8, Eton
1613, 189; Mikrofiche-Ausgabe: Munchen u.a. 1993) beruhten auf Theodoret. Er ergänz-
te, dass Chrysostomus von Kukusus aus ganz Armenien zum Christentum bekehrt und die
Übersetzung des Neuen Testament und der Psalmen ins Armenische veranlasst (Kap. 59 [Sa-
vile 8, 235f.]); Leo Imperator, Kap. 13 (8, 276 Savile) schrieb den Alexandrinus ab, ebenso
der um die Mitte des zehnten Jahrhunderts schreibende Anonymus, Kap. 42–52 (8, 320ff.
Savile). Er ergänzte genaue Angaben der Städte und Völker, die Chrysostomus missioniert
habe: Tyrus und Sidon, Beryt, Heliopolis und Damaskus, Emesa und Cyzikus, dazu die Per-
ser, Iberer, Alanen und Abasgen. Und nicht zuletzt hat Simeon Metaphrastes, Kap. 18 am (8,
390f. Savile) am Ende des zehnten Jahrhunderts Georg Alexandrinus abgeschrieben und um
Missionsgebiete erweitert, die historisch nicht verlässlich sind; vgl. Baur, Chrysostomus (wie
Anm. 45), 327.
104
Auf der Maur, „Mönchtum“ (wie Anm. 2), 134. 140 mit Anmerkungen.

43
Andreas Heiser

Für die Goten forderte er von Leontius von Ancyra „Männer, die von Ei-
fer für die apostolische Philosophie beseelt waren.“105 Und gerade der Begriff
„apostolische Philosophie“ hat bei Theodoret eine stark asketische Färbung
und entspricht der radikalen Entsagung106. Die Freiheit der Asketen von so-
zialer Bindung107 und auch die günstigen Kosten prädestinierten sie für den
Missionsdienst, gerade bei den in Zelten wohnenden Nomaden.
Wir wissen nicht, wie weit sich das Missionsgebiet erstreckte, von der
unteren Donau bis vielleicht zur Krim, sicher ist nur, dass es mehr Missionare
brauchte, als diejenigen, die uns namentlich bekannt sind. Ihre Arbeit war
erfolgreich. Dafür spricht, dass schnell einheimische Diakone, wie Unilas und
Moduarius, die zuvor möglicherweise in der Gotenkirche in Konstantinopel
gearbeitet hatten, eingesetzt werden konnten108.
Dass Chrysostomus in der Mission maßgeblich auf Asketen setzt,
sieht man auch bei der Mission in Phönizien. Diejenigen, die Chrysosto-
mus dem Bischof Porphyrius zur Hilfe bei der Zerstörung der Tempel nach
Gaza sandte, waren Asketen. Sie heißen bei Theodoret „vom göttlichen
Eifer glühende Asketen“109. Namentlich bekannt sind Constantius110, der
Leiter des Missionsunternehmens, und Gerontius111 sowie ein Priester na-
105
Thdt., h.e. 5,31,1 (GCS Theodoret [wie Anm. 19], 331,1 Parmentier/Hansen); 5,32
(BKV 51, 1926 [wie Anm. 19], 314 Seider): a)/ndraj th\n a)postolikh\n filosofi/aj
e)zhlwko/taj; Heiss, „Mönchtum“ (wie Anm. 20), 16 und Zeiller, origenes (wie Anm. 54),
546f. sind in der Bestimmung der Gruppe noch unentschieden.
106
Vgl. Thdt., h.e. 4,28,1 (GCS Theodoret [wie Anm. 19], 268,7f. Parmentier/Hans-
en); 4,28 (BKV 51, 1926 [wie Anm. 19], 254 Seider); 5,34,9 (GCS Theodoret [wie Anm.
19], 336,7 Parmentier/Hansen); 5,36 (BKV 51, 1926 [wie Anm. 19], 318 Seider): oi( tw=n
th\n a)skhtikh\n filosofi/an h)gaphko/twn; s.a. 5,35,3 (GCS Theodoret [wie Anm.
19], 337,16f. Parmentier/Hansen); 5,37 (BKV 51, 1926 [wie Anm. 19], 319 Seider)
107
Vgl. Daniel Caner, Wandering, Begging Monks. Spiritual Authority and the Promotion
of Monasticism in Late Antiquity, Berkeley 2002, 83–177; Heiser, Paulusinszenierung (wie
Anm. 11), 305. 400–403f. 508.
108
Vgl. Auf der Maur, „Mönchtum“ (wie Anm. 2), 131.
109
Thdt. h.e. 5,29,1 5,34,9 (GCS Theodoret [wie Anm. 19], 330,1 Parmentier/Hans-
en); 5,30 (BKV 51, 1926 [wie Anm. 19], 313 Seider): a)skhta\j zh/l% qei/% purpo-
loume/nouj.
110
Ep. 221 an Konstantius (PG 52, 732f.; Übers. in Teilen Auf der Maur, Mönch-
tum [wie Anm. 2] 51f.). Auf der Maur, „Mönchtum“ (wie Anm. 2), 133 unterschied diesen
Constantius von dem Empfänger der ep. 225 (52, 735f.), dem Chrysostomus aus Kukusus
vorwarf, er habe noch nie geschrieben.
111
Ep. 54 an Gerontius (52, 638f.; Übers. Auf der Maur, Mönchtum [wie Anm. 2],
53). Er sollte eigentlich in Phönizien sein, war aber wegen der Unruhen in 405 geflüchtet
und daher per Brief nicht zu erreichen; der Brief begründet deutlich den Nutzen der Mis-

44
Johannes Chrysostomus und die (Heiden-)Mission

mens Johannes112. Auch in Phönizien arbeiteten freilich mehr Missionare,


als uns namentlich bekannt sind. Denn weitere hatte der Presbyter Niko-
laus abgesandt113. Und nicht zuletzt hatte Chrysostomus selbst in Nicaea
einen Reklusen überzeugt, nach Phönikien zu gehen114. Ferner richtete sich
Rundschreiben aus den Jahren 404/405 an eine namenlose Gruppe von
Missionaren115. In Phönikien waren Missionare verletzt und getötet wor-
den und etliche waren zurück in die Einsamkeit geflohen. Chrysostomus
ermahnte sie zur Standhaftigkeit. Zudem bat er die Priester Symeon und
Maris in Apamea, weitere Missionare zur Unterstützung nach Phönizien
zu senden116.

sion gegenüber dem Daheimbleiben (Heiss, Mönchtum [wie Anm. 20], 20; Auf der Maur,
„Mönchtum“ [wie Anm. 2], 133).
112
Er war von Apamea aus nach Phönizien gereist. ep. 55 (52, 639f.; Übers. in Teilen
Auf der Maur, Mönchtum [wie Anm. 2], 54); weiter identifizieren lässt er sich nicht; vgl. Auf
der Maur, „Mönchtum“ (wie Anm. 2), 132f.
113
Ep. 53 (52, 637f.); Nikolaus machte gute Arbeit und hatte schon früher Mönche
nach Phönizien geschickt (Monaxou\j e)/pemyaj). Jetzt in schwieriger Situation wurde
ihm befohlen, zu bleiben. Was dort vorgefallen ist, wird wieder nur als ta\ pra/gmata bezeich-
net. Nikolaus wurde aufgefordert, den Priester Johannes und einen eben erst genesenden
Priester namens Gerontius nach Phönizien zu schicken. „Denn ich weiß nur zu gut, dass du
nicht aufhörst, alles zu tun und in die Wege zu leiten, um Phönizien mit tapferen Männern
zu füllen.“ (52, 638); Auf der Maur, „Mönchtum“ (wie Anm. 2), 133 vermutete sogar, dass
Nikolaus eventuell Klostervorsteher gewesen sei, da er mehr als einmal Asketen in die Missi-
on sandte und ihnen auch später Befehle gegeben habe.
114
Ep. 221 (52, 733).
115
Ep. 123 (52, 676–678); Chrysostomus erwähnte von Kukusus aus die Fortschritte,
die die Mission gemacht habe. „Nachdem ihr einen so großen Teil der Gottlosigkeit aufge-
löst habt“ (52, 677) und die „Angelegenheiten in Phönizien zu einem Fortschritt prokoph/
kamen“ (52, 677). Chrysostomus verglich sich mit Paulus: er erduldete qli/yij und perista/
sij in der Einöde. Sodann wurden die Peristasen der Apostel und des Paulus als Vorbild in-
szeniert (52, 677f.). Ebenso wurde der Presbyter Constantius als Vorbild dargestellt (677).
Ein weiterer Presbyter namens Johannes (678) sollte gesandt werden. Der Brief zeugt vom
Austausch in beide Richtungen: Kukusus nach Phönizien und umgekehrt; so auch Auf der
Maur, „Mönchtum“ (wie Anm. 2), 135.
116
Ep. 55 (52, 639f.; Übers. in Teilen Auf der Maur, „Mönchtum“ [wie Anm. 2],
54) an Simeon und Maris. Beide sind Priester aus Apamea, die Chrysostomus noch aus
seiner Zeit in Antiochien kannte; vgl. Heiss, Mönchtum (wie Anm. 20), 18f. Simeon ist
auch durch Thdt., h.r. 3 (PG 82, 1325; Des Bischofs Theodoret von Cyrus Mönchsge-
schichte, aus dem Griechischen übersetzt v. Konstantin Gutberlet, BKV 50, München
1926, 51) bekannt; vgl. Stephan Schiwietz, Das morgenländische Mönchtum, Bd. 3: Das
Mönchtum in Syrien und Mesopotamien und das Aszetentum in Persien, Mödling bei Wien
1938, 229f.

45
Andreas Heiser

Hier kommt hinzu, dass in Phönizien auch Personen, die in kirchlichem


Dienst standen, missionierten. Das trifft auf Basilius117, Aphraates118 und Ru-
finus119 zu. Zu solcher Außenmission in ferne Gebiete wurden jedoch nie
Laien aufgefordert. Chrysostomus sah sie für die Christianisierung der Städte
und Dörfer in der Heimat vor120.
Schon diese Auswahl des Personals zeigt, dass Chrysostomus weniger
selbst Heidenmissionar war als vielmehr Organisator von Mission. Seine Or-
ganisation bestand darin, dass er Aufträge an geeignete Personen delegierte121.
Dazu schrieb er Briefe an Einzelpersonen, Rundschreiben an Gruppen und
instruierte Boten, wie den Priester Theodul122.
Das erhaltene Briefwerk spiegelt jedoch weniger die Korrespondenz
zwischen Chrysostomus und den Missionaren vor Ort123, sondern mit den
örtlichen Leitern, die er mit der oi)konomi/a124 betraute. So beauftragte er
beispielswiese die Priester Rufinus und Johannes und Nikolaus in 405 als
Visitatoren die Missionsarbeit in Phönizien zu begutachten125.
Um die Leitung der Mission effizient umsetzen zu können, brauchte
Chrysostosmus laufend aktuelle Informationen aus den Missionsgebieten.
117
Ep. 28 (52, 627).
118
Ep. 50f. (52, 636f.).
119
Nach ep. 126 (52, 685–687) war Rufinus Presbyter; vgl. Auf der Maur, „Mönch-
tum“ (wie Anm. 2), 133.
120
Belege bei Auf der Maur, „Mönchtum“ (wie Anm. 2), 134 f. Anm. 4.
121
Pseudo Martyrius von Antiochien beschreibt diese Methode. Chrysostomus habe in
Persien und im Land der Goten Gemeinden gepflanzt, indem er Diakonen dazu gebrauch-
te, die ihm die Gnade des Geistes an die Hand gab: Wsper de\ ou)de\ th=j oi)koume/nhj
a(pa/shj th=j kaq ) u(ma=j a)rkou/menoj t$= e)pistasi/#, kai\ e)pi\ th\n tw=n barba/
rwn die/baine, kai\ nu=n me\n e)n Persi/di, nu=n de\ e)n t$= tw=n Go/qen g$= katefu/
teusen e)kklhsi/aj diako/noij pro\j tou=to xrw/menoj, oi(=j a)\n au)t%= tou= pneu/
matoj u(pe/ballen h( xa/rij. (Quaderni della rivista di Bizantinistica 12, Spoleto 2007,
74,32–76,5 Wallraff/Ricci)
122
Vgl. Auf der Maur, „Mönchtum“ (wie Anm. 2), 135; Kelly bewunderte das Orga-
nisationstalent des Chrysostomus: „With all these local preoccupations it seems remarkable
that he found time and energy to organise campaigns, outside Constantinople and in areas
remote from its jurisdiction, both to eradicate the lingering remains of paganism and ne-
ar-pagan heresy, and to promote missionary work among barbarians.“ (Kelly, Golden Mouth
[wie Anm. 55], 142)
123
Eine Ausnahme bilden die Rundschrieben an alle Missionare wie ep. 123 (52, 676–
678) an die Missionare in Phönizien.
124
Ep. 221, (52, 732f.).
125
diorqwsome/nwn in ep. 126 (52, 685–687); ferner Nikolaus in ep. 53 (52, 637f.).

46
Johannes Chrysostomus und die (Heiden-)Mission

So forderte er den Leiter der Phönizienmission auf: „Schreibe uns nun, wie
viele Kirchen pro Jahr gegründet worden sind, und wie viele heilige Männer
nach Phönizien gegangen sind und ob irgendein größerer Fortschritt zu ver-
zeichnen ist.“126 Und auch von Rufinus forderte er präzise Angaben über den
Fortschritt, die möglichen Hindernisse und den Stand bzw. den Bedarf an
Personal127.
Die Werbung neuer Mitarbeiter, die wie Gerontius auch zeitlich befristet
arbeiteten, delegierte er ebenfalls an seine Bereichsleiter vor Ort128.
Über die Ausbildung und Qualifikation der Missionare erfahren wir we-
nig. Jedenfalls ist die von Paul Andres vorgebrachte Vermutung, Chrysosto-
mus habe in Antiochien eine Ausbildungsstätte eigens für den Missionsdienst
gegründet und betrieben, nicht haltbar129.
Auch wenn die ausgesandten Asketen recht wenig finanzielle Mittel
bedurften, so brauchten die missionarischen Unternehmungen doch finan-
zielle und ideelle Förderung. Chrysostomus hatte dazu einen Freundeskreis
etabliert. Aus Konstantinopel förderten Olympias, der Diakon Theodul, die
Priester Constantius und Helladius, die Bischöfe Cyriacus und Hilarius seine
Missionsarbeit130. In Antiochien kontaktierte er häufiger die Priester Castus,
Valerius, Diophantes und Cyriacus, etwa mit dem Anliegen Constantius in
der Phönizienmission zu fördern131.
Was die Finanzierung der unterschiedlichen Projekte anging, so hat
Chrysostomus sowohl staatliche Förderung als auch private Mittel aus dem
126
Ep. 221 (52, 753).
127
Ep. 126 (52, 685–687).
128
e)kpe/mpw in ep. 54 (52, 638f.); ep. 53 (52, 637f.).
129
Andres, Missionsgedanke (wie Anm. 22), 7; die Gründung hätte vor 398 erfolgt
sein müssen, da ein späterer Aufenthalt des Chrysostomus in Antiochien nicht bezeugt ist.
Zudem fehlt jede äußere Bezeugung einer solchen Schule. Wahrscheinlich hat jedoch Con-
stantius von Antiochien aus gearbeitet.
130
Ep. 221 (52, 753); ep. 13, (52, 611); ep. 14,5 = 9,5 ad Olympiam (Jean Chryso-
stome, Lettres à Olympias, augmentée de la Vie anonyme d’Olympias, introduction, texte critique,
traduction et notes par Anne-Marie Malingrey, SC 13 bis, Paris 1968, 236,1–240,54); ep.
206 (52, 726).
131
Ep. 62 (52, 643); ep. 66 (52, 644f.) sowie epp. 22 (52, 624f.); 107 (52, 665–667);
130 (52, 689f.); 22 (52, 733f.); 239 (52, 740f.); 240 (52, 746); zu Diophantes und Cyriacus
s. Pall., Dial. 16 (Pallade, Dialogue sur la vie de Jean Chrysostome, introduction, texte critique,
traduction et notes par Anne-Marie Malingrey, pars 1, SC 341, Paris 1988, 310,90–312,109;
Das Leben des heiligen Johannes Chrysostomus, hg. und übersetzt v. Lothar Schläpfer, Heilige
der ungeteilten Christenheit, dargestellt von den Zeugen ihres Lebens, hg. v. Walter Nigg/
Wilhelm Schamoni, Düsseldorf 1966, 164).

47
Andreas Heiser

Kreis seiner Förderer in Anspruch genommen132. Die kirchlichen Mittel, die


Chrysostomus Aphraates zukommen lassen wollte, sandte dieser zurück, in-
dem er angab, sie seien in Phönizien besser zu gebrauchen133.
Ebenfalls zur besseren Organisation der Projekte, ließ Chrysostomus
Missionsstationen errichten. Verlässlich belegt ist, dass er auf dem Feld des
Promotus ein Kloster für Goten und Marsen gründete. Sie standen in regen
Beziehungen zu diesem Missionsland134.
Dass bei aller organisatorischen Umsicht, Mission in den Augen des
Chrysostomus eine geistliche Angelegenheit war, zeigen die zahlreichen Auf-
forderungen, für die Mission zu beten.
Das Gebet betrachtet Chrysostomus als das eigentliche Mittel, mit dem
der Diakon Theodulus gegen die Schwierigkeiten in der Gotenmission ange-
hen kann135. Und als die Auseinandersetzung mit den Heiden in Phönizien
stärker wurde, riet er dem Presbyter Rufin, dass die Gegner nur durch Gebet
zu besiegen seien136.
Nicht zuletzt zeigt ein Schreiben an den Organisator der Phönizien-
mission, Constantius, dass Chrysostomus gerade dem Gebet der Asketen
eine große Kraft beimaß, weil sie in einem besonderen Verhältnis zu Gott
(parrhsi/a) standen137.
132
Thdt., h.e. 29 (GCS Theodoret [wie Anm. 19], 329,19–330,8 Parmentier/Hansen);
5,30 (BKV 51, 1926 [wie Anm. 19], 313 Seider) berichtet von der staatlichen Förderung der
heidnischen Tempelzerstörung in Gaza. Ep. 14,5 = 9,5 ad Olympiam (SC 13bis, 1968 [wie
Anm. 130], 238,36–240,54 Malingrey) und ep. 126 (52, 686) belegen den Rückgriff auf
private Fördermittel.
133
Ep. 50 (52, 636); 51 (52, 636f.); 144 (52, 697f.).
134
Ep. 207 (52, 726f.); ansonsten ergeht sich der Brief in Topoi: Peristasen und Stand-
haftigkeit und apostolischer Lohn. Dennoch scheint irgendein Vorkommenis vorzuliegen,
das Chrysostomus nur mit to\ pra/gma, beschreibt, für dessen Aufhebung er sich eingesetzt
habe, damit kein qo/rubon eingetreten sei. Auch ep. 14,5 = 9,5 ad Olympiam (SC 13bis, 1968
[wie Anm. 130], 236,14–238,21) zeugt von der engen Verbindung.
135
Ep. 206 (52, 726). Vor allem Gebet soll das vorliegende Übel bekämpfen, damit
nicht taraxa/j und qoru/bouj entstehen. Wieder ist der Konflikt unbestimmt. Theodulos
sollte alles tun, damit t%= pra/gmati aufgehoben werden.
136
Ep. 126 (52, 685–687) Chrysostomus hatte von erneutem Übel in Phönizien ge-
hört. Der Wahnsinn der Hellenen sei gewachsen. Viele Missionare seien geschlagen, teils
sogar getötet worden.
137
Ep. 221 (52, 732f.); G.J.M. Bartelink, Parrhesia dans les oeuvres de Jean Chrysosto-
me, StPatr 16, 1985, 441–448 und ders., Die Parrhesia des Menschen vor Gott bei Johannes
Chrysostomus, VigChr 51, 1997, 261–272 stellte das umfassende semantische Spektrum
von parrhsi/a bei Chrysostomus dar. Hier ist der besondere Zugang zu Gott, den der

48
Johannes Chrysostomus und die (Heiden-)Mission

Zu einem gewissen Abschluss kommt die Heidenmission durch den Bau


einer Kirche vor Ort138. Chrysostomus lag viel an der baulichen Repräsentation
des Christentums. Dafür erbettelte er Geld, darum trieb er seine Bereichsleiter
zur Bautätigkeit an139. Im Kirchengebäude wurde unterrichtet, dort sammelt-
en sich die Leute zum Gebet vor Beginn des Arbeitstags, da trat der Priester
vor Gott hin und opferte140. Und erst mit der Installation eines einheimischen
Klerus sah Chrysostomus seinen Missionsauftrag als abgeschlossen an141.

Schluss
Wenn wir abschließend versuchen, – zugegeben thesenartig – die Hei-
denmission des Chrysostomus als Impuls für christliche Mission zu verstehen,
dann bin ich mir darüber im Klaren, dass hier 1600 Jahre Missionsgeschichte
nicht einlinig zu überbrücken sind.
Dennoch stehen missionarische Unternehmungen heute unter den glei-
chen theologischen Voraussetzungen wie damals. Mission geschieht in einer
bereits versöhnten Welt. Es ist darum im Anschluss an Chrysostomus auch
heute theologisch notwendig, die Rolle des Geistes in der Mission zu betonen.
Der Geist erinnert an die in Christus geschehene Versöhnung der Menschen
mit dem Vater. Er führt Menschen zum Glauben an den drei-einen Gott und
in die Gemeinschaft seiner Kinder.
Wie im ausgehenden vierten Jahrhundert arbeiten Missionare heute
an den Bedingungen, dass Menschen für die Verkündigung des Evangeli-
ums und das Wirken des Geistes empfänglich werden. Mission zielte auch
bei Chrysostomus auf ein verstehendes Einwilligen in die Versöhnung mit
Asket wie herausragende biblische Gestalten (das Urmenschenpaar, Mose u.a.) hat, gemeint;
s. dazu vgl. Heiser, Paulusinszenierung (wie Anm. 11), 305. 400–403f. 508.
138
Auf der Maur, „Mönchtum“ (wie Anm. 2), 139.
139
Ep. 221 (52, 732f.) ermahnte Constanius zum „Bau von Kirchen“; Rufinus wurde
angetrieben, damit die Dacharbeiten der Kirchen noch vor dem Winter fertiggestellt würden
(ep. 126 [52, 687]). Gerontius wurden Mittel zum Kirchenbau in Aussicht gestellt (ep. 54
[52, 639]).
140
Vgl. Hom. in Ac. 18,4f. (60, 147f.).
141
Die beiden Priester Unilas und Moduarius waren gotischer Abstammung. In hom.
in Mt. 8,1 (57, 83f.) zeigte Chrysostomus am Beispiel der Weisen aus dem Morgenland wie
sie als einheimische Missionare im „persischen Gebiet“ arbeiteten. „Niemand soll glauben,
dass es eine Schande für die Kirche ist, dass wir Barbaren darauf vorbereiten, öffentlich auf-
zutreten und zu sprechen. Das ist der Schmuck und die Zierde der Kirche, das ist der Beweis
für die Kraft, die im Glauben steckt.“ (Hom. habita postquam presbyter Gothus 1 = Undecim
novae homiliae 9 1 [63, 501]).

49
Andreas Heiser

Gott142. Das zeigt sich an dem für damalige Zeiten sehr modernen Konzept
der Liturgie und Predigt in Landessprache. Es setze sich durch in der syri-
schen, armenischen, koptischen, georgischen und auch rumänischen ortho-
doxen Kirche. Das Ziel der Mission ist, eine den Menschen vor Ort ange-
messene Form von christlicher Kirche auszubilden, mit eigenen Gebäuden,
eigenem Klerus und eigener Liturgie. Die genuin asketische Ausformung der
chrysostomischen Vorstellung vom Christentum könnte heute zu einer schär-
feren Konturierung der Inhalte des Christentums anleiten.
Die Gebiete der Heidenmission sind bei Chrysostomus relativ be-
schränkt. Hier bietet das 21. Jahrhundert in einer globalisierten Welt vor wei-
teren geografischen und kommunikativen Herausforderungen143.
Chrysostomus organisierte Missionare, er informierte sich laufend über
deren Arbeit, er etabliert ein System des „fundraising“, indem er einen Kreis
von Freunden und Förderer für die Heidenmission interessiert. Auch wenn
unsere Quellen nur einen überschaubaren Kreis von Mitarbeitern nament-
lich nennen und Chrysostomus für die Außenmission auf einen Kreis von
asketischen Spezialisten setzt, macht er doch klar: Mission ist Sache der Kir-
che als ganzer144.
Ein letztes: Chrysostomus saß in Gefangenschaft, während er den
Großteil seiner Missionsarbeit organisierte. In seiner eigenen Beschränkung
ist das Gebet, der Geist möge an die Versöhnung des Menschen erinnern
und Glauben wecken, wo immer das Evangelium verkündigt wird, das wirk-
same Mittel.

142
Freilich müssen auch die Unterschiede betont werden: Die Orthodoxie teilt nicht
das augustinische Menschenbild, noch die im Westen einflusseiche Erlösungslehre des
Anselm von Canterbury, noch die philosophisch-theologische Methodik des Thomas von
Aquin; vgl. James J. Stamoolis, Eastern Orthodox Mission Theology Today, American Society
of Missiology Series 10, Maryknoll, NY 1986.
143
Vgl. z.B. Michael J. Oleska, Orthodox Alaska Orthodox Alaska. A Theology of Mission,
Crestwood, NY 1992 oder Hans-Dieter Döpmann, Die orthodoxen Kirchen in Geschichte
und Gegenwart, Trierer Abhandlungen zur Slavistik 9, Frankfurt a.M. 2010, 260f.
144
So heute: Ross Langmead, The Word Made Flesh. Towards an Incarnational Missiol-
ogy, Lanham 2004, 7.

50
The kenotic dimension of the Christian mission

Revd. Prof. PhD Valer Bel

1. Synthesis of mission theology1


The Christian mission is sending the Church in the world towards uni-
versal spread of the Gospel and integration of men in to the Kingdom of God,
founded by Jesus Christ`s work of redemption, initiated as anticipation of it
in the Church through Pentecost, a kingdom that will be manifested in its
fullness at the second coming of Christ in His glory.
The Christian mission has its deep foundation and the starting point in
eternal communion of Holy Trinity itself, in the movement of Father’s love
towards the Son in Holy Spirit and towards entire world. In this way the mis-
sion means „participation” at the sending of the Son (John 20, 21-23) and of
the Holy Spirit (John 14, 26) into the world, which reveals the life of com-
munion of God for making partakers of it.
Sending of the Son and of the Holy Spirit for the redemption and perfec-
tion of the whole world becomes permanent in sending of the apostles (John
20, 21-23; Matthew 28, 18-20) and the apostolic Church. Therefore, the
mission is part of God’s plan for redemption of the world itself. It is based on
the universality of redemption and perfection in Christ and “participation” at
the sending of Christ into the world.
Missionary vocation of the Church consists in its apostolic character.
Christian Church is an apostolic one not only because it avails itself of an
apostolic origin, namely of the historical continuity from the time of the
1
You can see also: Valer Bel, The mission of Church in contemporary world, second edi-
tion, Renaşterea Publishing House, Cluj-Napoca, 2010 and “Synthesis of orthodox Christian
mission theology and practice”, in: Orthodox Theology in 20th century an at the beginning of 21st
century, coord. Viorel Ioniţă, Basilica Publishing House of the The Romanian Patriarchate,
Bucharest, 2011, p.638-661.

51
Revd. Prof. PhD Valer Bel

Apostles, possessing institutions and apostolic ministry, without which it can-


not identify itself, but also because it has a messianic reference, as Son was
sent by the Father, and the apostles by Christ (John 20, 21-22, Matthew 10,
5-40, 28, 18-20).
The mission is, therefore, an aspect and an essential component of the
Church. The church is in a continuously state of mission. It cannot cease to
be a missionary Church. If, visibly, the Church was founded as a concrete his-
torical community in which it is realized the communion of God with men
or as the sacrament of the Kingdom of God, through the descent of the Holy
Spirit upon the Apostles, other people partake at the redemption offered by
God in Christ through the missionary activity of Church, in which becomes
permanent the sending of Christ into the world.
As an act of the will and the redemption work of God, the Christian
mission is the activity that unifies the work of God and man, in proportion
to each one potentiality, activity through which God awakens and calls the
fallen creation to redemption and its perfection in Christ. In this regard, the
Christian mission is a part of God’s plan of redemption and perfection of the
world and so it constitutes that part which is realized in history by the Church
through its members.
Christian mission is a redemption call addressed the people outside
the Church and aims towards liturgical and philokalic transformation of
the human existence in the Church; transposing it into a liturgical-sac-
ramental, baptismal-eucharistic and paschal rhythm; change and renewal
of man and world in active expectancy of the last renewal in the Kingdom
of God, a foretaste of which we have now in the Church. Fulfilling the
mission has a triple actuality: liturgical-sacramental, mystical-ascetical
and communal-social. It identifies with the authentically communica-
tion of life, holiness, love and supreme unity existing in the Holy Trinity,
the ultimate foundation of existence and the model par excellence of the
Church’s life.
The role of mission differs depending on the stages that we must go
through to attain redemption and perfection. If the mission is part of God’s
plan for redemption of the world that began with the Incarnation of his Son,
it does not mean that the mission has exclusive action in that it leads to
redemption. For it is God who calls, leads and offers redemption. But the
mission of the Church is the work that God uses to call and lead people to
redemption and perfection in Christ.

52
The kenotic dimension of the Christian mission

From these brief theological considerations arises with clear evidence the
role, the necessity and the crucial importance of Christian mission for the
Church.
Essential coordinates of the Christian mission, as revealed in the great
mission commandment from the end of the Gospel according to Matthew
(28, 19-20), are: the evangelism: “go therefore, and teach all nations”, the sac-
ramental incorporation into the ecclesiastical body of Christ, in which we
participate at the life of communion of the Holy Trinity: “baptizing them
in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” and the urge
to persevere in the true faith (1 Timothy 1, 10), in holiness, testimony and
service: “teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you”.
The mission of the apostles and the apostolic Church is essentially re-
lated to the sending of the Son and of the Holy Spirit into the world by the
Father and also to the mission of the Son and of the Holy Spirit for the life of
the world. The purpose of sending and mission of Jesus Christ and the Holy
Spirit into the world, which is perpetuated by the mission of the Apostles
and the Church, is revealed in its cosmic and ecclesiological dimensions by
the Saint Paul the Apostle in his Epistle to the Ephesians, which consists of:
recapitulation and union of all creation in the body of Christ - the Church
through the unity of the faith, the holy sacraments, and the increasing in the
life of Christ. In the mission of the apostolic Church becomes permanent
the sending or the mission of Christ. Therefore, “He gave some to be, apostles;
and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; for the
perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body
of Christ: until we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the
Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of
Christ” (Ephesians 4, 11-13).
This Pauline mission program, which is nothing but development for
mission and pastoral needs of theology outlined in Acts regarding Pentecost
and the foundation of the Church, was and is applicable for all times and
against all forms of individualism and sectarianism. Unity of humanity and
all creation in the same faith in the Holy Trinity, in the same baptism and the
same Eucharist, in the same body of Christ and the growth in perfection in
the eschatological horizon of the Kingdom of God constitutes the fundamen-
tal coordinates for the Church’s mission.
From the beginning, the mission of the Church has assumed these two
important directions: the mission ad extra, or external, the preaching of

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Revd. Prof. PhD Valer Bel

Gospel towards conversion of nations and the mission ad intra, or internal,


through which the Church is concerned regarding the baptized ones, organiz-
ing the internal, liturgical and social life of Christian community. In this way,
the Church appears from its beginnings as a Eucharistic community -already
redeemed people of God who gathers to commemorate the deeds of God
from the history of redemption and lives a new life in the Holy Spirit- but
also as a missionary apostolic community that is aware of its special reference
among unbelievers. Early Church history is a worthy of imitation testimony
in this regard.
Consequently, by specifying more concrete, we can distinguish several
aspects regarding the missionary activity of the Church, aspects that are
strongly linked and interrelated. Those are: evangelism which means direct
and public proclamation of the Gospel, declaring through word and action
the plan or dispensation of God which He has towards the world and that
was fulfilled in Jesus Christ; testimony (or martyria) which constitutes in
serving the Gospel through word and action, through the way of life lived in
the spirit of the Gospel of Christ - as the Gospel message means more than
simply proclaiming the word, it includes the entire life of the Church in the
Holy Spirit; and diakonia which embraces the solidarity of the Church with
all people, especially the poor, the needy and suffering, in their struggle
for the common good, for transforming society. Evangelism, the Christian
testimony and diakonia are inextricably linked because the Church is at the
service of all trying to establish the spirit of the Gospel of Christ among
men, in other words, an order of peace, justice and freedom. The mission
is inseparable from the pastoral work, namely “the building of the Church”
(Ephesians 4, 11-15). The pastoral work (from pasco, -ere = feed) refers to
the action of sustaining life with food, providing spiritual food. Jesus Christ
calls Himself the “Good Shepherd” for He gives His life for the sheep (John
10, 11) in two ways: devotion towards the sheep with which He is inti-
mately united (14-15) and sacrifice of His life for them. He truly gives His
life, not forced by anyone, but of His own will, in absolute obedience to
the Father (17-18). In this is fulfilled His activity as a Shepherd. Through
His Sacrifice and Resurrection, Jesus Christ as the Shepherd gives life, com-
munion and love. So the priest is “shepherd” in his authority of celebrating
the sacraments, especially the Holy Eucharist, that revives the act in which
Christ gave Himself for the life of the world. It is pastoral work what the
priest does when he celebrates the Holy Sacraments, the “nourishment” of

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The kenotic dimension of the Christian mission

the Church, and when he fulfills his spiritual guiding activity that rises from
the self-sacrificing devotion to his mission.

2. Kenotic nature of Christian mission


The work of redemption has its Trinitarian character, but it involves a
well defined Christological dimension and not a Christomonistic one. That is
why the mission of the Son and its fulfillment represents the foundation and
model of any authentic Christian mission, which is and must be mission in
Christ’s pattern. The key feature of the Son`s mission is its kenotic character,
from perfect love of God and people, emphasized by the Apostle Paul: “But
made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant,
and was made in the likeness of men; and being found in fashion as a man,
he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the
cross. Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name
which is above every name” (Philippians 2, 7-9).
Jesus was born among a poor and oppressed people, not in one who
ruled over other nations. Even more, in this nation He preferred the modest
family of a carpenter and not a noble, rich or scholar one. He lived among the
people of the land where He was born. Not as a stranger among strangers, but
as the one who approached at maximum intimacy with us. He lived among
the people, He spoke their language and He was happy and sad as them. At
the age of thirty (Luke 3, 23) Jesus left His anonymous life from Nazareth
of Galilee and comes to Jerusalem where allows to be baptized by John the
Baptist with the baptism of repentance (Matthew 1, 4) although He did not
need it because, not being part of the law of Moses, was not a binding duty
for Jews, and moreover Jesus had neither original sin (John 1, 13) nor per-
sonal ones (John 8, 46; 2 Corinthians 5, 21; 1 John 3, 5). Baptized by John,
Jesus willingly takes upon Himself the sins of mankind, so that, through His
culminated on sacrifice of the Cross obedience and perfect love for the Father,
to liberate us from the chains of sin and death and to restore eternal life in
communion with God. This is testified by John the Baptist when he says:
“Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sins of the world” (John 1,
29; 3, 16-17, Matthew 20, 28). Then retreats into the wilderness of Judaean
Desert where He prepares Himself in fasting and prayer, meanwhile being
tempted by the devil. Jesus was always tempted during His life (Luke 22, 28).
He rejected the enticement of Apostle Peter when he was acting on Satan`s
behalf trying to divert Him from his mission to be the Messiah who suffers

55
Revd. Prof. PhD Valer Bel

(Luke 16, 21-23). Through the story of the temptation of Jesus it is showed
for what kind of Messiah He decided at the very beginning of His work. Jesus
was faced with the alternative of choice to be either the Messiah in His con-
temporary vision or the Messiah of God. His contemporaries were expecting
a glorious Messiah, who brings in bread for Him and for his people, who
fulfills shallow and miraculous the desires of masses (Psalm 90, 11 to 13), who
subdues the kingdoms of the world and provides for His people global con-
trol. This image of the Messiah is nothing but the devil offer. God requires of
Jesus fulfilling His will, even in suffering and death, through the ministry of
life sacrifice through which opens the world to God’s rule, already announced
in the Law (Deuteronomy 8, 3; 6, 16; 32, 43).
In His complete intimacy with the people, Jesus passes beyond social and
moral established boundaries. He approached the poor not only to help but
to be with them; to eat the poor`s bread with the poor, to enter into commu-
nion with them and thus to recognize and restore their identity and dignity
of images of God. Because He transcended predetermined borders and by His
presence in their midst made alive nearness of the Kingdom of God, Jesus`
incarnation brought deliverance and redemption.
The Savior Jesus Christ reverses the established forms of authority, wis-
dom, glory, piety and success, the principles and traditional values and reveals
that the living center of all is God-Love. Through this, He reveals that God
does not forget the poor and the suffering ones and the promises from the
Old Testament were fulfilled; He reveals that God sees the rights of the poor,
the widows and the sick and that He is their upholder (Psalm 146, Amos,
Isaiah and so on).
Through His ultimate intimacy with all men, Jesus showed that love
is not a theoretic and vague “principle”, but a “communion” of Persons:
Father, Son and Holy Spirit. God is love because it is the eternal Trinity, a
communion of living, equal and distinct Persons. Incarnate Son reveals that
communion of love (koinonia agapês) into the world. In this regard, He is
not only the one who invites but also the path: “No man come unto the
Father, but by me” (John 14, 6). Closely related to love are liberty, justice,
liberation and brotherhood of all mankind in the truth, the harmony, the
joy and the fullness of life in communion with God and with others. Jesus
did not make a vague and philosophical speech about these values, but
he revealed them in power, through clear “signs” and word, but above all
through His life itself.

56
The kenotic dimension of the Christian mission

Among the many surprises called forth by Jesus Christ is also the fact
that He identifies Himself with the most simple and humble people. Of
them He chose disciples and apostles. And in His well-known speech about
last judgment He identifies Himself utterly with the despised, infirm, poor,
strangers and needy ones from around the world. “Inasmuch as ye have
done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto
me” (Matthew 25, 40), He says, having “all nations gathered before Him”
(Matthew 25, 31-46). Jesus has never left out those materially rich, but took
care of all, poor and rich, to be together at the table (as in Proverbs 22, 2),
in communion.
One of the fundamental principles of Jesus’ life is continuous transcen-
dence, towards people, of the boundaries established by law, moral, social
differences and religion. Jesus interprets the Mosaic law taking into account
the man and his communion with God and with others. The law is given for
people; also, from people`s perspective are interpreted the regulations and
common points of view regarding clean and unclean, the Sabbath (Mark 2,
27-28, Mark 7, 15-16). Although, regarding the mission, to conclude from all
this aspects that Jesus was interested only on “humanization of man” means
to wrongly understand intention and the path of Christ the Savior. On the
contrary, for Jesus Christ is undoubtedly that those who seek something in
life for that something itself, even if that thing is life, they will lose it: “For
whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my
sake shall find it” (Matthew 16, 25; Matthew 10, 39).
Jesus not only wants confirmation of what He is, of status quo, but He
aims for human ascension towards its fulfillment and perfection in commu-
nion of life and love with God and with others. Therefore, in the same way,
Jesus` cause is wrongly understood when in the mission activity someone
does not act for freedom, dignity and human perfection (whether for racial,
nationalist, civilization, religious or social reasons). The mission is intended
to restore man, to regain his estranged from God and himself life. This means
that Christian mission brings in human life change, transformation, orienta-
tion towards life that comes from God. Mission aims for the liberation of
man based on the exultation brought by the One who comes. That is why
“whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for
my sake and the gospel’s, the same shall save it” (Mark 8, 35, Luke 17, 33).
“The life of Jesus is lived and His death accepted with a conscience and a
pure will to be a life and death for us, humans, and for our communion with

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Revd. Prof. PhD Valer Bel

God.”2 He “humbled more than all; walking with publicans and sinners, the
oppressed and mocked ones from society, but He was not diverted aside from
perfect love, not envied, not murmured, although He reproved the wicked
ones, the hypocritical on the sly ones, the cunning ones, the violently ones
but without closing on them the way to salvation, the way to return to true
humanity.”3 He prayed for all even for those who crucified Him, bringing
comfort and healing to all. “Only in the perfect humility and purity of inten-
tions and deeds of Jesus as a man it could have been showed the greatness of
His divinity. Only in this humility, purity, god-heartedness, that could not
have been reached by any of us, could He firmly announce His deity so as not
to appear as a haughty claim or the imagination of a person with no sense of
reality.”4 “The originality of Jesus consists in living the life and enduring the
death uniformly and perfectly for God and for people.”5 “The whole existence
of Jesus before death, in death, after the resurrection, is marked by the com-
munication of God`s full love towards us, but also of our love towards God,
so that under His love rain that as God He showed towards us and under the
power of His love that as man He showed towards God, to germinate and
grow into us the love towards God, as a sign of salvation condition began into
us through the love of God.”6
From the mission of the Son arises the mission of the Son`s missionaries;
it is participation at the mission of the Son (John 13, 8), a mission carried out
by the missionaries of the Son in communion with the Son. The mission of
the disciples, as participation at the mission of the Son, consists in acts and
words which are acts and words of God (see John 14, 10-13; Luke 10, 16).
Therefore, authentic Christian mission, according to the mission model of the
Son, has par excellence a kenotic character: “For God so loved the world that
he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not
perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to
condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.” (John
3, 16-17). The kenotic character of the mission must be manifested in exter-
nal and internal mission as in the coordination and all aspects of the mission.
If love for God and people is the reason of mission, it is also the absolute criteri-
2
Dumitru Stăniloae, Orthodox Dogmatic Theology, Volume 2, Biblical and Mission
Establishment of Romanian Orthodox Church Publishing House, Bucharest, 1978, p.25
3
Dumitru Stăniloae, op.cit.,p.28
4
Dumitru Stăniloae, op.cit.,p.28
5
Dumitru Stăniloae, op.cit.,p.26
6
Dumitru Stăniloae, op.cit.,p.26

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The kenotic dimension of the Christian mission

on of any mission action. Any mission activity that lacks its love criterion and
does not express according to the pattern of incarnation (kenosis-acceptance)
-the only authentic expression of love in practice- does not serve the purpose
of the mission and is an expression of doubtful forms of mission. Such forms
of mission have always existed in the history of Christianity. They start with
Simon Magus (Acts 8, 9-24) and extend to the mixture of mission and poli-
tics in modern and contemporary world.
The premise of mission activity for those engaged in it is the love expressed
concretely in practice conformable to the model of Incarnation – kenosis –
acceptance – love – which determines the principles and practical methods
of mission work. In accordance and subsequent to the pattern of kenosis, the
missionary must discard worldly conceptions and secularist bonds, so as he
could preach only Christ. Christian missionary must show in word and act
that his teachings are nothing but - as the Apostle Paul said - a word from
Christ and about Christ: “For we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the
Lord; and ourselves your servants for Jesus’ sake” (2 Corinthians 4, 5). How-
ever, the mission is more successful when the good news of redemption is
also animated by a life in Christ whose main components are asceticism and
eschatological expectation. As voluntary seclusion from a hedonistic, delight-
ful and consumerism attitude regarding material goods, together with the
desire to give and offer these goods to the poor and destitute, the asceticism
makes more vividly in the life of the Christians the Passion and the Cross of
Christ. “The Christian life means a continuous assimilation of the mystery of
the Cross, in the asceticism against individual and group selfishness. This holy
humility, ready to receive the last sacrifice, remains the mysterious power of
Christian mission. The mission will always be the ministry that combines the
acceptance of troubles, tests, humiliation, with sacrifice, uncertainty, rejec-
tion because of His grace, and only those who are willingly to accept - with
bravery and trust in Christ - can bear. One of the greatest dangers of Christian
mission is to really forget about Cross and to create for ourselves a painless
Christian typology, comfortable, who wants the cross only as decoration, a
typology that would crucify others instead of crucifying herself.”7
Faith and power of the Church always relied on the certainty that the
Cross and Resurrection are inextricably linked. To conform one’s life to the
7
Anastasios Yannoulatos, “Mission in Christ`s Way. Your will be done”, Introductory
report to the 10th World Conference of Mission and Evangelism, San Antonio, 1989, Ro-
manian translation by Rev. Prof. Ioan Ică Ph. D., in Theological Revue, I, 1991, no.3, p.88.

59
Revd. Prof. PhD Valer Bel

crucified life of Christ means having hidden inside the power of the Resurrec-
tion. The mystery and power of the Cross is unveiled in the Resurrection, in
the victory over selfishness and death. Authentic Christian Mission assumes,
therefore, the Cross, following Christ into the light of the Resurrection and
the eschatological fulfilled hope. In this sense, the Apostle Paul said: “But we
preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks
foolishness; but unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ
the power of God, and the wisdom of God. Because the foolishness of God
is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men” (1 Corin-
thians 1, 23-25).

60
La parole de Dieu dans l’histoire du salut
et dans la Liturgie comme moyen missionnaire de l’Eglise

Prof. Dr. Ciprian Streza

Dieu, n’ayant ni commencement, ni fin, a créé le monde par son amour à


partir du néant, et Il a créé l’homme comme un être doué de la parole, et donc
pensant et libre de choisir entre le bien et le mal. Par la création ex nihilo,
Dieu a posé à cote de lui-même un être absolument autre, un zoon logikon
semblable à lui, portant son image. Il a imprimé à la fois dans l’âme humaine
la soif de connaître et de s’abreuver de l’infinité de l’amour du Dieu.
Dans la Genèse il est affirmé qu’au commencement le Seigneur Dieu
créa les cieux et la terre et tous leurs éléments. Il est sous-entendu
que c’est par l’intermédiaire de Son Verbe qu’Il le fit. Puis, il est dit
que chaque jour Il a fait quelque chose de nouveau par la parole: „
Dieu dit: «Que la lumière soit! »(Gen 1,3), «Que la terre se couvre de
verdure…! » (Gen 1,11), « Qu’il y ait des luminaires au firmament
du ciel…! »” (Gen 1,14). Tout ce qui existe a été fait par « la parole »
de Dieu. Mais quant à l’homme, Il l’a créé par un acte absolument
spécial, où Sa parole se concrétise.
Le Logos divin est entré Lui-même en tant que Sujet en dialogue avec un
sujet créé qui est Son image visible et qui a reçu la vocation de parvenir à Sa
ressemblance. Le Verbe de Dieu S’est mis à S’entretenir avec Son image créée,
en l’invitant à une relation consciente avec Soi, à une conversation remplie
d’amour, et en lui conférant tout le pouvoir d’approfondir cet amour de sorte
qu’il avance de l’image à la parfaite ressemblance selon la grâce1.
Apres la chute, l’homme n’a pas perdu sa vocation d’être appelé à la
communion avec Dieu, mais dans l’Ancien Testament le Verbe de Dieu lui
1
Pr. Prof. D. Stăniloae, Teologia Dogmatică Ortodoxă, vol. I, Bucureşti, 2003, p.
396.

61
Prof. Dr. Ciprian Streza

parle en fonction de sa capacité de Le recevoir et pour cela Il S’est révélé trop


peu dans les profondeurs spirituelles de celui-ci, à cause du niveau réduit de sa
sensibilité spirituelle. C’est pourquoi la puissance de Dieu s’est manifestée par
la parole elle-même, aussi bien que par des actes accompagnateurs extérieurs
à la parole, car ils impressionnaient davantage le peuple situé à un niveau
spirituel assez bas.2
Le Saint Esprit, dans l’Ancien Testament, n’irradiait visiblement que
rarement, par les paroles des prophètes et par les actions prodigieuses
de la Providence de Dieu envers Son peuple élu. Le Verbe œuvrait
sur les sujets humains, insuffisamment préparés du point de vue spi-
rituel, sous le voile de la Loi. Aussi le Verbe les touchait-Il, parallè-
lement, par des actes de puissance. Les gens de ce temps-là étaient
beaucoup plus impressionnés par l’éclat des choses extérieures.
Ce n’est pas uniquement l’Esprit Saint qui préparait les personnes vé-
térotestamentaires pour l’accueil du Verbe dans la chair, mais aussi le Verbe
préparait par l’Esprit Son Incarnation: Tout comme avant Son avènement
visible et dans la chair, le Verbe de Dieu venait spirituellement aux patriarches
et aux prophètes, tout en anticipant les mystères de Son avènement, de même,
après cette venue, Il descend non seulement en ceux qui sont des nourrissons,
en les repaissant spirituellement et les emmenant vers la vie de l’achèvement
selon Dieu, mais aussi en ceux qui sont parfaits, en leur désignant d’avance et
mystiquement la forme de Son avènement ultime, comme dans une icône”3.
On voit que dans l’Ancien Testament la parole de Dieu a été proférée
au « Sinaï » comme la parole qui établissait et manifestait l’Alliance,
chez « les prophètes » elle rappelait que l’Alliance était un guide et
une promesse. C’est à partir d’une telle expérience qu’Israël a pris
conscience de la parole créatrice de Dieu.4
Durant l’Ancienne Alliance, au fur et à mesure qu’apparaissaient des
gens aptes à recevoir l’Esprit à la suite de la préparation par la Loi,
Son œuvre irradiait du Verbe divin plus intensément en eux. C’est
particulièrement le cas des prophètes. Le Verbe Lui-même qui Se
communiquait à eux était plus plein de l’Esprit ou d’une spiritualité

2
Idem, «Cuvântul Creator şi mântuitor şi veşnic înnoitor », Mitropolia Olteniei 1
(1991), p. 8-9.
3
Saint Maxime le Confesseur, « Capete gnostice », 11, 28, dans Filoc. Rom., vol. II, p. 117.
4
H. Schlier, La Parole de Dieu, Encyclopedie de la foi, Paris, 1966, p.274.

62
La parole de Dieu dans l’histoire du salut

intrinsèque. Par cela les gens étaient rendus prêts à l’installation to-
tale de l’Esprit du Fils dans l’être humain, une fois Son Incarnation
accomplie.
Dans le Nouveau Testament les références à la parole de Dieu
abondent là où sa manifestation se réfléchit dans la personne de Jé-
sus-Christ, c’est-à-dire avant tout dans les écrits johanniques et là où
l’on a une vive conscience que cette parole de Dieu s’exprime dans
la parole humaine des témoins apostoliques, c’est-à-dire avant tout
dans les écrits de Luc et de Paul.
Dans le Nouveau Testament la parole créatrice de Dieu a reçu un «
nom », c’est à dire que le Christ est la parole éternelle est venu dans
une proximité maximale avec l’homme. C’est qu’on reconnaît alors
que la parole de Dieu a manifesté en Jésus-Christ qu’elle était Dieu.
Dans le prologue de l’évangile de Jean, la parole éternelle de Dieu,
qui est Dieu, qui est auprès de Dieu et qui est devenue chair en Jé-
sus-Christ, est appelé la parole « par laquelle tout a été fait », « par
laquelle le monde a été fait » (Jn 1 3 10), dans laquelle est donnée «
la vie » qui est la lumière des hommes (Jn 1, 4.
Jésus-Christ est la parole de Dieu incarne. C’est dans l’incarnation du
Verbe que la parole de Dieu se manifeste définitivement dans son fondement
et sa plénitude. Car maintenant elle advient dans la personne historique de Jé-
sus de Nazareth et se révèle en même temps comme la parole, non seulement
que Dieu dit, mais aussi qu’il est. La formulation expresse de ce fait, nous ne
la trouvons que dans l’évangile de Jean, car l’Apôtre Bien Aimé révèle que si
Dieu a pu nous parler de façon définitive « par le Fils », c’est que le Verbe s’est
fait chair et qu’alors cette parole dévoile que la parole de Dieu est une parole
qui est Dieu même, c’est-à-dire le Verbe. Par le fait même que la parole de
Dieu s’est incarnée en Jésus dans l’histoire et qu’en lui on peut l’entendre, la
voir et la toucher, cette parole s’est manifestée et s’est fait connaître comme la
parole qui était « au commencement » et donc comme Dieu auprès de Dieu,
c’est-à-dire comme le Verbe qui fait naître dans la lumière la vie d’un univers
et d’un monde. Ainsi c’est lorsque le Verbe s’est fait chair que s’est manifestée
pleinement et définitivement dans l’histoire (c’est-à-dire pour nous) la réalité
de la parole de Dieu, qui agissait déjà depuis longtemps dans la parole par
laquelle Dieu faisait connaître à Israël ses préceptes et ses promesses. C’est
dans le Verbe que Dieu a proféré sa parole dans le monde et s’est exprimé
lui-même.

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Prof. Dr. Ciprian Streza

Par l’Incarnation du Verbe de Dieu, la nature humaine a été unie à


la nature divine à tel point qu’elle a pu recevoir le Saint Esprit, qui a
établi Son centre d’action et de rayonnement, de pair avec le Verbe
de Dieu, dans l’être humain.
Le parfait retour du Saint Esprit dans l’être humain s’opère dans le
Christ, puisqu’en Lui, même l’hypostase divine du Verbe devient
l’hypostase de la nature humaine, tout en rendant cette dernière ca-
pable de l’union suprême à Dieu. L’Esprit Saint a désormais Son
centre de rayonnement dans le Verbe fait homme ou dans l’Homme
qui est en même temps Dieu. Cela représente la spiritualisation au
plus haut degré de l’être humain.
Par la Résurrection l’Esprit Saint pneumatise le corps de Christ et
depuis la Pentecôte tous ceux qui croient en Christ sentent la puis-
sance entière de l’Esprit irradiant du Christ. La Révélation atteint
l’apogée dans la descente du Saint Esprit sur les Apôtres, parce que
cette descente relève de la Résurrection et de l’Ascension du Christ,
comme spiritualisation suprême de Son corps. C’est ainsi que dé-
bute l’application de l’effet de la Révélation à nous, c’est-à-dire notre
orientation vers la résurrection et l’Ascension avec le corps par L’Es-
prit du Christ, ressuscité et élevé, plus précisément non seulement
par l’Esprit, mais aussi par le Christ même.
Dans la Résurrection du Christ ou dans Son corps devenu transpa-
rent par l’Esprit et pour l’Esprit, il nous est montré dans quel but
est créé le monde; et dans notre résurrection finale, quand nos corps
aussi seront pleinement pneumatisés par l’Esprit, par l’union par-
faite au Christ, cet état sera réalisé pour toute la création.
Cela prouve que la Révélation, la découverte du Verbe ne consiste
pas tant dans la révélation d’une somme de connaissances théoriques
sur un Dieu fermé dans Sa transcendance, que dans Son action de
condescendance pour l’homme, dans l’appel des créatures raison-
nables à la joie de la communion avec Soi. Le but de la révélation
c’est la communion d’amour entre Dieu et l’homme. Les connais-
sances offertes dans la Révélation mettent en évidence cette action
de descente de Dieu et d’ascension de l’homme qui y croit. Les pa-
roles traduisent cette œuvre divine, étant à la fois des exhortations
afin de coopérer, pour que cette union se fasse entre chacun de nous

64
La parole de Dieu dans l’histoire du salut

et Dieu. Car l’union suprême de Dieu à l’homme croyant ne se réa-


lise pas sans la participation libre de celui-ci.5
La Révélation s’accomplit donc par des actes et des paroles, par
la lumière et la puissance; elle est action resplendissante et splen-
deur transfiguratrice du croyant. Elle dévoile ce qui fait Dieu pour
l’homme, aussi bien que ce qu’il deviendra par l’œuvre de Dieu et
par sa synergie; elle dévoile aussi le sens et le but final de l’exis-
tence humaine, ou la finalité à laquelle nous sommes destinés et qui
constitue notre parachèvement même.
Voilà pourquoi le Verbe de Dieu n’est pas une somme de préceptes
et d’actes réalisés par Dieu dans l’histoire, mais l’anticipation du but
ultime de la création, dont Il a jeté les bases par les actes accomplis.
La Révélation a encore un caractère prophétique, eschatologique.
Mais Dieu prophétise par la Révélation la finalité de la création, non
par une science qui prévoit, d’une manière objective et passive, où
arrivera la création par elle-même, mais par le témoignage qu’Il y va
diriger Lui-même la création, avec sa libre collaboration, par tous les
actes de puissance accomplis.
Le Fils de Dieu, l’accomplissement de la Révélation, est venu par
l’Incarnation tout près de nous, en devenant par la Résurrection la
raison d’être et la destination intérieure de toutes les choses, le sens
et le but qui montre non seulement ce que seront ces choses, mais
aussi Il les conduit par l’Esprit vers ce qu’elles doivent être, tout en
révélant en Lui le sens réalisé de la création et de la Révélation.
En outre, le Christ révélé dans cette acception-là demeure et conti-
nue d’œuvrer dans la création, ou Il rend permanente la Révélation,
plénière dans son efficience, afin d’emmener Ses fidèles à l’union
avec Lui et à la divinisation par leur spiritualisation progressive par
l’Esprit Saint, en se servant de trois moyens concrets et inséparables:
la Sainte Église, la Sainte Écriture et la Sainte Tradition.
Dans l’Église se maintient dans son efficience perpétuelle l’œuvre du
Verbe de Dieu dans l’humanité, puisque l’Église est le milieu du dialogue
5
Pr. Prof. Dumitru Stăniloae, « Dumnezeu Cuvântul cel întrupat sfinţeşte creaţia prin
cuvântul şi fapta omenească a sa şi a omului şi în special a preotului », Mitropolia Olteniei 4
(1991), p.13-14.

65
Prof. Dr. Ciprian Streza

vivant entre l’homme et Dieu, le milieu de la découverte par la grâce de Sa vo-


lonté et de Sa miséricorde active, le milieu de la louange et de la glorification
du Créateur. „Ainsi, infère le grand théologien Dumitru Stăniloae, l’Église
est la Révélation surnaturelle achevée dans le Christ, dans son efficience sur
nous, au cours des temps, par le Saint Esprit; c’est la Révélation surnaturelle
arrivée à son parachèvement dans le Christ dans Son action d’extension et de
fécondation totale dans ceux qui y croient”6.
Dans le culte de l’Église le Verbe de Dieu est toujours vivant et agissant.
Après la Résurrection et l’Ascension, notre Sauveur Jésus Christ ne cesse pas
d’annoncer Sa vérité, par l’entremise de la hiérarchie sacramentale. Le Verbe
de Dieu dans le culte de l’Église a pour but non seulement la communica-
tion ininterrompue de la bonne nouvelle au monde, mais notamment l’ex-
hortation à l’accomplissement de la volonté de Dieu. Les paroles du Christ
proférées dans le culte expriment le Christ et elles invitent et insufflent aux
auditeurs, par le Saint Esprit, la vie et la sainteté et la pureté de la vie dans le
Christ7. Par les Saints Mystères chaque croyant réitère la vie du Christ, à savoir
la vie qui est annoncée par les Saintes Évangiles et avec laquelle les chrétiens
communient par le moyen de chaque œuvre sacramentale de l’Église.

La Parole de Dieu dans la Liturgie


La Sainte Ecriture est ne dans le culte chrétien, dans la tradition de la
prière de l’Eglise, mais aussi dans son tour, la Bible a été transpose en liturgie
dans la vie sacramentaire. L’ensemble des offices est composé de passages des
Saintes Ecritures, de leurs paraphrases et commentaires. La liturgie parcourt
la Bible dans sa totalité et interprète en perspective trinitaire et christolo-
gique les étapes majeures de l’économie du salut.
L’ensemble des offices constitue ainsi une véritable « théologie liturgique
» d’une inégalable richesse et qui remonte à la prédication et à la vie apos-
tolique. On y trouve tous les événements privilégiés de l’histoire du salut et
ce qu’il y a de plus vigoureux, et de plus clair dans la doctrine des Pères et la
didascalie de l’Eglise, leur sève même.
Cet avènement-parousie de la Vérité divine fait de la liturgie le « lieu
théologique » par excellence et conditionne le principe lex orandi - lex cnden-
di. Comme jadis par les prophètes, l’Esprit-Saint parle par la liturgie, mani-
feste le Christ présent et fait comprendre que la Tradition, surtout liturgique,
6
Pr. Prof. D. Stăniloae, Teologia Dogmatică Ortodoxă, vol. I, Bucureşti, 2003, p. 50.
7
Idem, Spiritualitate şi comuniune în Liturghia ortodoxă, Craiova, 1986, p. 196.

66
La parole de Dieu dans l’histoire du salut

c’est le Verbe qui commente sans cesse ses propres paroles évangéliques au
moyen de tous les éléments de la Tradition. La liturgie c’est l’Eglise en Parole
et en Mystère eucharistique.8
La Liturgie est le milieu de la rencontre, de la communion de l’homme
avec Dieu ou le Tout Puissant est présent par le chant, par la parole divine et
par la Eucharistie. On parle de deux grandes parties de la Liturgie: la Litur-
gie de la Parole, et la Liturgie eucharistique. Dans la première, la lecture de
l’Evangile apporte un premier sommet de la communion: On consomme «
eucharistiquement» la « parole mystérieusement rompue »9 on se nourrit de la
Parole divine en vue de la communion planaire avec le Christ dans l’Eucharis-
tie.10 Dans la Bible et aussi dans la Liturgie connaître Dieu signifie connaître par
la communion. En effet l’Evangile dit: « Celui qui mange ma chair et boit mon
sang a la vie éternelle» (Jn 6, 54), mais aussi : « Celui qui écoute ma parole... a
la vie éternelle» (Jn 5, 24) et : « La vie éternelle c’est qu’ils te connaissent, toi,
le seul vrai Dieu, et celui que tu as envoye, Jésus Christ. » (Jn 17,3) .
On voit que dans l’Eglise Orthodoxe la Parole de Dieu est inséparable du
Sacrement de la Présence de Dieu dans l’Eucharistie. On n’a pas une interpré-
tation rationnelle de la Sainte Écriture, détachée de l’Eucharistie, à savoir, en
réalité, de l’Église elle-même comme expérience et réalité spirituelle, mais on
a la parole vivante de Dieu, la présence de Dieu parlant à la communauté qui
va Le recevoir dans l’Eucharistie.
Pour cela, selon la tradition ecclésiale liturgique et spirituelle, c’est la liai-
son insécable de la Parole et du Sacrement qui fait que l’être de l’Église se réa-
lise comme incarnation du Verbe, comme devenir de l’Inhumanation dans le
temps et dans l’espace.11
Par l’Eucharistie, nous communions avec Celui qui vient et qui demeure
parmi nous dans sa Parole; et la mission de l’Église consiste à l’annoncer. Le Verbe
pose le Sacrement en tant que son accomplissement, car le Christ-Verbe de-
vient notre vie par le Sacrement. Le Verbe rassemble l’Église afin de s’y incarner.
Séparé du Verbe, le Sacrement risque d’être conçu comme une opération ma-
gique; et, privée du Sacrement, la Parole risque d’être réduite à une « doctrine»12.
8
Paul Evdokimov, La prière de l’Eglise d’Orient, Paris, 1985, p. 42.
9
Origene, Hom. in Exod, 13, 3, PG 13, 1734.
10
Saint Jérôme dit de même dans la Homelie sur l’ Ecclesiaste 3, 13: « Nous man-
geons sa chair et nous buvons son sang dans la divine eucharistie, mais aussi dans la lecture
des Ecritures».
11
Alexandre Schmemann, L’Eucharistie, Sacrament du Royaume, Paris, 1985, p. 67.
12
Ibidem.

67
Prof. Dr. Ciprian Streza

Enfin, c’est par le Sacrement que le Verbe s’interprète, car l’interprétation de la


Parole est toujours le témoignage de la façon dont le Verbe devient notre vie.
« Et le Verbe fut chair et il a habité avec nous... plein de grâce et de vérité »
(Jn. I, 14). Le Sacrement est ce témoignage. Aussi contient-il le principe et la
base de l’interprétation et de la compréhension de la Parole, la source et le
critère de la théologie. Ce n’est que grâce à cette indivisible union de la Parole
et du Sacrement que l’on peut saisir la portée réelle de l’affirmation; seule
l’Église garde le vrai sens de l’Écriture. Aussi la première partie de la liturgie
eucharistique, commencement nécessaire de la « théurgie », est-elle le Sacrement
de la Parole, qui s’achèvera par l’oblation, la sanctification et la distribution des
Saints Dons.13
Pour voir la structure « eucharistique » de la Liturgie de la Parole on va ici
analyser les actes principaux de cette première partie de la Liturgie.

1. La petite entrée
Dans la Liturgie orthodoxe l’entrée avec l’Évangile est nomme comme «
petite entrée. Sous sa forme actuelle, l’accent porte en effet sur l’Évangile: le
diacre, tenant le Livre devant sa face, le fait solennellement sortir du sanctuaire
par la porte diaconale de l’iconostase et, par les Portes Royales, il vient le dé-
poser sur l’autel.
Il faut souligner pour la dernière fois l’étroit parallélisme : comme la
« grande Entrée » de la liturgie des fidèles transfère les oblats et précède la
communion eucharistique, de même la « petite Entrée » traverse le temple
en portant l’Evangile et précède ce qui pour les catéchumènes tient lieu de
l’eucharistie, la lecture de la Parole de Dieu.
Dans l’ancien temps, après l’entrée, les célébrants montaient à « leur place
» pour écouter l’Écriture. La célébration devant l’autel n’intervenait qu’à la
Liturgie des fidèles, c’est-à-dire lors de l’anaphore, de l’Eucharistie proprement
dite. L’officiant n’accédait à l’autel qu’au moment de l’oblation. Le reste du
temps, de même qu’aux offices du jour et du cycle annuel, les célébrants se
tenaient sur le bèma, à savoir: parmi le peuple. Aujourd’hui encore, d’ailleurs,
les parties les plus importantes des offices, par exemple le polyeleos à matines,
sont célébrées au milieu de l’église et non pas dans le sanctuaire. L’autel représen-
tait exclusivement la table de la cène du Seigneur, l’Autel du sacrifice non san-
glant. Il y avait comme deux pôles de la liturgie ; l’un dans l’assemblée, l’autre
devant l’autel. Aussi la première partie, « l’assemblée en Église », l’écoute de
13
Ibidem.

68
La parole de Dieu dans l’histoire du salut

l’Écriture et de l’homélie, avait-elle lieu non pas dans le sanctuaire, mais dans la
nef, à partir de la bèma, réservée aux célébrants.14 Il y avait d’abord l’entrée dans
le temple (sens premier de la « petite entrée »), puis la procession du clergé
à « sa place » pour y célébrer la liturgie de la Parole (deuxième sens de la
« petite entrée ») ; ensuite, les célébrants se rendaient dans le sanctuaire, devant
l’autel, pour l’oblation et la sanctification des dons (« grande entrée » actuelle.
Ces trois processions exprimaient le symbolisme fondamental de l’assemblée
ecclésiale : sa montée vers le Royaume de Dieu15...
La « petite entrée » a progressivement combiné trois « dimensions » essen-
tielles: le début de l’Eucharistie comme entrée dans l’assemblée ; l’achèvement
de cette première entrée comme accession de l’Église au sanctuaire céleste (prière
et chant du Trisagion, montée vers l’autel) ; enfin, l’accomplissement de ce com-
mencement de la Liturgie par le sacrement de la Parole.
Dans la tradition de l’Orthodoxie, l’Évangile fait partie de la liturgie
non seulement comme chose lue, mais encore comme une chose vivante,
comme quelque chose a vivre. Lorsque Dieu parle, Il agit. Sa Parole n’est pas
une mode de communication intellectuelle, mais elle est un acte d’engage-
ment dans l’histoire, elle est une intervention directe de Dieu dans l’âme du
croyant. L’homme, c’est à dire la totalité de la personne, ainsi interpelle par
l’acte de Dieu, est mis en demeure de répondre par un acte d’engagement
d’appliquer en pratique les divins commandements.16
L’entrée avec l’Évangile, n’est pas un simple « figuration », une mise en
scène sacrée d’un événement du passé : la sortie du Christ dans le monde
pour y prêcher, mais elle signifie la manifestation du Seigneur ressuscité
selon sa promesse : « Là où deux ou trois se trouvent réunis en mon nom, je suis
au milieu d’eux » (Mt. XVIII, 20).
De même que la sanctification des dons est précédée de leur apport à l’autel,
de même la lecture et la proclamation de la Parole sont précédées de sa mani-
festation. « l’entrée avec l’Évangile » est notre rencontre, rencontre joyeuse,
avec le Christ : ce Livre de tous les livres procède vers nous, et toujours il devient
puissance, vie et sanctification17...
Dans la Liturgie la lecture de la Parole de Dieu ne comporte pas un
simple caractère auditif. Elle exprime avant toute l’intervention de Dieu dans
14
Karl Christian Felmy, De la Cina de Taină la Dumnezeiasca Liturghie a Bisericii Or-
todoxe, Sibiu, 2004, p. 180-181.
15
Alexander Schmemann, L’ Eucharistie…, p. 67.
16
Jean-Philippe Ramseyer, La parole et l’image. Liturgie, Architecture et art sacre, Neu-
chatel, 1963, p. 12.
17
Alexander Schmemann, L’ Eucharistie…, p. 68.

69
Prof. Dr. Ciprian Streza

l’histoire et elle a la puissance de l’acte créateur, parce que les mots se trouvent
être lies à des événements, qui dans la Liturgie deviennent à leur tour des ma-
nifestations de la Parole en les faisant actuelles par l’action de l’Esprit Saint.18
La Parole est vivante par l’Esprit Vivifiant qui s’y repose. Dieu a voulu
que le Christ forme le Corps où ses paroles viennent résonner comme paroles
de vie ; Dieu a voulu que l’Eglise forme ce lieu où le Christ parle et commente
ses propres paroles au moyen de tous les éléments de la Tradition. C’est donc
au-dedans de lui, dans l’Eglise, qu’il faut lire et écouter. Seule l’Eglise garde la
Parole et la clef pour l’ouvrir, car elle écoute l’Esprit qui l’a dictée, et l’Eglise
est l’Esprit.
Ainsi, en plaçant la lecture de la Parole au cœur de la liturgie des caté-
chumènes, l’ensemble liturgique veut suggérer, par analogie avec l’eucharistie,
que toute lecture lors du culte conduit à la présence réelle, à la rencontre du
Verbe, à la communion, consommation substantielle de la Parole. C’est pour-
quoi l’avertissement retentit: «Soyons attentifs. Sagesse !»19
« Paix à tous ! » annonce l’officiant à l’assemblée. Elle lui répond ; « Et à ton
esprit ». La Paix était le Nom du Christ, que c›était Lui-même, la paix est aussi
le royaume de Dieu selon Nicolas Cabasilas, qui est annonce pendant toute
la Liturgie.20 Précédant chaque nouvelle partie de la liturgie eucharistique : la
lecture de la Parole de Dieu, le baiser de paix, la distribution des espèces, cette
invocation rappelle à chaque fois que le Christ est notre Paix, Il est « au milieu de
nous », et Il préside lui-même notre Eucharistie, et pour sentir sa présence il faut
avoir sa paix dans notre âme.21

2. Le Prokimenon
L’on proclame ensuite le prokimène (ou prokimenon). Ce terme, qui si-
gnifie en grec « ce qui se trouve avant », désigne aujourd’hui deux ou trois
versets des Psaumes, que le chantre et le peuple (ou le chœur) exécutent sur
le mode antiphonique. Dans l’antiquité, le prokimène était composé d’un
psaume entier dont le chant « précédait » la lecture de la Sainte Écriture.
Pour comprendre le rôle spécial et sans doute important qu’il continue de
jouer dans la liturgie orthodoxe, il faut rappeler la valeur éminente des Psaumes
dans l’Église primitive. Le Psautier représentait non seulement l’un des « som-
18
Pr. Prof. Dumitru Stăniloae, Spiritualitate şi comuniune în liturghia ortodoxă, Craio-
va, 1986, p. 191.
19
Paul Evdokimov, La prière de l’Eglise..., p. 165.
20
Nicolae Cabasila, Explicarea Sfintei Liturghii, Bucureşti, 1989, p. 45.
21
Ibidem, p. 45.

70
La parole de Dieu dans l’histoire du salut

mets » de la prophétie et de la prière de l’Ancien Testament, mais un don de


Dieu, une révélation de Dieu a son peuple. Dans le culte judaïque, Dieu n’était
jamais conçu de manière abstraite, de manière générale, mais toujours avec
en corrélation avec un fait fondamental: Son Alliance avec Son peuple. Ainsi,
la bénédiction, le remerciement et la louange dans les psaumes ne sont que la
réponse de l’homme à la Parole de Dieu.22
La parole de Dieu est la découverte de Dieu dans ce qu’Il désire pour
Son peuple. La connaissance et l’accomplissement des commandements di-
vins scellent le peuple choisi. La parole révélée définit le cadre de la vie de
communion entre Dieu et ses élus, la bénédiction cultique étant sa forme
d’expression privilégiée. La Parole de Dieu est le don qui engage. Elle défi-
nit les cadres de l’existence heureuse de l’homme avec Dieu, et sa connais-
sance et son accomplissement scellent le peuple élu, créent une communion
d’une telle manière que la même parole inspirée devient révélation de Dieu
et, en même temps, louange et remerciement de l’homme. La complémen-
tarité entre la découverte de Dieu dans ce qu’Il désire pour Son peuple et
la louange et le remerciement qui lui sont adressés par Ses élus trouve son
expression de manière plénière dans le livre des psaumes. La Parole de Dieu
dans le chant inspiré est une Parole créatrice de communion: les Psaumes, le
chant du peuple élu, ont nourri progressivement et ont préparé l’épanouisse-
ment de la bénédiction cultique dans laquelle cette communion entre Dieu
et l’homme trouve une nouvelle forme d’expression.23 En donnant la béné-
diction pour tout ce qu’il a reçu et consacrant à travers la bénédiction chaque
action, l’homme transforme le profane en sacré, les objets en dons, les choses
en paroles d’amour. A travers la bénédiction, le monde devient un immense
sanctuaire où l’on apporte sans cesse à Dieu l’offrande pure dont parle le Saint
Prophète Malachie (Malachie 1, 10-12).
Le prokimène, « psaume qui précède », introduit au sacrement de la Pa-
role. Celle-ci, en effet, ne s’adresse pas à la seule raison, mais à l’homme inté-
gral, à ce qu’il a de plus profond, à son cœur, comme disent les Pères, organe
de la connaissance religieuse, par opposition à la connaissance incomplète,
discursive et rationnelle de « ce monde ». «L’ouverture de l’intelligence» précède
l’écoute et la compréhension de la Parole ; « Alors il leur ouvrit l’intelligence
pour comprendre les Écritures » (Lc. XXIV, 45). L’on peut dire que la procla-
mation joyeuse et répétée du prokimène, sa « communication » à l’assemblée
22
Louis Bouyer, Eucharistie:Théologie et spiritualité de la prière eucharistique, p. 36.
23
Louis Bouyer, Eucharistie:Théologie et spiritualité.., p. 46-51.

71
Prof. Dr. Ciprian Streza

et sa réception par celle-ci correspondent au moment où l’intelligence «s’ouvre


» et rejoint le cœur pour que nous entendions les paroles de l’Écriture comme
celles du Seigneur.

3. La lecture de l’Epître
Après le prokimène, on lit l’Apôtre (l’Épître), une leçon de la deuxième
partie, « apostolique », du Nouveau Testament. Dans l’antiquité la lecture
de la Sainte Écriture comprenait une ou plusieurs leçons vétérotestamen-
taires. La lecture de l’Apôtre précède celle de l‘Evangile parce que l’ensei-
gnement apostolique prépare l’âme du chrétien pour comprendre la parole
du Seigneur.24
Ce nom d’Apôtre veut dire que pendant la lecture liturgique, c’est réel-
lement l’apôtre, auteur de la préricope lue, qui prononce sa lecture, c’est
sa voix réelle qu’on entend. C’est la voix de la tradition toujours vivante de
l’Eglise. C’est le besoin propre de la foi de reconnaître la succession orante
ininterrompue et de relier ainsi sa liturgie à la tradition apostolique.

4. L’Alléluia
Après l’Epître, on chante trois fois “Alléluia”. La leçon de l’Evangile est
précédée de ce chant et d’un encensement. L’Alléluia a une semnification
unique. Il constituait jadis une partie importante de toute la liturgie chré-
tienne. Hérité de la prière judaïque, il relève du type des chants « mélisma-
tiques ». A la différence de la psalmodie, la mélodie l’y emporte sur la parole.
L’on peut penser qu’avant l’apparition d’une hymnologie plus « savante »
(tropaires, kontakia, stichères), où texte et mélisme se déterminent mutuel-
lement, l’Église ne connaissait que deux genres de chant, selon les deux
conceptions essentielles de la liturgie chrétienne. La psalmodie, c’est-à-dire
l’exécution sur un rythme musical d’un texte scripturaire ou d’une prière,
exprimait le caractère verbal de la liturgie : la parole y était première, qu’elle
fût celle de l’Écriture, du témoignage apostolique ou de la tradition de la
foi. Le chant mélismatique, pour sa part, véhiculait l’expérience liturgique
comme contact réel avec le transcendant, comme entrée dans la réalité sur
mondiale du Royaume.
Le terme “Alléluia” même n’est pas un simple mot, c’est une sorte de pro-
clamation mélodique. On peut certes le traduire par « Dieu soit loué ! », mais ce
contenu sémantique ne l’épuisé ni ne l’exprime complètement, car il est par lui-
24
Pr. Prof. Dumitru Stăniloae, Spiritualitate şi comuniune în liturghia ortodoxă, p. 89.

72
La parole de Dieu dans l’histoire du salut

même un élan de joie et de louange, suscité par la manifestation du Seigneur ;


il est une « réaction » à sa venue.25
L’Alléluia est effectivement une salutation, au sens le plus profond du
terme. Or une salutation, qui suppose une manifestation, à laquelle elle réagit.
Le chant de l’Alléluia précède la lecture de l’Évangile parce que la manifestation
du Seigneur à « l’assemblée ecclésiale », dont il ouvre l’intelligence, vient avant
l’audition de la Parole. Nous avons conservé des mélodies antiques de l’Alléluia
par le son, par le mélisme, elles expriment la joie, la louange et l’expérience de la
Présence ; elles sont plus réelles que ne le seraient des explications verbales...
L’officiant lit la prière avant l’Évangile, par laquelle il demande à Dieu
d’envoyer « la lumière incorruptible de son intelligence divine et d’ouvrir nos
yeux spirituels pour la compréhension des prédications évangéliques ». Lue au-
jourd’hui à voix basse, comme nous l’avons rappelé, cette prière occupe dans le sa-
crement de la Parole la même place que l’épiclèse dans l’anaphore, la prière pour
que le Père envoie son Saint Esprit. De même que la sanctification des dons, la
compréhension et la réception de la Parole ne dépendent pas de notre seul désir:
la condition essentielle en est que nos « yeux spirituels » soient mystérieusement
transformés, que l’Esprit Saint vienne sur nous. C’est ce dont témoigne aussi
la bénédiction donnée au diacre pour lire la Parole : l’« annoncer avec grande
puissance pour l’accomplissement de l’Évangile »...

5. La lecture de l’Evangile
La lecture de l’Evangile pendant les dimanches de l’âne liturgique a
comme but de présenter le Christ comme Dieu vivant, comme Parole de
Dieu qui intervient dans l’histoire, comme Dieu aimant qui enseigne, qui
attire l’homme a sa communion d’amour.
Les mots de la révélation biblique ne sont pas une simple description de
l’intervention de Dieu dans l’histoire. Ils sont liés à des évènements de la vie
de Jésus Christ qui par l’action de l’Esprit Saint sont actualisé dans la vie du
chaque chrétien.

6. La prédication
La prédication vient témoigner de ce que 1a Parole de Dieu est entendue,
comprise et reçue. L’homélie est organiquement liée à la lecture de l’Écriture.
Dans l’Église primitive, elle faisait partie intégrante de la « synaxe », acte li-
turgique essentiel de l’Église, témoignage permanent de l’Esprit Saint qui vit
25
Alexandre Schmemann, L’Eucharistie, Sacrament du Royaume, Paris, 1985, p. 74.

73
Prof. Dr. Ciprian Streza

dans l’Église et qui la fait accéder à la vérité entière (Jn. XVI, 13). Grâce à
l’Esprit de la Vérité, l’Église a entendu et elle a reconnu dans ces textes la Pa-
role de Dieu; et elle continue de la reconnaître, de l’entendre et de l’annoncer.
La prédication témoigne que la Parole a été proclamée, écoutée et
reçue. Elle n’est point une simple explication d’un passage des Ecritures, elle
n’est pas la prédication sur l’Evangile mais la prédication de l’Evangile lui-
même donc du Christ total. Il y a lieu de le dire : ce n’est pas la parole hu-
maine mais la parole de Dieu, c’est la lecture de l’Evangile dans la réunion de
l’Eglise sur laquelle le charisme de l’Esprit repose.
Témoigner de Jésus-Christ par l’Esprit Saint : tel est le contenu de la Parole
de Dieu et c’est l’unique substance de la prédication : « Et c’est l’Esprit qui rend
témoignage, parce que l’Esprit est la Vérité » (I Jn. V, 6). L’ambon de l’église est
le lieu où le sacrement de la Parole s’accomplit.26
Voilà pourquoi toute la tradition et la théologie ecclésiales sont nées pré-
cisément de « l’assemblée en Église », de ce sacrement de l’annonce évangélique.
Voilà pourquoi celle-ci nous permet de saisir le sens profond, vivant, et non
pas abstrait, de l’affirmation orthodoxe classique : la garde de l’Écriture et
son interprétation ne sont confiées qu’à l’Église. En effet, la tradition n’est
nullement une autre source de la foi, qui viendrait « compléter » l’Écriture
; elle est cette même source : la vivante Parole de Dieu, entendue et reçue
par l’Eglise. La tradition consiste à interpréter l’Écriture comme source de la
Vie même, et non pas à commenter telle péricope selon une thèse donnée,
conduisant à telle « conclusion ».
Si seule l’Église connaît et garde le sens de l’Écriture, c’est uniquement
parce que, dans le sacrement de la Parole, accompli par l’assemblée ecclésiale,
le Saint Esprit ne cesse de rendre vivante la « chair » de l’Écriture pour la
transformer en « Esprit et Vie »27. La théologie authentique et ecclésiale est en-
racinée dans ce sacrement, dans cette assemblée, où l’Esprit de Dieu instruit
l’Église même, et non pas tels de ses membres individuels, en toute vérité.
Aussi chaque lecture « personnelle » de l’Écriture doit-elle se fonder sur celle
de l’Église. En dehors de 1’intelligence de l’Église et de sa vie théanthropique,
on ne peut ni entendre ni comprendre correctement l’Écriture. Par le double
acte de la lecture et de l’annonce, le sacrement de la Parole en assemblée est la
source de la croissance de chacun et de tous ensemble vers la plénitude de la
connaissance de la Vérité.
26
Alexandre Schmemann, L’Eucharistie…, p. 75.
27
Ibidem, p. 78.

74
La parole de Dieu dans l’histoire du salut

Enfin, le sacrement de la Parole manifeste la collaboration de la hié-


rarchie avec les laïcs pour garder la Vérité, mission qui est celle du corps entier
de l’Église, c’est-à-dire du peuple lui-même. D’une part, la prédication réalise
le don d’enseignement, conféré au célébrant comme son ministère didascalique
dans l’assemblée ecclésiale. D’autre part, et justement parce que la prédication
est non pas un « talent » personnel, mais un charisme donné à l’Église et mis
en œuvre dans son assemblée, le ministère d’enseignement de la hiérarchie est
inséparable de l’assemblée, qui en est la source de grâce. Le Saint Esprit repose
sur l’Église entière. 28
L’Église tout entière, manifestée et réalisée par l’assemblée liturgique, a
seule l’intelligence du Christ. C’est seulement dans l’assemblée que tous les
dons, tous les ministères s’actualisent avec leur unité indivisible comme des
manifestations de l’unique Esprit qui emplit tout le Corps. Et c’est pourquoi,
enfin, il appartient à chaque membre de l’Église, quel qu’y soit son « rang »,
de porter témoignage, devant la face de ce monde, de toute la plénitude de
l’Église et non pas seulement de son attitude à lui.
Dans l’antiquité, l’assemblée répondait par l’Amèn à la prédication en
attestant ainsi que la Parole était reçue et que l’assemblée était unanime avec
le prédicateur dans l’Esprit. C’est dans l’Amen du peuple de Dieu qu’est le
principe de la « réception » de la doctrine par la conscience ecclésiale, récep-
tion dont parlent si souvent les théologiens orthodoxes.

Conclusion
Aucune expression de la vie chrétienne n’est plus complètement, plus
adéquatement la manifestation de la Parole de Dieu que la Liturgie, parce
que par elle la Bible est lie à l’Eucharistie.
Dans la liturgie, en effet, la parole de Dieu et la parole humaine se ré-
pondent et se complètent, en elle elles vivent de la même vie, dans une même
action et pour un même témoignage. La liturgie, c’est une parole en acte,
c’est une image parlée, c’est l’annonce des choses qu’on espère, et c’est aussi la
démonstration de celles qu’on ne voit pas. La liturgie est image anticipée du
Royaume, mais en même temps elle est aussi parole prophétique. La liturgie
est présence de Dieu. La parole de la prédication n’y est pas seulement annon-
cée, elle y est encore située dans une architecture et dans un environnement de
formes et de couleurs, de musique et de poésie. L’art, sous quelque forme que
ce soit, se voit appelé à exercer sa fonction la plus noble, qui est d’exprimer le
28
Ibidem, p. 79.

75
Prof. Dr. Ciprian Streza

soupir et la louange de la créature, dans l’offrande de soi au Créateur. Aucun


des éléments constituant la liturgie ne doit jouer son rôle indépendamment
des autres rôles, aucun ne peut et ne doit y aller de sa petite production per-
sonnelle, de sa chanson particulière ou de son exposition privée, même avec
l’intention, sans doute estimable, d’embellir le culte. La célébration liturgique
forme un tout, et ce toute comporte une intégration organique de ses diverses
composantes, pour faire le Christ présent.
Le Mystère de la présence de Dieu réunit dans la Liturgie la parole de
Dieu, la parole humaine, l’icône et le chant dans une seule et fulgurante ma-
nifestation de la gloire eschatologique dans ce monde, et pour cela nous chan-
tons: « Nous trouvant dans l’église, nous nous croyons d’être dans Ta gloire
céleste ».

76
Theology and Theologies
The Ambivalence and the Limitation of Language in History

Assist. Prof. PhD Cristian Sonea

1. In essence, theology is experience


I will not stop to synthetize the different meanings of the word theology
as expressed in Orthodoxy, I will only mention the definition according to
which theology is God’s mystery revealed to man in the embodied Son of
God, which can be known by man to the extent to which he participates per-
sonally to the mystery of Christ or the mystery of His person.
By confessing to the world the experience of the mystery of God, the prob-
lem of the way in which one can express the truth and the relationship between
the contents of the mystery of God, which is unknown in its essence, and its
linguistic conceptualization is brought into discussion. Eastern theology con-
siders that theology is in itself an experience that determines the theological
language.1 The one that speaks about God and does not live the truth expressed
in the language of the Scriptures, for instance, “will never know which truth one
should speak using the contemporary language since faith – the experience of
the truth – is overall identified with the real knowledge of truth.”2
2. The ambivalence and the limitation of the language through-
out history
Expressing the truth that one truly lives brings forth the problem of the lan-
guage to the extent to which theology is considered the essence of the experience.
1
Nicolae Răzvan Stan, “Teologia – Taina cunoaşterii lui Dumnezeu prin trăirea ascetică,
experienţa eclesială şi aprofundarea adevărurilor doctrinare”, in: Revelaţie, Dogmă şi Spiri-
tualitate în Perspectiva Misiunii Bisericii. Al III-lea Colocviu Naţional de Teologie Dogmatică
Ortodoxă, Cluj-Napoca, 25-26 mai 2010, editors Pr. Prof. Dr. Valer Bel şi Pr. Asist. Dr. Cris-
tian Sonea, Ed. Renaşterea, Cluj-Napoca, 2011, pp. 342-351.
2
Stilianou Papadopoulou, Teologie şi limbă. Teologie experimentală. Limbă convenţională.
Editura Mitropoliei Olteniei, Craiova, 2007, p. 27.

77
Assist. Prof. PhD Cristian Sonea

CanonulOrtodoxiei (The Orthodoxy’s Canon), mentions the analysis of


Jean-Luc Marion, the French philosopher, who claimed that the theological
speech, due to its bipolar character – theo-logical -, can be practiced in two
registers according to the priority given to one or the other of its two compo-
nents – God and reason – and can be presented accordingly as a rational theo-
logy, in which man is the one who speaks about God (de Deo, periTheou), or as
a revealed theo-logy, in which God speaks about Himself and men speak based
on the word of God about Himself (a Deo, paraTheou). Theo-logy’s original
“site” in Christianity is a “Eucharistic” one, and this assertion is exemplified
in the paradigmatic episode from the Gospel according to Luke (24: 13-35)
in which we can find the description of the experience that the Resurrected
Christ and His disciples had on their way to Emmaus the third day after the
Resurrection: although the disciples were very well aware of the messianic
texts of the Hebrew Scriptures, they did not understand them in spite of
the fact that these were about Christ because the text is not the revelation
itself but the consequence of it; these texts become understandable only when
the very non-textual divine Word goes through the text and makes Himself
known to the others as He disappears in the exact moment of His revelation
in the Eucharist during the breaking of the bread.3

3. The Limits of the Language and the Church Formulae as an


expresion of human reason transfigured by the Holy Spirit
Because it is absolutely necessary to the way in which theology expressed
itself throughout history, the truth is perceived as a factual, phonetic or
graphic4 expression of the divine reasons (logoi) which reach the entire cre-
ation. We believe that there is a certain correspondence between the natures
of the linguistically conceptualized or defined subject/object, though this cor-
respondence is not definitive and all-inclusive. To a certain extent, language
establishes a connection and is indicative even if we accept it to be conven-
tional, arbitrary or instrumental.
Theologian Adrian Podaru in the introduction he wrote to the Romanian
translation of Bishop Gregory of Nyssa’s Encomium to his brother Saint Basil, the
Archbishop of Caesarea from Cappadocia presents Saint Gregory’s thoughts on
3
Ioan I. Ică jr., Canonul Ortodoxiei I. Canonul apostolic al primelor secole, Editura Dei-
sis/Stavropoleos, 2008, pp. 61 ş.u.
4
Dumitru Stăniloae, “Revelaţia prin acte, cuvinte şi imagini”, in Ortodoxia, nr. 3
(1968), pp. 347-377.

78
Theology and Theologies

man’s historical condition and on the language he employs within the limits
set by this condition. According to Saint Gregory of Nyssa “the teleologi-
cal unity and the axiological equality of the saints reaches the Holy Trinity
through their relationship with eternity, and the successive presence of the
saints throughout history is due to the creature-condition of man, to the so-
called diastemic condition of the being. The concept of dia/sthma («gap»)
defines the being’s limited condition, its ability of moving within the limits
of space, time or of another nature. «This gap is the creation itself» as Saint
Gregory says in the Homilies to the Ecclesiast.5 God, on the other hand, has
aadistemic existence, which points to the immeasurableness and incompre-
hensibleness of the divine simplicity. The main event in the history of man’s
redemption, the Embodiment of the Son of God is seen by Saint Gregory as a
metadiastemic intervention of the Divinity in the world. In the same way, the
deification of every one of us is also a metadiastemic intervention of the Holy
Spirit, Who dwells in us, in our transfiguration”6.
The language itself is a human intervention in spite of the fact that
the ability to use it is a divine gift. Gregory reached this conclusion during
an argument with Eunomius who claimed that the meanings of the words
are established and guaranteed by God. By stating the human origin of the
language, Gregory emphasised the free, active and creative nature of the hu-
man intellect while Eunomius reduced human reason only to its receptive
function. If the language is a human invention, the product of a diastemic
being, the immediate consequence is none other than the language itself is
subjected to the conditions of the dia/sthma. On one hand, we have Basil
who is and is not a diastemic being (thanks to the metadiastemic interven-
tion of the Holy Spirit in his being) and on the other hand we have the
language, a completely diastemic instrument, which is useless in portray-
ing and praising Basil, this deified man. The language will be useful to us
in praising Basil the man, but unuseful in praising Basil the deified man.
There only one possible solution to how Basil can be properly praised: m/
mhsi that is imitating Basil.This means that each of us must strive to receive
the Holy Spirit.7
5
τὸ δὲ διάστημα οὐδέν ἅλλο ἡ κτίσι έστιν (TLG 029 5.412.14).
6
Adrian Podaru, “Encomionului Sfântului Grigorie, episcopul Nyssei, [rostit în cin-
stea] fratelui său, Sfântul Vasile, Arhiepiscopul Cezareei Capadociei”, in ROOTS, nr. 1, s.a.,
pp. 51-52.
7
Adrian Podaru, “Encomionului Sfântului Grigorie, episcopul Nyssei, [rostit în cin-
stea] fratelui său, Sfântul Vasile, Arhiepiscopul Cezareei Capadociei”, pp. 51-52.

79
Assist. Prof. PhD Cristian Sonea

In the circumstances of the diastemic existence, the divine being is not


found in the words that conceptualize it.8 These words do not encompass the
existence and are not identified with it. If they would, this could mean that
every person that invents and uses a characterization of the divine existence is
automatically worthy of it, which is impossible to accomplish and represents a
blasphemy. No word or image is sufficient and none of these is able to “reach
the truth”. For sure, the theologian, who is a bearer of the Church’s life and
who experiences the truth, is moved by the Holy Spirit whose fulfilling ratio-
nal organ becomes.9
The Holy Spirit moves the mind of the theologian who expresses logi-
cally and inductively his experience-communion with the truth. In theology,
words not only signify or express the truth, they do not comprise or identify
it, partly or entirely. The possibility of words and of the images of the sensible
reality reaches only as far as the signalling, declaration or underlining of a fact
that represents the experience of the truth.According to StilianouPapadopou-
lou, the theological language of the Church there is no „analogy between the
truth and the language”10, which, in our view is not entirely accurate. Follow-
ing the same direction, but relativizing completely the value of the formulae
of Revelation, A. Kartashov considers that they are mere forms determined by
the culture of different historical times and the Church should not absolutize
the formulae specific to these categories, as it would mean a monophysiteab-
solutization of the humanity, butkeeping the meaning of the Revelation, it
should dress it in a new form or a new language, appropriate to the historical
time in which the truth is being confessed.11 The Greek theologian Stilianou-
Papadopoulou notices that the absolutization of language can be found in
the Protestant theology12 and, probably because of this he is in favour of a
complete conventionality of the language.
Although language, as we saw in the works of Gregory of Nyssa , is the
product of a diastemic being, In Father DumitruStaniloae’s opinion „Our
Church believes that its official formulae were an expression not of pure hu-
manity, but of humanity transfigured by the Holy Spirit. [...] It is not always
that easy to draw a line between the meanings of the Revelation and their
8
Sfântul Grigorie al Nyssei, Contra lui Eunomiu, II, 291, PG 45,1005.
9
See Sfântul Grigorie al Nyssei, Cuvântul 12, 1, PG 35, 844AB.
10
Stilianou Papadopoulou, Teologie şi limbă, p. 49.
11
Dumitru Stăniloae, “Sfânta Tradiţie. Definirea noţiunii şi extinderea ei”, in Orto-
doxia, nr. 1 (1964), pp. 102-105.
12
Stilianou Papadopoulou, Teologie şi limbă, p. 12.

80
Theology and Theologies

verbal expressions, often these two elements melt into a whole. Or a high
content transfigures the word expressing it, it rises it to its height, transfigures
it and grants it everlastingness. By offering a critical analysis of Kartashov’s
position, father DumitruStaniloae makes a very subtle observation, that the
„static Tradition” and the „dynamic Tradition”, both terms used by Kartashov
in his discourse about theological language, do not refer to the fact that the
meanings of the Revelation are „static” and the formulae are „dynamic”, but
that „in reality, the Tradition is alive (dynamic n.n.) and, at the same time,
steadfast, both in its expression and in its meaning. In conclusion, it is not
about forbidding new official formulae, when circumstances require it, but
about preserving the old ones as well, about not considering that they have
lost their authority, thus it is about making sure that the new formulae are an
organic prolongation of the old ones, in a perfect harmony. “We cannot be
satisfied with a theology of repetition of the patristic formulae, but we can’t
agree either with abandoning entirely its spirit. In this sense, Church has to
be patristic today too in its thinking. We do not believe that the eight centu-
ries should preserve exclusively the same normative nature, but its character
can be borrowed by the current thinking [...] patristic thinking is considered
normative not only as a source, but also as a model that can be followed over
the centuries.”13

4. The absolutization of language and the appearance of the


contextual theologies
At the opposite side of the antinomical understanding of language, lim-
ited and, at the same time, open towards the truth through the illumination
of the Holy Spirit, there are the philosophical-hermeneutical theories which
absolutize language so that „the word of the Gospels contains and establishes
the existence of the truth and identifies with it”14. The relational and indica-
tive character of language is replaced by a self-referential character, the re-
vealed text becomes Revelation itself. Although one may believe that through
this approach the basis for an authentic theology is set, in fact it opens the
way towards relativism and theological ambiguity.As language is a living, con-
textual system, always adapting, always changing, theology itself is thus trans-
formed into a series of local theologies, dependent or defined by the context.
13
Dumitru Stăniloae, “Sfânta Tradiţie. Definirea noţiunii şi extinderea ei”, in Orto-
doxia, nr. 1 (1964), p. 104-105.
14
Stilianou Papadopoulou, Teologie şi limbă, p. 12.

81
Assist. Prof. PhD Cristian Sonea

In Transforming Mission, David Bosch notices that Friedrich Schlei-


ermacher is one of the first to reject the interpretation according to which
the Protestant Reformation was an attempt to restore the apostolic church,
since, in his view, “the church is always in the process of becoming”15 and
should not concern itself with recreating the past, but should mirror the real life
and experience of the members of the church, as influenced by a specific context.
In their turn, the messages transmitted were also determined by the environment
and could not escape the various external influences.However, the missiologist
David J. Bosch considers that Schleiermacher did not realize that his inter-
pretations were conditioned by their context, in a similar manner as those
he was criticizing.
In his argumentation, David Bosch brings up Paul Ricoeur’s theory
of interpretation, according to which the reader creates the text when she
or he reads it. Umberto Eco is another advocate for this idea, especially
in his workOpertaAperta, in which he claims that the text is open and dy-
namic and cannot be limited to a single reading.Still, David Bosch, notices
that“interpreting a text is not only a literary exercise; it is also a social, eco-
nomic, and political exercise. Our entire context comes into play when we
interpret a biblical text”.16
The word “contextualization” first appeared in the 1970s, referring
mainly to the task of the education and formation of people for the church’s
ministry.17According to David Bosch, two major types of contextual theology
were identified: the indigenization model and the socio-economic model.
For the Eastern Tradition this kind of argumentation is inaccurate. The
followers of the „contextual teologies”state „the essentially contextual nature
of the faith”. „For many centuries every deviation from what any group de-
clared to be the orthodox faith was viewed in terms of heterodoxy, even heresy.
This was the case particularly after the Christian church became established in
the Roman Empire. Arianism, Donatism, Pelagianism, Nestorianism, Mono-
physitism, and numerous similar movements were all regarded as doctrinally
heterodox and their adherents excommunicated, persecuted, or banned. The
role of cultural, political, and social factors in the genesis of such movements
was not recognized.”18
15
David J. Bosch, Transforming Mission. Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission, Orbis
Books, New York, 2008, p. 422.
16
David Bosch, Transforming Mission, p. 423.
17
See David Bosch, Transforming Mission, p. 423.
18
David Bosch, Transforming Mission,pp. 420-421.

82
Theology and Theologies

According to the orthodox faith, however, we can talk about a „basic


theology” and a „high theology” but the determination of the content of faith
starting from contextual realities, such as language, for example, cannot be
considered criteria for Tradition.
In a theological discourse about the relationship between theology and
economy, Fr. DumitruPopescu said that on one hand “the Son of God de-
scends from the Trinitarian’s life plan, ad intra, onto the level of the work of
the divine economy, ad extra. There is an infinite distinction between these
two levels because God’s Trinitarian life (understood as a divine theology n.n.)
belongs to the unbegotten divine Being, who has never been seen by anyone,
while the pan of the divine economy belongs to the uncreated work of God
through which the Son descends on earth to redeem all human kind. On the
other hand, there is an indissoluble connection between these two levels since,
due to the uncreated energies and the rationality of the visible world, the very
same Word of God descends from the divine theology’s plan onto the divine
economy’s level and He shows Himself to men as the embodied Logos. Be-
cause of the uncreated energies and the rationality of the creation, the Holy
Scriptures bridge the gap between the sensible and the intelligible worlds of
the ancient philosophy which was against the embodiment of God and which
was at the foundation of the breach between Jesus and history – as Man on
earth – and the Christ of the divine grace, Who meets God only in Heaven.”19
If we understand things as such, theology represents the mystery of God
Who shows Himself to man in the Embodied Son of God by communicated
Himself to man to the extent to which he personally participates in the mys-
tery of Christ or in the mystery of His being.
This way of understanding theology surpasses in itself all the contextual
conditions in which the theological discourse is formulated. Theology can-
not be determined by the context, it is beyond contextual conditions. It is
received in a linguistic, social and political context, it is articulated with the
help of contextual elements, but cannot be determined by them.20
5. What kind of theological language are we using today?
Between 23 and 28 of May 2013, the international conference entitled
Can Orthodox Theology Be Contextual? Concrete Approaches from the Orthodox
19
Dumitru Popescu, Iisus Hristos Pantocrator, Ed.IBMBOR, Bucureşti, p. 199-200.
20
Nicolae Răzvan Stan, “Importanţa autenticităţii, clarităţii şi actualităţii limbajului
teologic în abordarea ortodoxă”, in: Importanţa pastoral-misonară şi culturală a presei bisericeşti
în Ortodoxia românească, coordinators: Pr. Prof. Dr. Ioan Tulcan şi Pr. Lect. Dr. Filip Albu,
Ed. Universităţii Aurel Vlaicu, Arad, 2010, pp. 137-141.

83
Assist. Prof. PhD Cristian Sonea

Tradition took place in Cluj-Napoca. In his presentation, Fr. Calinic Berger


suggested the expression creativity in continuity meaning by this the transmit-
ting of tradition as experience, so much emphasized by the theology of Fr.
DumitruStaniloae. Theological creativity is nourished by the apophatic ex-
perience of God’s mystery, out of which Fr. Staniloae underlines the positive
character. As God’s word contains all the meaning and the sense (logoi) of
creation, the apohatic and cataphatic knowledge are entwined.
The contact between reason and contemplation is not one of mutual
rejection, the two conditions and feed each other and that because God is be-
yond the rational discourse, but not without reason.21 Strongly influenced by
Saint Maximus the Confessor, D. Stăniloae sees the reasons of things (logoi) as
subjective expressions of the Logos in which all the reasons find their unique,
supreme meaning. Between the reasons of things and the knowledge of the
things through a strictly analytical reason there’s a connection, on one hand,
but on the other hand, there’s a connection between meanings (noema) and
their understanding through a more direct, more intuitive judgment”. The
superior meaning and the supreme meaning are revealed to man according to
the extent to which he manages to get closer to God, in the light of a more
complete revelation of God. „The analytical reason sees things separately, but
accompanied by a spiritual life it intuits its own progress along with its limita-
tions and becomes aware of the fact that „the supreme or complete sense of
each unit is a mystery connected to the mystery of the entire reality and to the
supreme reality that it will never be able to comprehend completely.”22
Returning to the question opening this section, we conclude that the
theological language may be adjusted to the context in the sense that it for-
mulates the experience of the maximal closeness to the word of God, to the
One in Whom all the reasons (sciences, arts, society etc.) find their supreme
meaning and to the One who will never be completely comprehended. In
other words, the experience of the mystery of God determines the theological
discourse. Before God’s mystery, only the awe and the love manage to grasp
something, and the language of awe and love is doxology.

21
Calinic Berger, “Contextual Theology, the «patristic mind», and the Triadology of
Father Dumitru Stăniloae”, during the international conference Can Orthodox Theology Be
Contextual? Concrete Approaches from the Orthodox Tradition, Cluj-Napoca, 2013, m.m., p. 6.
22
Dumitru Stăniloae, Teologia Dogmatică Ortodoxă vol. 1, Ed.IBMOR, Bucureşti,
1996, pp. 239-240.

84
The Menorah Lamp – Ante-type of the Mind of Christ
A Cyrilian Exegesis with Mistagogical
and Missiological Meanings

Protos. Teach. Assist. PhD Vasile Bîrzu

The idea of this study came up during my actual research as well as in the
context of the crisis of cross religious and ecumenical mission and dialogue
manifested through an effective stagnation in the evolution of the Christian
world to unity through this dialogue against an evolution to a united world
based on principles and ideologies total foreign to the Christian spirit.
The statement and enumeration in specialized handbooks of only con-
ceptual, principles and means of doing Christian mission in general and that
of the Orthodox Church in particular, persuaded me to profoundly meditate
on the topics and title of the present symposium, “to do mission after the
model of Christ”, asking myself through the lenses of my field of study – spir-
ituality – what would be the essential means required by Christ to do mission
after His model? What would be, in other words, the model of the Orthodox
Christian missionary and through what would he be different from any other
missionary of any other religion or other mission of this world, from a spir-
itual standpoint?
We get this answer from St. Paul the Apostle, reminding the Corinthians
through his first epistle that they need to receive the “mind of Christ” (I Cor.
2, 16). Missionary developments and reflections concerned with receiving
this “mind of Christ” and its efficient role in the mission are to be found at the
traditionalist theologian, Justin Popovitch. By developing and emphasizing in
his studies about “The Internal Mission of our Church: the Accomplishment of
Orthodoxy” and “The Supreme Value and the Ultimate Criteria in Orthodoxy”
the essential Christological and ecclesial-ascetic principles in the Orthodox
Christian mission, he nominates alongside a few divine-human endeavors-
virtues as essential means of structuring and instaurating of these principles

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in the life and mission of Church, also the “mind of Christ”, this expression
finding almost as a leit-motif in many of his works1. Father Justin’s discourse
on this topic is not only of an exemplifying and general persuasive type or
biblically argumentative and sapiential, but he goes into ascetic mystical gno-
seological details, unveiling and articulating a system or a concrete way sug-
gested even by the patristic and ascetic-filocalic tradition which he explores
and recommends, through two of his leading exponents – Sf. Macarius of
Egypt and St. Isaac of Syria – out of which he extracts his gnoseology2.
1
« The mission of the Church is that of uniting in an organic and personal way all its
believers with the Person of Christ; to make out of their own feeling, a feeling of Christ, and
from their own consciousness, the consciousness of Christ, their life to become life in Christ
and through Christ; their soul to become soul in Christ and through Christ etc.» Arh. Iustin
Popovici, Man and God-man, Deisis, Sibiu, 1997, p. 74-75. “To contemplate all in Christ and
through Christ – this is the head command for every Christian, this is our categorical Christian
imperative, and this is our Christian gnoseology. Through Christ though can only contemplate
he who has his mind in Christ. The Holy Apostle declares when talking about Christians:
“We have the mind of Christ” (I Cor. 2, 16). How did we possess it? By living in the body of
the human-God, the Church, whose head is He. Life in the Church, with the aid of the Holy
Sacraments and good works, unites our entire being with that of the Church, unites our mind
with the human-God mind of the Church and makes us able to contemplate Christ and think
that which is in Christ Jesus. And by contemplating with Christ’s mind with the catholic mind
of the Church, Christians can contemplate one, feel one, have one love and be of a single soul
and heart and of a soul and thought (Ephesians 2:2; 3:16; 4:2; Romans 15:5; 1 Cor. 1:10).” St.
Iustin Popovici, The Orthodox Church and the ecumenism, p. 25: “By living in the human-God
body of the Church together with all of the Saints, man is step by step becoming a human-god
through the Holy Sacraments and his holy good works and is filled with the joy of that holy
gospel and soul-uplifting command of St. Basil the Great: Man is a being ordained to become
god”. Being created as potential god-man, man strives, caught in the human-God body of the
Church, to bring his mind to that of the likeness with God, to transfigure it into a godly mind
(“We have the mind of Christ” – 1 Cor. 2:16); to bring his consciousness to the likeness with
God, to change it into a godly consciousness; to bring his will to that of the likeness with God,
to transfigure it to a godly will; to bring his body the likeness of God; to change it in a godly
body (The body is for God and God is for the body – 1 Cor. 6:18). By becoming god-man
through the Church and in the Church man returns to the likeness to God before the Fall, com-
pleting it the Godly beauties of the delightful likeness to Christ (Galatians 4:19, 3:27; Romans
8:28).” St. Iustin Popovici, The Orthodox Church and the ecumenism, p. 101-102
2
St. Iustin Popovici, The Path of Knowing God, ed. Egumenita, 2014, p. 219-220: “In
Christ’s God-man person, God and man are linked indivisibly. The understanding of man is
not abolished, but renewed, cleansed, sanctified, deified and deepened, man being given the
possibility to know the truths of life in light of God made man… such person gains the mind
of Christ (1 Cor 2:16) by thinking, living, feeling through Christ, thus getting to an integral
knowledge of Truth: Philosophers of God are those whose inner man, i.e. the whole mind,
the entire soul and heart are filled by Christ…”, p. 202.

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The mainly apologetic effort of father Iustin Popovici, to institute an


ideal of holiness and grace in society and Church, was placed mainly against
humanist philosophy (rationalism, criticism, idealism)3 and the modern
Western humanist culture4 towards which he often expresses critical and even
sarcastic opinions, based on exegetical spiritual exploration that he largely did
in the above mentioned ascetic fathers’ gnoseology, within which he man-
ages to profoundly structure an explicit system of achieving, by every believer
called to be a missionary, “of the supreme value and absolute criterion of Or-
thodoxy”, i.e. the “God-man” model as measure of all things, for which the
“mind of Christ” is essentially constitutive.
Without willing to create a completion of father Popovici’s ideas and
concept regarding mission, I will try to develop this understanding of the
need for the “mind of Christ” for the Christian mission, starting from St.
Cyril of Alexandria’s texts on the Gospel of John concerning the verses in
which our Savior Christ states the relative character of St. John the Baptist’s
testimony about his godliness compared to the absolute statement of God
3
And in the human philosophies dwell, either mediated or directly, lies, which are,
from every of their veins, from the father of lies, the devil, and always lead to him. For this,
there is an imperative need to guard day and night from the highest watchtower of our hu-
man being that these lies do not slip in you, in me, and that they knock us, our thought, our
mind, down to the kingdom of lie, hell. From here stems the Gospel command of God-Man,
Jesus Christ: ”in your thinking be mature” (1 Cor 14:20). And we will be, if we will raise as
a mature person, in the measure of the age of accomplishment of Christ; as then our mind
will be united in a graceful and sanctified way with the mind of Christ, with the catholic,
saint and God-human mind of the Church and we will be able to proclaim together with the
God bearing Saint: “But we have the mind of Christ” (1 Cor. 2:16). Then no wind of human
teaching could any longer shake us and set us in error through human delusion and through
the devil’s cunningness, but we will stand with all our being in the eternal truth, that is Lord
Christ Himself, God-Man (John 16:6; 8:32,36: 1:17). St. Iustin Popovici, The Orthodox
Church and Ecumenism, ed. Mrea Sfintii Arhangheli – Petru Voda, 2002, p.21.
4
The West has now doted. This is where its abnormity and madness stands. In the
Christian age, when the West was Orthodox, it could see with its spirit and watch with its
mind; but as it distanced itself from the truth and the good Christian deed, its spiritual sight
narrowed ever more until the 20th century, when it totally darkened… As for the contem-
plative and the spiritual sight in the hidden core of things and in the understanding and
significance of the entire creation in the whole universe around us, in regards to this – oh, my
brothers! – Western humanity is today blinder than the Muslim Arabia, than the Brahmanic
India, than the Buddhist Tibet or than the animist China. Indeed, Christ has never seen a
greater shame than this in the two milleniums that have passed: that baptized people to be
blinder than those not baptized!” St. Iustin Popovici, The Orthodox Church and Ecumenism,
ed. Mrea Sfintii Arhangheli – Petru Voda, 2002, p. 122-123

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the Father and of the godliness itself expressed by the wonderful works that
bore witness about Him, all this large comparison being explained by relating
it to the image of the Tabernacle from the Old Testament and moreover of
the Menorah lamp, which are likened in several commentaries from various
works, both to the Savior and to St. John the Baptist.
While trying to unravel the Christological ante-types from the Tabernacle
in his writing about “Worship in Spirit and Truth”, St. Cyril of Alexandria iden-
tifies the Menorah that burned in the first chamber of the Tabernacle mainly
with «Christ, who filled through His image (type), those who wanted to go
further into the Most Holy Place, by a great light from all directions»5, but
also with St. John the Baptist, who was also «light and candle, through resem-
blance and by communion with Christ, those under the law and from Judea»6.
St. Cyril emphasizes through these two typologies the difference between the
value of the testimony brought by Christ Himself in the world compared to
that brought by St. John the Baptist and by the saints that sanctify their minds
by filling them with the gifts of the Holy Spirit: «there is a big difference (of
the ante-types of St. John the Baptist and the saints) compared to Christ, and
those of the saints will not be those in which there is Christ, but somehow out-
side of and smaller. As those belonging to God are separated and placed apart
and as a reason considering and distinguishing them from the human ones,
showing the property of the natures and the difference in praise.»7
Invoking a succession of biblical verses as fulfillment and manifestation
in this world of this Christological ante-type on the one hand referring to
the manifestation of the gifts of the Holy Spirit shining in the candles of
this candlestick, and on the other hand as a manifestation of the mind of
Christ through the gracious light in the minds of the saints, St. Cyril of-
fers us at the same time the possibility to unravel several important facts
concerning the Christian mission because, understood in the topographical
context of the Tabernacle, the relationships of the Menorah to the other
holy objects unveils, in the Old Testament worship ritual, interesting mis-
tagogical and spiritual meanings out of which important missionary mean-
ings can be deduced.
In essence, from the similarities between the Savior and St. John the
Baptist to the Menorah in the Tabernacle as well as from other patristic testi-
5
St. Cyril of Alexandria, On Worship in Spirit and Truth, the 10th book, PSB 38, p. 341.
6
Ibidem, p. 343.
7
Ibidem, p. 344.

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monials convergent to the proposed subject, I will try to deduce the method
of mistagogical accomplishment (through dwelling on of the Holy Spirit’s
gifts and of the divine grace in the human mind) of that which, in the ascetic-
mystical spirituality but also in the missiological conception of father Iustin,
is called the prophetic mind or mind after (conform to) Christ, as well as the
testimony differences (the witnessing of Christ) of this (congruent) mind of
Christ compared to the simple human mind, and the relevance of obtaining
this mind by the human being through the Christian mission.
In the first chapter of the third book of his Commentary on the Gospel
of John, St. Cyril of Alexandria emphasizes the messianic and godly establish-
ment of the Savior Jesus Christ in the works specific to the divine nature, and
explains John’s verses concerning his testimony on the “torch that burns and
lightens”, made by the Savior Himself, in order to show the inferiority of his
testimonial of Himself compared to that of the Father’s and that of the sav-
ing works that He performs. This apologetic orientation of exegesis must be
understood as it is in the context of the Monophysite Christological dispute
which sought to state the full divinity and humanity of Christ’s Person in his-
tory, and the interposition of the Menorah lamp compared here with St. John
the Baptist, serves this purpose very well, as the light of the teaching and work
of the Baptist is temporary, limited and constrained, received through grace
from the eternal Light of “He who was before him”. Basically, through Christ
the Savior and through John the Baptist, we get a symbolical representation of
the models of these two minds, godly and human, and an attempt to evaluate
their action and efficiency in delivering the saving Christian message. St. Cyril
concludes his demonstration in this regard discussing in a rather contradic-
tory manner with the Jews as he is taking sides with the Savior Christ and em-
phasizing the change in the origin of the Messianic and godliness testimony
based on “people’s words and claims…out of simple chatter” to “the proof
more worthy of belief and more important… of the works of He who has
born Him” accomplished by Himself: “Although I say that he was a torch and
is depicted in the writings of the Law and prophesied through the voice of
the Holy Prophets that he will once show himself as the light before the true
Light, and proclaim to you that he is worthy of preparing the way of the Lord,
but as you don’t find anything worthy of belief…, I will go to what is greater,
compared to which, as it normally is, you will not say anything, being over-
whelmed against your own will by the beauty of truth itself. As I am no longer
testified by peoples’ words and statements, and I will not consider needing to

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compile the testimonies about Myself out of simple words, but I will entrust
those about Me to some proofs more worthy of belief and important, and I
will let shine from the midst of the greatness of my works the fact that I am
God in nature and that I have shown Myself from God the Father…”8
Father Staniloae explains and enriches these comments of St. Cyril by
emphasizing the intratrinitary synergy between the Father and the Son in
doing the acts that reveal and proclaim the Father in the world through the
works of the Son and the Son as doer of great things (beauty of truth) through
the power of God the Father that dwells fully in the Son, this synergy and
mutual dwelling being the basis of an internal, ontological and existential
confession directed towards humanity in an internal manner by the “form
of worship”: “Christ declares that He has the proof of His godliness, not so
much from man’s testimonies, but from the testimony of his wonderful acts,
whose power is from God the Father. But He despises neither the testimony
about Him given by the Old Law, revealing in it the spiritual reason of the
forms of worship.” By stating the works He does “were given by the Father for
Him to do”, Christ does not declare that the Father told Him this in an ex-
ternal manner, but that He has the Father inside of Him, doing these works
together, and in this sense they (these works) are a witnessing of the Father
that He is His Son. In doing these works, Christ experienced the Father as
their doer. He mostly felt their character above the human one, which shows
Him as having God the Father inside Himself as co-worker, and that He is
intimately united with the Father, being God in accomplishing these works.9
The confession and therefore, the Son’s mission in the world is based on
the full dwelling of the Father in his Son, in the consubstantiality of the Son
with the Father, the model of this dwelling being transmitted on humanity’s
level through the Holy Spirit which shelters Christ in people. Dwelling con-
sequently implies the abode or the home whose type is the Tabernacle and
whose fulfillment is Christ Himself who raised and sheltered the tent of the
human body among the peoples (John 1:14 – “And the Word became flesh
and stood among us, full of grace and truth.”, 2 Cor. 5:4; II Pt.. 1, 14 and 19
referring exactly to the torch - morning star - Christ that shines in a dark place
in the human body tent). In this tent, the godly and humanly mind symbol-
ized by these “forms of worship”, open the way to a successive transmission
of the work of grace on the model of the intratrinitary ontological model,
8
St. Cyril of Alexandria, Commentary at the Gospel of Saint John, PSB 41, p. 292.
9
Nota 529, PSB 41 p. 292.

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The Menorah Lamp – Ante-type of the Mind of Christ

towards the world on a noetic level, as a dwelling of the Father’s mind – of


Christ – in the mind of every believer and co-worker with Christ.
When expounding the ontological difference between the Savior’s con-
fession as Light of the world and that of St. John the Baptist’s confession as a
torch, Ph. D. father Ioan Caraza mentions as ultimate basis of the testimony,
“the wonderful house of the soul”, in which the Holy Spirit must rest in or-
der for man and the people to rest in God, this being a practical call for the
chosen people to constitute themselves as a temple, a call that discovers the
ultimate sense of the sending and mission of the Son of God in the world and
in history, namely to ease “the rest” of the Holy Spirit in people and in peo-
ples in the name of Jesus: By stating that He « has a confession greater than
that of the Baptist » (John 5:36,37), the Savior showed that this confession
does not consist of “judging” the world, but in the revealing of the fruits of
the Holy Spirit. And this Light neither came with “condemnation”, nor by
overwhelming with wonders, but through that wonderful house of the soul,
that also means rest: … by attracting them through the glory of His Light.
St. John saw at the baptism only the sign of the Holy Spirit as a “dove”, but
not the fruits of the Spirit in the life of the Savior as well, “the confession”
brought to Him by the Father and which was greater than John’s. The Savior
rebuked the obstinacy of those who did not believe in these signs, calling it
«not hearing» and «not seeing» of God the Father, which makes the Word not
fit for their hearts (John 6: 37, 38), even though standing in front of them was
«more than Jonah» (Matthew 12:41), «more than Solomon» (Luke 12:42) in
all His wisdom and glory».10
Through his exegesis, St. Cyril offers us the context of a mistagogical
comprehension of the cult in the Tabernacle with real life implications, not
only of the spiritual type, but also of missiological prospects. The understand-
ing of the Menorah as an ante-type for the “mind of Christ” offers us the
understanding of the cult in the Tabernacle – with the ritual of the permanent
lighting of the Menorah (Lev. 24; 1-5) and with the withdrawal of the curtain
10
Deacon Ph.D. Ioan Caraza – St. John the Baptist, God’s Forerunner. The Baptism
with the Holy Spirit, Ed. Episcopiei Sloboziei si Calarasilor 2000, p.101-102. We must men-
tion the philological Hebrew of the word ‘shechinah’ (to settle, to live, to rest but also royal
residence, house of a god etc.) confirmed by the ritual significance of the resting divine glory
(Shechinah) in the tent (mishcan, mishcanot – place of dwelling) or the Temple in the Old
Testament, in the New Testament being understood as dwelling of the Holy Spirit, of the
Spirit of Christ in the man, which brought along the gift of prophecy and wisdom cf. art.
Shekinah in Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/Shekinah

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between the Holy and the Holy of Holies during the Iom Kipur when the
Archpriest would only enter once every year in the Holy of Holies in order
to sprinkle the tabernacle with the blood of the offering – as a cult that is
spiritually mistagogical but also as a missionary initiation or sending to the
people. Moses is, for instance, presenting himself before the Tabernacle to be
instructed and sent to the people by the Logos Christ revealed in His glory
between the Cherubs of the Tabernacle; the ritual of the redemption wor-
ship in Iom-Kipur when the curtain was withdrawn for the altar to be sprin-
kled, this reiterating the very moment of the encounter between Moses or the
Archpriest with the divine Logos, a ritual also reiterated by the meeting of the
light of the Menorah and the Tabernacle when the curtain between the Holy
and the Holy of Holies was withdrawn. This can also be identified, through
internal transposition, with a cult that is possible to accomplish internally in
the “wonderful house of the soul”, in the hesychastic practice, when the mind
of the ascetic descends or is deepened in his heart, a fact that gets him to the
ecstatic manifestation of the uncreated light or the glory Christ in the entire
temple of the body and the soul. This manifestation can be understood, from
a missiological point of view, as the wearing or in-vesting of the person with
the garment of divine grace that makes man a real missionary – apostle of
Christ to light the world.

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St. Cyril’s exegesis is rich, significant and edifying when referring to the
Menorah as ante-type of Christ that sheds the light or the oil of the Holy
Spirit through which Christ and the saints following Him, know and rule the
entire creation as all knowing and all-encompassing minds:
“And the composition of the candlestick refers to Christ, telling about
the seven candles hung on it: These are the eyes of the Lord, which gaze over
the entire world” (Zach 4:10). As if we have to say something bold, God sees
and examines with tens of thousands of eyes the humans, knowing those in
the dark, as it has been written: «And the light is with Him» (Dan 2:22). As
if God sets light to us those of the world, He must rejoice before all, as He
has this in His own nature. And if some consider this is not so, it could be
told to those who decided to think this way: “Understand, O dullest of the
people! Fools, when will you be wise? He who planted the ear, does He not
hear?” (Ps. 93:8, 9). “For the word of God is living and active, sharper than
any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and spirit, of joints and
of marrow and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And no
creature is hidden from His sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of
He to whom we must give account”. (Hebr. 9:12, 13). Therefore Christ lights
and sees everything. This is why He said through one of His prophets: “Am I a
God at hand, declares the Lord and not a God far away? Can a man hide him-
self in secret places so that I cannot see him, declares the Lord” (Jer. 23:23,
24). “Because nothing can be hidden from the mind that knows everything.
Or does it not seem to you that I meditate correctly all these?”11
St Cyril identifies this way the Menorah with the “mind of God” which
manifests through the gifts of the Holy Spirit the all-encompassing power
over the entire creation, in Zacharias’ prophecy where we also have the two
olive twigs placed left and right of the Menorah, which St. Cyril refers to as
the chosen people and those of the nations, whose minds are filled by the light
and gifts of the Holy Spirit in the Church. «And the two sons of the anointing
he understood the people of Israel and the people of the nations. This is why
they say they sit beside the Lord of the entire Earth, clearly expounding the
Menorah as a image (type) of Christ. To the right and left of this we have
the olive twigs. Standing in circle around Him, they are anointed with the oil
that is the image (type) of the Holy Spirit that fills the minds of those who
believe, following the word: “You anoint my head with oil” (Ps. 22:5)»12
11
St. Cyril of Alexandria, On Worship in Spirit and Truth, the 10th book, PSB 38, p.297
12
St. Cyril of Alexandria, On Worship in Spirit and Truth, the 10th book, PSB 38, p.298

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Protos. Teach. Assist. PhD Vasile Bîrzu

Through this anointing or filling of people’s minds with the gifts of


the Holy Spirit the consubstantiality of the entire humanity in the Body of
Christ, the Church, is realized:
“But the image (type) shows us differently that where divine light shines,
the worthy receive the power to take part in the Holy Communion with
Christ as the real true bread. As the godly Paul writes that the peoples are
partaking of the Body of Christ and together partaker to Christ (Ephes. 3:6).
And the peoples have become partakers of the Body of Christ and together
partaking with Him, being filled by light, understandably the spiritual type
«when the dawn broke and the evening star rose in the mind», as one of the
disciples of Christ said (1 Peter 1:19).”13
St. Cyril’s exegesis is part of the continuity of the hermeneutical tradi-
tion offered by the Holy Fathers who have contemplated the Holy Trinity,
offering significant witness that helps us better understand the mystery of the
Menorah of the Tabernacle seen here by St. Cyril as the mind of Christ, God
Himself being seen as mind by other Holy Fathers.
By exploring the spirituality of St. Macarius’ homilies, Father Iustin
Popovici states in mistagogical terms the mission of the human mind has
and through this, implicitly, the way the Christian has to and can fulfill with
divine efficiency his external mission, as an apostle of Christ:
“Through deification, the mind gets to the knowledge of its own person
(hypostasis). Its eternal and sinless original is to be found in the God-man
mind. It gets to the firm belief that its mission in eternity is to become throne
of the Trinitarian God and to have this God as Lord of all its deeds. This is,
so to speak, the passive part of its mission, while the active part consists in the
enhancement above space of the Divinity and in the ruling on this throne.
“The mind is the throne of God and God is the throne of the mind (Hom.
VI, 5, col 521 B)”. Christ came as if on the throne of the mind so as to over-
throw Satan from this throne and to transform the mind into “His throne”
and to enthrone in it (Hom. VI, 5, col 521 C). The most significant historical
example of this fact are the Apostles. Christ sent the Holy Spirit upon them
and He enthroned on the thrones of their minds (Hom. VI, 5, col 521 C)”. 14
The sending and the mission are therefore realized by having Christ as
Mind that rules on the throne of the human mind as otherwise the one sent
does not have neither the Message nor the dignity or the anointing necessary
for this mission as an emissary.
13
St. Cyril of Alexandria, On Worship in Spirit and Truth, the 10th book, PSB 38, p.297
14
Sf. Iustin Popovici, Calea cunoaşterii lui Dumnezeu, ed. Egumeniţa, 2014, p. 183-184.

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A similar testimony of understanding God as mind is to be found also at


St. Gregory of Nazianz. When talking about the great Father as the uncaused
Person of the Holy Trinity – “There is only one God, without any beginning,
uncaused, boundless/ Of an existence prior to Him, or about something to
exist afterwards, / Containing in Himself the eternity and being boundless,
the great Father15 – St. Gregory of Nazianz calls Him, defending the sin-
less feature of Divinity, Mind, as Principle and Existence unconditioned and
uncaused by any prior existence: Father of the good Son, the Great Only-
begotten, without having Him suffering anything / from those of the flesh,
through the birth of the Son, as He is mind”.16
In the poem dedicated to the Father, St. Gregory also calls the Son mind
or – as a few centuries later would St. Maximus the Confessor state – divine
Reason. The divine Mind, the Father, is thus the one causing the existence or
birth of the Son’s godly mind, and the godly mind of the Holy Spirit proceeds
from that of the Father. On the other hand, by stating the communion between
the Father and the Son, the Word of God, through the mind-word analogy, St.
Maximus offers us the patristic ground of transmitting this ontological com-
munion to the noetic human plane: “As our word springing from inside our
being is the reason for the hidden moves of our minds, the same is the Word of
God manifesting in the world… discovering the Father that knew Him as the
Word of God by nature, as He is called «Angel of the great council»”.17
This way, the human mind represents an extension of the divine Mind or
Minds of the Holy Trinity, the Trinitarian Hypostasis that achieves the media-
tion or communion of the human mind with the divine Mind being the Holy
Spirit that reveals the Son through enlightenment or anointing, and in this
perspective St. Cyril’s exegesis on the ontological and consubstantial character
of the Savior’s “confession through works” is fully explanatory.
Savior Christ’s messianity, his anointing with the Holy Spirit, is revealed
as the ontological gift and feature, the ground of His sending and His mis-
sion, this gift having efficiency not only as an external confession, but most
importantly internal, working in the “house of the soul” – the ontological
human structure created on the model of the Tabernacle -, as the Menorah
symbolized His work in the Tabernacle or the Temple. Scriptural confessions
concerning the Savior’s messianity converge, as father Ioan Caraza summa-
15
St. Gregory of Nazianzus, Opere dogmatice, op.cit., p.132
16
St. Gregory of Nazianzus, Opere dogmatice, op.cit., p.132
17
Cf. Pr. Drd. Stoica Tache, „Teologia Logosului la Sfântul Maxim Mărturisitorul”, în
Studii Teologice, nr.5-8, 1977, p.524.

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rizes, towards emphasizing the link between the dwelling of the Holy Spirit in
Christ’s human body seen as a temple, and through this, the unity of peoples
in a new creation of the reborn humanity: “the anointing with the Holy Spirit
also means sending to preaching as Jesus Himself shows at the beginning of
His missionary work: “The Spirit of God upon, who sent Me to preach” (Luke
4:18; Isaiah 42:7), as fulfillment of the promised prophecy”. Behold My serv-
ant, whom I uphold, My chosen in whom My soul delights; I have put My
spirit upon Him; He will bring forth justice to the nations. (Isaiah 42:1). He
is the “man”, the second Adam, built to become the man of the Word of God,
and through this, the dwelling of the Holy Spirit. Him «the Father anointed
and sent Him in the world». (John 10:36).18
Along with this argumentation of the Savior’s consubstantiality with
God the Father resulting in the mission’s efficiency through divine works, St
Cyril argues this fact based on the Old Testament witnessing of St. John the
Baptist’s position as the forerunner and testimonial torch of the Savior in the
world – “I have prepared a lamp for My Christ” (Ps. 131:17); “Prepare the
way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God” (Isaiah
40:3) and the text on the continuous burning of the Menorah in the Taber-
nacle (Lev 24:2-3,9) – but also extrapolates the meaning of this testimonial
position over the soul of every baptized Christian and, we could also state,
over the entire creation and of the world that reflects it, as an ensemble of
plasticized reasons, the uncreated Light of the divine Logos:
« As there is no own light in the lamp, but the one received and obtained
from the outside. You will thus see in the Saints the illumination received from
Christ in the Spirit. Therefore, by contemplating and working, they confess
thankfully through their voice: “From His fullness we have all received” (John
1:16). As the Only-Begotten is light in its nature as the one shining from the
Light, more exactly from the Father’s being. And the creation participates to
it. And all who obtained the power to rationalize and to contemplate are like
a bowl that can be filled by divine light, a bowl very well built by God, Who
makes everything with craftsmanship. Therefore, the blessed Baptist is the
torch in the sense presented before. »19
We can see in this quotation that “the power to contemplate and reason”
specific to the mind in general is understood as a gift through which the
creation participates to the divine Light or mind, and the comparison of St.
18
Diacon dr. Ioan Caraza, Sfântul Ioan Botezătorul – Înainte-Mergătorul Domnului.
Botezul cu Duhul Sfânt, Ed. Episcopiei Sloboziei şi Călăraşilor 2000, p. 101-102, p. 174.
19
St. Cyril of Alexandria, Commentary at the Gospel of Saint John, PSB 41, p. 200-201.

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The Menorah Lamp – Ante-type of the Mind of Christ

John the Baptist with the Menorah in the Holy of the Tabernacle places him
as first prototype imitator and doer of the Mind of Christ’s shining light in
the world. He wears and manifests the light of the Spirit in the world and not
only the light of his human mind, but the divine light with which he was in
graceful communion.
Resulting from here is that the equation torch – Menorah – St. John,
actually reveals the establishing of the prophetic and spiritual mind or con-
form to Christ in the Unique Light that springs from the Father’s being and
sustains creation, the testimony of the spiritualized creation about God be-
ing actually a feature of this Light and a synergy full of goodwill between the
creatures and God, realized and illustrated in a relative but excellent sense in
St. John the Baptist’s person and in a complete and absolute manner in the
very Person of the Savior Himself.
Referring to the relative but excellent character of St. John the Baptist’s
testimony, St. Cyril invokes a series of scriptural quotes in his Commentary on
the Gospel of John, but develops widely in the same Commentary as well as in
his Writings on Worship in Spirit and Truth and Glaphires, the same compari-
son between St. John and the Menorah. Starting from the Savior’s statement
on St. John the Baptist, “He was a burning and shining lamp and you were
willing to rejoice for a while in his light.” (John 5:35), St. Cyril develops a se-
ries of reflections concerning St. John’s testimony character on Savior Christ,
namely as not incomprehensible and not accepted from malevolence by the
Jews characterized by him as “infected with the habit of ignorance and with
an incapacity without parallel” to understand “the foreshadowing of the Law
in symbols” or the “shadows in the guess-work of the Law” that lights – even
as shadows – towards repentance and the knowledge of Christ”, the mind of
man. Practically the mind of the Jews was incapable of an analogical and ana-
gogical mutation, of an understanding of cultic acts and liturgical objects of
the law as images and archetypes at the same time of some realities that were
steadily revealing their more profound meanings in the triple plan of history,
anthropology and eschatology that the anagogical and mistagogical Chris-
tian exegesis will develop. This observation is very important for the spiritual
interpretation of the Menorah, that the Byzantine philocalic tradition and
literature will do, as it reveals the closure in letter and shadow of the late Juda-
ism and the actual refusal of the Spirit and of His gifts that the Menorah sym-
bolized and shared – in the narrow context of the Tabernacle and the chosen
Jewish people – only to those representatives (patriarchs, judges, authentic
prophets) that lived in the Spirit before the Spirit was sent in the world.

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Protos. Teach. Assist. PhD Vasile Bîrzu

On the other hand, the phrase “only a moment” not only states a time
extension of this torch’s power and the malevolence of the Jews to receive and
be illuminated by the light of the torch of St. John, but most importantly, it
emphasizes its limited and restrained character both as magnitude and inten-
sity against the Light that springs from Christ lighting and partaking with
the powers and gifts of the Holy Spirit the entire humankind. This fact is il-
lustrated by St. Cyril in his clear references to the Menorah in his mentioned
works whose Old and New Testament significance are revealed and correlated
amongst themselves in a hermeneutics with very important pneumatologi-
cal, psychological and grace related features, a hermeneutics which is also
emphasized by Ph. D. Professor Ioan Caraza: “through the “Light” of Christ
and through the “torch” of St. John the Baptist, the two laws of God have
manifested themselves, each in its own way, but both seeking the same thing:
to bring to faith the unbelievers: those of Jerusalem have not listened either
to St. John “who sang them a dirge” and they “did not mourn” to the Savior,
“who played the flute for them” and “they did not dance” (Matthew 11:17).
Through these words the Savior actually states the total lack of faith and the
diversion of their interest towards God in “troubles of the world”.20
Commenting on the text in Leviticus, 24:2-3,9, concerning the com-
mand received by the sons of Israel to “to bring pure oil from beaten olives for
the lamp, that a light may be kept burning eternally outside the curtain of the tes-
timony, in the tent of the meeting, Aaron shall arrange it from evening to morning
before the Lord regularly. It shall be a statute forever throughout the generations”,
St. Cyril unveils the spiritual testimonial significance of the Menorah whose
action reverberates over the internal life of the soul preparing it and arming it
with the gifts of the Holy Spirit for its own internal mission but also for the
internal mission of the Church: «Filtered and clean oil shows the clean and
undisturbed nature of the Holy Spirit, which, pervading us as oil, feeds us in
a way that is not understood and sustains and makes illumination grow in the
soul, as in a candle that burns. We so believe it feeds also the godly Baptist,
as a light of the testimony on the Savior, not accepting to shed light from any
other part than that of the spiritual oil, which can light and sustain the divine
light within us. This is also sustained by the Savior, when saying: “I came to
cast fire on the earth, and would that it was already kindled” (Luke 12:49)».21
20
Diacon dr. Ioan Caraza, Sfântul Ioan Botezătorul – Înainte-Mergătorul Domnului.
Botezul cu Duhul Sfânt, Ed. Episcopiei Sloboziei şi Călăraşilor 2000, p. 73.
21
St. Cyril of Alexandria, Commentary at the Gospel of Saint John, PSB 41, p.289.

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The Menorah Lamp – Ante-type of the Mind of Christ

This illumination and lighting of the soul through the power of the Holy
Spirit, even though pertaining to the Tabernacle in the Old Law, must have
efficiency, in St. Cyril’s conception, not only on the Jewish people, but as
ante-type of the New Covenant made by God with humankind in Christ,
it must extend on the entire Church until the end of all ages, St. John the
Baptist thus becoming through his wonderful and divine life, the archetype
of this illumination for humanity united to Christ in the New Testament, as
the Menorah torch was the ante-type of future illumination in the Old Testa-
ment.
“Therefore the blessed Baptist is the torch that sheds lights uninterrupt-
ed, as a symbol in the Tabernacle. And it’s burning in the Tabernacle means
that the Baptist’s illumination is received in the Churches as well and will not
be outside the holy and divine court of the Savior. And the fact that the torch
shows itself outside the curtain that it brings a simpler, more introductive il-
lumination. This is why He states: Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
(Mt. 3:2).” But he does not show anything of those hidden inside the curtain,
the mysteries of our Savior, to be more exact. As he did not baptize for partak-
ing the Holy Spirit, nor did his illumination introduce beyond the curtain.
As he was outside the tent, as long as the tent “was standing”, as Paul puts it.22
St. Cyril underlines that “teachers and priests at the holy altars, as those
who serve in churches at their times, receive command to keep the spiritual
light, namely John, in an never ending light... all night long, which means the
measure of the current age. Because through light we understand the future
age and the light is kept burning, to be for those who believe in Christ a torch
leading towards Him.23

Conclusions
We are practically faced with a scriptural exegesis that presents in a cur-
tained manner, by correlating the Menorah ante-type found in the Tabernac-
le with the Persons of Christ and of St. John the Baptist, a pneumatological
and spiritual doctrine that emphasizes the importance of a “prophetic mind”
– symbolized by the Menorah, which prefigures St. John and the “mind
of Christ” (symbolized by the same Menorah that prefigures Savior Christ)
– for the success of Christ’s witnessing in world. This exegesis is highly im-
portant in the mistagogical context which the Byzantine filocalic tradition
22
St. Cyril of Alexandria, Commentary at the Gospel of Saint John, PSB 41, p. 289-290.
23
St. Cyril of Alexandria, Commentary at the Gospel of Saint John, PSB 41, p. 290.

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Protos. Teach. Assist. PhD Vasile Bîrzu

assumes and discovers; this is because it discovers to us the spirituality or


way of realizing the spiritual state of the complete man hypostasized in the
divine-human person of Savior Christ, as well as in the “most complete man
ever to be born from a woman” – St. John the Baptist, through the spiritual,
pneumatological and eschatological symbolism that the Menorah assumes in
the exegetical patristic biblical tradition and through correlation the philo-
calic and modern ones.
The earlier type of the Menorah revealed and hypostasized through the
two Prototypes of the humanity reborn in and through Christ serves at ex-
plaining the spiritual phenomenology of the prophetic mind or the proto-
type or the original model of the restored human mind saved in and through
Christ, through the gifts of the Holy Spirit.
From the perspective of the meanings this exegesis discovers for the mis-
siological sciences, we can deduce that both the internal and the external
mission have their main efficient cause in the dwelling of Christ and of the
Holy Spirit in man’s soul through which the divine-human consubstantiality
is realized. The mistagogical key for understanding the Tabernacle and the
Menorah as symbol of the divine mind discovers the model of constituting
this divine mind as divine-human structure symbolized by Christ and His
gifts provided in the Holy Spirit. The update of this symbol of the Menorah
through Savior Christ and through St. John the Baptist discovers a spiritual
and ontological perspective over constituting relationships and the dynamic
manifestation of this “mind of Christ” in the Church and in the world along
history. On the other hand, understanding the ritual of the Tabernacle from
St. Cyril’s spiritual exegetical perspective, we are faced with a mistagogical
perspective of understanding and manifesting the “mind of Christ” in the
world, with significant impact on missiology.
Therefore, on one hand there is an emphasis on establishing the mission
(sending) of the Son in His consubstantiality with the Father, and on the
other hand the consubstantiality of the mission (sending) of the Saints (John
the Baptist, the Apostles – the saints in general) in dwelling through the Holy
Spirit of Christ as Mind of the Father that receives Him and rests Him truly.
The relationship of the Menorah with the Tabernacle in the Holy of Ho-
lies is the relationship of meeting divine grace with the grace given through
the Spirit by Christ to the human mind and manifested through the gifts of
the Spirit symbolized by the seven branches of the Menorah. In this perspec-
tive, the Archpriest’s entry with the he-goat blood in the Holy of Holies dur-

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The Menorah Lamp – Ante-type of the Mind of Christ

ing the cult in the tent/temple, or more exactly the drawing of the curtain
between the Holy and the Holy of Holies when the bishop brought the atone-
ment offering once every year, was a mistagogical symbol of the uniting of the
human mind or reason (the Menorah) with the divine Mind (the Tabernacle
in the Holy of Holies), prefiguring what in hesychasm will be the descent of
the mind in the heart, a fact that led to enhancing the powers of the human
mind with divine powers having cosmic consequences that are restorative and
saving. “The Mind” does not express here merely a sum of teachings that the
“elected sent one” must transmit to the others, but a blend of human work
and divine gifts symbolized by the Menorah and manifested in the world as
spiritual light as the Light of Christ from the lamp of God was manifested in
the Tabernacle.
The sending, as an essential act of the mission is only to be done after
partaking to the Godhead – and Prophet Isaiah before the Merkhaba throne
hears the question – And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I
send and who will go for Us?” Then I said, “Here I am! Send me” (Isaiah 6:8)
having his lips touched by the coal of the divine fire and having been invested
or sent to preach. Without such partaking, the one sent does not go with the
garment of light of the Godhead as divine emissary or Apostle, but with the
skin clothing of the fallen statute of humanity.
In the Old Testament there was no continued sending but only a restora-
tion through the atonement offering that was brought once a year. Moses, to
whom the divine grace – Christ – was revealed on top of the Tabernacle, un-
veils the curtain between the Holy and the Holy of Hollies, was an emissary
of God to deliver, guide, organize and save the people, being dressed with the
garment of divine grace such that the sons of Israel could not see his face filled
with divine light that was discovered on top of the Tabernacle between the
Cherubs of the confession (Exodus 34:30; 2 Cor 3,7,13). On the other hand,
the tearing of the curtain at the Resurrection of our Lord Christ has shared
the divine grace to the new Church – the body of Christ – that died with the
human body to rise with the body of humanity recapitulated in Him.
The hesychasm was and is the way to wear or to in-vest with the light
garment of divine grace the bodies of the saints that have united the light of
their mind (the Menorah) filled with the gifts of the Holy Spirit through the
ascetic and mystical-contemplative effort, with the light of the Mind or more
exactly the Heart symbolized by the Tabernacle in the Holy of Holies. The co-
incidence of great missionary moments of the Church with times flourishing

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Protos. Teach. Assist. PhD Vasile Bîrzu

hesychastic spirituality is a proof of the efficiency that the “mind of Christ”


provides to aid the missionary course of acts.
Through this short exegesis I have tried to show the remarkable efficiency
of obtaining “the mind of Christ” by the missionary and for the mission in
general, being equivalent to the dwelling of the Holy Spirit that provides
divine efficiency to preaching, converting, remaking and uniting people and
peoples in a new making that only God, with His Pentecostal gift can make,
repairing and guiding the Babylonic division brought in the creation by the
fall of humankind through listening to the devil.

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The Mission of the Orthodox Church Today
A Model and Some Challenges

Assist. Prof. PhD Ciprian Iulian Toroczkai

Introduction
The Church had some remarkable missionary successes in the past.
Ever since the primary era, the Greek Fathers have adopted from the Greek
philosophy the elements which were compatible with the Christian Rev-
elation (although one should not forget that they had a constructive way
of approaching this issue, avoiding the closure of the Christian teaching in
the Greek philosophical systems). However, what one must remember is the
mainly missionary purpose of the Fathers: “the use of the Greek concepts
and terminology was an inevitable means of communication and a necessary
step in making the Christian gospel relevant to the world in which it ap-
peared and had to be spread”1.
According to J. Meyendorff, the predominant role of Byzantium in
politics and in theology centered on the synthetic “Catholic” notion of the
“Great Church” of Constantinople- a synthesis between the pre-Constantin-
ian Christianity, the liturgical developments (especially the so-called “cathe-
dral” ritual ) and monasticism. This had both an aesthetic role- as it had been
the greatest edifice of Christianity for centuries- and a missionary one, both
elements converging in the Christianization of the Russians2. Moreover, the
1
John Meyendorff, Byzantine Theology: Historical Trends and Doctrinal Themes, trans-
lated by Alexandru Stan, The Printing House of the Biblical and Mission Institute of the
Romanian Orthodox Church, Bucharest, 1996, p 36
2
See the beautiful legend about the Christianization of the Russians. The official Chris-
tianization of the Russians, who were unified around Novgorod and Kiev by the Scandina-
vian princes, is related to the Orthodox baptism of the Holy Prince Vladimir in 988, not
only for political reasons but also for aesthetic ones: the heavenly beauty of the Liturgy of

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Assist. Prof. PhD Ciprian Iulian Toroczkai

influence of the “Great Church” was felt not only on the conversion of the
“barbarians”, but also on other Christian communities (6th-8th c. when Italy
was occupied by the Byzantines) on the Jacobite Syrians and on Armenians3.
The missionary work was constant4 in the history of the Orthodox
Church. Throughout its millennial existence, the Byzantine Orthodoxy was
concerned with the spread of the Christian faith, both to the foreigners with-
in its borders and to the pagan tribes which had invaded the empire and the
peoples in its vicinity5. In terms of the intensity of the missionary zeal, one
can identify two periods of great zeal: the fourth century to the sixth century,
culminating in the reign of Justinian and the period between the ninth centu-
ry and the eleventh century, under the Macedonian dynasty. During the first
period, one must evoke the enlightened figures of bishops such as St. John
Chrysostom († 407) or of some holy monks such as Hilary († 371), Euthimia
(† 473), and Sabbas († 532). The Byzantines were interested in the evangeliza-
tion of the nations found at the border of the empire: the Goths, the Huns,
some tribes of the Caucasus and so on. In the south, the Christianization of
the Ethiopians incited the interest to evangelize the tribes from Nubia or from
the northern regions of the Tunisia today. Unfortunately, there is very little
data from this first period of intense missionary activity; more data is found
on the second period. Being related mainly to Saints Cyril and Methodius,
this period witnessed a remarkable missionary activity which is based on the
following principles: the creation of a genuine local Eucharistic community
by translating the Holy Scriptures and the liturgical texts of the Fathers and
the construction of beautiful places of worship; at the same time, the concern
for the ascetical-mystical life has not coincided with a lack of interest in the
social and cultural life. Transferring its own political, artistic, economic and
cultural experience, Byzantium has contributed to the awakening of the self-
consciousness of the young nations and to the development of their specific
cultures. Given that the missionary work in Byzantium was not the exclusive
preserve of some “experts”, but was connected to a very wide circle of people
(bishops, priests, monks, kings, princes and princesses, diplomats, officers,

St. Sophia in Constantinople made his messengers refuse the Latin Polish Catholicism or the
Khazar Judaism.
3
Ibidem, p. 154-160.
4
Regarding the missionary activity in Byzantium, see Hans Georg Beck, The History
of the Orthodox Church in the Byzantine Empire, translated by Vasile Adrian Carabă, Nemira
Publishing House, Bucharest, 2012, p 114-120.
5
Anastasios Yannoulatos, „Orthodox Mission: Past, Present, Future”, în G. Lemopou-
los (ed.), Your Will Be Done. Orthodoxy in Misssion, Tertios-Katerini, Geneva, 1989, p. 63-92.

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The Mission of the Orthodox Church Today

soldiers, merchants, sailors, immigrants, travelers and even prisoners) one un-
derstands the truth spoken by the historian Charles Diehl: “the missionary
activity was one of the glories of Byzantium”6.
But the missionary activity of the Eastern Church is not limited only to
Byzantium. Father Meyendorff describes the missionary successes achieved
by the Slavs upon the Mongol invaders: in 1261 an eparchy was set up in
the capital of the Golden Horde, in Saral. Also, some missionary monaster-
ies- Valamo and Konev at Lake Ladoga, Solovki in the White Sea – began to
evangelize the Finn tribes in the north. Finally, in the late fourteenth century,
St. Stephen of Perm, a remarkable missionary, translated the Scripture and the
liturgy from Greek into Zirian, being then the first bishop of Perm, the capital
of the Zirian province7.
The Russian missionary activity also continued throughout the nine-
teenth century, being broken only by the Bolshevik Revolution, as proven by
the Orthodox communities in China, Korea, Japan and Alaska.
The Orthodox Mission in China began in the late seventeenth century,
when a group of Cossacks, whose native place was a Russian fortress called Al-
bazin, was used in the imperial guard. Their descendants formed an Orthodox
nucleus which, in the nineteenth century, founded 20 schools. The number
of the Orthodox in China increased with the arrival here of a large number
of clergy, refugees from Siberia. Following the victory of Mao Zedong’s army,
the foreigners were forced to leave the country, leading to a dramatic decrease
in the number of Christians. However, in 1950, in Moscow, a Chinese called
Dou Simeon was ordained bishop of Tien-Tsin, being then transferred to
Shanghai. In 1957, another Chinese, Vasile Yo-Fou-An was ordained bishop
of Peking, but three dioceses thus remained without a holder.
In Korea there was an Orthodox mission by the end of the nineteenth
century, whose responsibility was assumed in the twentieth century by the
Greek diocese in the USA; in Father Meyendorff’s time it was led by two
priests who also ruled a school and a hospital.
The mission in Japan was more active. Its initiator was one of the most
prominent Orthodox missionaries: Father Nikolai Kasatkin. In 1861 he ar-
rived here as priest of the Russian embassy and then he became a missionary
6
See Archpishop Anastasios (Yannoulatos), Mission in Christ’s Way. An Orthodox Un-
derstanding of Mission, Holy Cross Orthodox Press, Brookline, Massachusetts/ World Coun-
cil of Churches Publications, Geneva, 2010, p. 193-195.
7
John Meyendorff, The Orthodox Church: Yesterday and Today, translated by Cătălin
Lazurca, Anastasia Publishing House, Bucharest, 1996, p 89.

105
Assist. Prof. PhD Ciprian Iulian Toroczkai

and translated the New Testament and major religious books into Japanese.
Under this impulse, the number of believers dramatically increased. In 1872,
a Russian bishop who had arrived in Hakodate ordained the first two Japa-
nese priests; in 1880 there were over 6,000 Orthodox in Japan and in 1891
there were over 20,000, with 22 priests and 219 churches and chapels. Also in
1891, the construction of a grand cathedral in Tokyo called “Nikolai’s house”
was about to be completed. For his merits, priest Nikolai was ordained bishop
in 1880. The number of Orthodox Christians continually increased, leading
to the establishing of a seminary in Tokyo.
The beginning of the Orthodox mission in the USA is related to John
Veniaminov, a monk who had arrived here from the Valamo monastery. Be-
tween 1824 and 1852, he composed a grammar of the Aleut language, he
preached the Gospel and he translated the Bible and the Liturgy into this
language. Between 1841 and 1858 there was a seminar set up in Alaska (at
Sitka) and in 1858 he set up an auxiliary eparchy here. After Alaska had been
sold to the U.S. in 1868, the eparchy became an independent missionary one.
In 1872 the eparchy was moved to San Francisco and in 1905 to New York8.
In the first half of the twentieth century one should mention the ex-
traordinary political cultural and religious phenomenon of the formation of
the Russian Diaspora in Western Europe and the USA. It is estimated that
between 1920 and 1922, due to the pressures from the Soviet regime embod-
ied by a decree of Lenin, between one and two million dissidents took exile
all over the world, the most important centres being Sofia, Belgrade, Prague,
Berlin, Paris or New-York9. Unfortunately, this massive Orthodox presence
could not lead to a great missionary activity. The main reason is that most
members of the Orthodox Diaspora (not only of the Russian Diaspora) did
not see in this exile the chance of a providential work; with rare exceptions,
the liturgical-clerical and the theological-academic organization was ghetto-
like: for example, the language for the teaching and the divine service was
Russian, thus the place of worship and the classroom were dedicated exclu-
sively for the emigrants.
The fact described above is symptomatic of the poor management of
the Orthodox missionary activity in the twentieth century. A major obstacle
was the establishment of communist-atheist regimes in almost all the coun-
8
Ibidem, p. 152-154.
9
See Ciprian Iulian Toroczkai, Russian Theology in Diaspora. Historical Context, Main
Representatives and Their Theological Originality, Agnos Publishing House, Sibiu, 2005, p. 83
and the following ones.

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The Mission of the Orthodox Church Today

tries with a majority Orthodox population in south-eastern Europe: Russia,


Romania, Serbia, Bulgaria and so on. Basically, the only notable exception
was Greece and not coincidentally the few attempts to revitalize the mission,
both internally and externally, occurred just within the Orthodox Church in
this country.

An Example of Orthodox Missionary Theology in the Twentieth


Century: Archbishop Anastasios Yannoulatos
As it was previously said, there was a revival of the Orthodox missionary
activity in the second half of the twentieth century and the beginning of the
twenty-first century in the Greek Orthodox Church and its main partisan
was Archbishop Anastasios Yannoulatos10. Regarding his contribution to the
development of the Orthodox mission, one must consider two levels: firstly,
the personal experience in the field of missionary service and secondly the
intense journalistic activity destined to stretch the lethargy of the Orthodox
missiology in the first half of the twentieth century, both “internally” and
“externally”11.
Anastasios Yannoulatos’ missionary activity includes several key ele-
ments of which we include: as lay theologian (1954-1960) he worked as a
preacher and catechist at the Catechetical High School of St. Constantine
from Omonoia; as a leader responsible for the student circles, the Bible
study groups, the seminars for the education of the leaders of the “younger
churches”; as a leader of the students and the youth of the “Zoe” Chris-
tian movement (from which he resigned in 1963). As a presbyter, during
his post-doctoral studies in Germany (1965-1969) he was in charge of the
Greek students and immigrants here.
He also played a pioneering role in the revival of interest in the Foreign
Orthodox Mission (1958). He worked as General Secretary of the Executive
10
Anastasios Yannoulatos was born in Piraeus on November 4, 1929. Bio-bibliogra-
phical data can be found on the official website of the Orthodox Church of Albania http://
www.orthodoxalbania.org/English/Archbishop/ArchbishopFrm.html, taken from the book
of Luke Veronis, Missionaries, Monks and Martyrs: Making Disciples of All Nations, Light
& Life Publishing Company, Minneapolis, MN, 1994. See also Archbishop Anastasios (Yan-
noulatos) Mission in Christ’s Way, p 287-303.
11
His main works were translated into Romanian: A. Yannoulatos, Facing the World:
Orthodox Christian Essays on Global Concerns translated by Gabriel Mândrilă şi Constantin
Coman, Byzantine Publishing House, Bucharest, 2003; Ibid, Missions: Footsteps in Christ’s
Way, translated by Stephen L. Thomas, Andreiana Publishing House, Sibiu, 2013.

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Assist. Prof. PhD Ciprian Iulian Toroczkai

Committee of the Mission Abroad within Syndesmos (1958-1961) and was


the founder and president of the Porefthendes Inter-Orthodox Mission Cen-
tre (1961). He was a member of the International Committee of the WCC
Missionary Studies (1963-1969), secretary for the relations and missionary
research of the Orthodox Churches in the WCC (Geneva, 1969-1971) Chair
of the World Committee for Mission and Evangelism (1984-1991) and of
the World Conference on Mission and Evangelism in San Antonio, Texas
(1989). He is a member of the German Society for Mission and of the Inter-
national Society for Missionary Education. He organized and led the Center
for Missional Research at the University of Athens (1971-1976) and the In-
ter-Orthodox Center of Athens for the Church Greece (1971-1975). As Gen-
eral Director of the Apostoliki Diaconia he promoted various journalistic and
educational programs within the Church, especially for the missions abroad
(with support for the missionary regions of Africa, Korea and India) and for
the organization of The Week for Mission Abroad.
Just a day after his ordination, Anastasios Yannoulatos traveled to East
Africa (May 1964). A serious attack of malaria forced him to return to
Europe; despite the advice of doctors, he also visited Africa on several oc-
casions (in 1967, 1968, 1974 and 1978) and as Locum Tenens (1981-1990)
of the Metropolitan Seat of Eirenoupoleos (East Africa: Kenya, Uganda,
Tanzania) he led the Orthodox missionary organization. Among others, he
founded and organized the Patriarchal School “Archbishop Makarios III of
Cyprus” which he had ruled for ten years. He ordained 62 African priests,
including the first in Tanzania and blessed 42 catechists for eight African
tribes. At the same time he supported the translation of the Divine Liturgy
in four African languages, he worked for the establishment of 150 Orthodox
parishes and for the construction of dozens of churches; he founded seven
missionary settlements and he contributed to the foundation of schools and
medical clinics12.
As Archbishop of Albania (from 1992 until today) in extremely difficult
conditions, he had a decisive contribution to the reconstruction and revival of
12
It would be unfair to link the Greek Orthodox mission in Africa only to Archbi-
shop Anastasios Yannoulatos. Therefore we must mention here two testimonies: Demetrios
Aslanidis and Monk Damascene Grigoriatis, Apostle to Zaire: The Life and Legacy of Blessed
Cosmas of Grigoriou. (1942-1989). The Fall of Sorcery, translated by Ştefan Francis Voronca,
Orthodox Books Publishing House/ The Ecumenical Publishing House, Galaţi, 2004; Da-
mascene Grigoriatis, Mission among African Sorcerers, translated by Nica Gherontie, Anastasis
Publishing House, Sibiu, 2008.

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The Mission of the Orthodox Church Today

the Autocephalous Orthodox Church of Albania, which had been destroyed


more than 23 years before13.
The highlights of Archbishop Anastasios Yannoulatos’ pastoral-mission-
ary work and of his reconstruction and revival of the Autocephalous Ortho-
dox Church of Albania are the fact that: he organized over 400 parishes, he
established the “Resurrection of Christ” Orthodox Theological Academy, he
ordained more than 150 priests, he established an orphanage, a center for
helping teenagers, three elementary schools and 17 schools of nursing. To
these are added two church high schools, a technical high school, two insti-
tutes for training and Logos University, as well as 50 youth centers in different
cities. He led the efforts to translate the liturgical books into Albanian. He
built 150 new churches, he restored 60 ancient churches and he repaired 160
churches which had been destroyed during the communist-atheist regime.
He also raised 45 ecclesiastical centers, promoting the building or repairing of
roads, aqueducts, bridges, clinics or schools. He intensely developed the char-
itable activity of the Church by distributing hundreds of tons of food, clothes
and medicines. He promoted the publication of newspapers and books; he
organized a printing company, a candle factory, an iconographic studio for
the painting and the restoration of icons. Finally, one of the most important
contributions of Archbishop Yannoulatos was to reduce the inter-ethnic and
the inter-religious tensions in this “powder keg” of the Balkans. As such, fol-
13
After the Communists had taken power in 1944 and the dictator Enver Hoxha had
become the leader of Albania, the Orthodox Church of Albania became a target of repressi-
on: in 1949 Archbishop Kristof Kisis was arrested and then, starting with 1950, the political
pressure on the Orthodox Church increased. The Churches were closed by the communist
authorities, the services and the opportunities to celebrate the sacraments were hindered and
the priests were imprisoned. This culminated in the declaration of Albania as an atheist state
in 1967 (the church institutions had already been destroyed by the communist persecution).
The last churches were closed now and the last priests who had not yet been arrested were
imprisoned mostly in the Borsh Camp in the Ionian Sea. Any religious activity was declared
illegal. Persecutions ended with the collapse of the communist regime in Albania in autumn
1990. Details can be found in Anastasios (Yannoulatos) “Some Notes on the History of the
Orthodox Church of Albania in the Twentieth Century and its Resurrection from 1991”, in
Christine Chaillot, The Orthodox Church in Eastern Europe in the Twentieth Century, transla-
ted by Liliana Donose Samuelsson, Humanitas Publishing House, Bucharest, 2011, p 157-
177; I. Forest, The Resurrection of the Church in Albania. Voices of Orthodox Christians, WCC
Publications, Geneva, 2002; L. Hoppe, Resurrection. The Orthodox Autocephalous Church of
Albania, 1991-2003, Ngjallja Press, Tirana, 2004; Fahri Balliu, The Sinister Lady. The Widow
of the Albanian dictator Enver Hoxha , translated by Tiberius Puiu, Humanitas Publishing
House, Bucharest, 2009.

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Assist. Prof. PhD Ciprian Iulian Toroczkai

lowing the proposal of 33 members of the Academy of Athens and of several


personalities from Albania, he was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize14.
With all his accomplishments, Archbishop Anastasios Yannoulatos re-
mains a model for the current and the future generations of Orthodox mis-
sionaries. The “Resurrection” of Albania is the most vivid proof that the Or-
thodox Church can carry out a successful missionary work. The main feature
of this mission is the indissoluble connection between testimony and service
and between liturgy and theology as a triptych of the true Orthodox mission
to the world. His characterization made by Ecumenical Patriarch Bartho-
lomew I is therefore very accurate: he talks about the vital role that Anastasios
Yannoulatos had and still has in the “reactivation and regeneration today of
the missionary service and practice, as the essential act and the obligatory ex-
pression of the Church’s self-awareness to those created by God, brothers and
sisters outside faith, living on all the continents of our planet”15.

The Current Situation of the Orthodox Mission: Challenges and


Limitations
Getting to the end of our study, it is impossible to limit to a success-
ful case in the contemporary Orthodox mission, as was such of Archbishop
Anastasios Yannoulatos. It seems equally important to mention, even briefly,
the main obstacles to a fruitful Orthodox missionary work. Let us begin with
the most stringent observation: the mission of the Orthodox Church in the
non-Christian regions remains very limited today. The main cause of this is
constituted by the poor awareness of the Catholic and apostolic dimension of
the Church at the expense of the excessive nationalism of the local churches.
It is a syndrome that inhibits the Orthodox mission. Forgetting that no so-
cial unit can live in isolation, the Orthodox Churches make missions more
as an exception rather than a rule. On the other hand, the Christian mission
is not exotic at all; it is dedicated only to the regions of the so-called “third
world”. Rather, the mission is essentially related to the universal dimension
of the Church and therefore must be directed to the world. Remembering his
opinions of the mission at his beginnings (1958) Archbishop Anastasios Yan-

14
The last data were extracted from the postface of Anastasios’ (Yannoulatos) book, Mis-
sion in Christ’s Way. An Orthodox Understanding of Mission, Holy Cross Orthodox Press, Brook-
line, Massachusetts/ World Council of Churches Publications, Geneva, 2010, p. 287-303.
15
„Introductory Letter of His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartolomew”, in Ib-
idem, p. 13.

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The Mission of the Orthodox Church Today

noulatos mentions two difficulties: the surprise of the Occident who believed
that the Church was introspective and uninterested in the mission and the
internal opposition of the Orthodox’s passivity who considered the interest in
the mission as something nonspecific and unimportant. The two difficulties
can be overcome only through a self-conscious evaluation of the Orthodox
who, waking up from lethargy, can see in their history some outstanding mis-
sionary achievements. (See Father Cyril’s and Father Methodius’ mission or
the Russian missionary work in the eighteenth century.)
Nevertheless, these difficulties can be overcome. A first step is to under-
stand that the mission is a must for the whole Church and not just for theolo-
gians. Every missionary effort must be seen through the prism of the light of
Revelation and especially of the Mystery of the Holy Trinity. Christ remains
the eternal prototype of the mission and all the Christian work must be done
following His example. This can lead to a deeper understanding of the Ortho-
dox ecclesiology: it is impossible to confess the attributes of “catholicity” of
the Church- as we do when we say the Creed -and not to be conscious about
the mission. In fact, to participate in the mission is to take part in the divine
plan that is still taking place and which has a cosmic dimension. According
to the Orthodox thinking, the whole world is invited to become a Church
of Christ, it is led to transfiguration, which makes the mission suppose both
the anticipation and the arrival of the kingdom of God. “This world” must
be taken seriously by the Church and continuously studied and observed in
its evolution. Opening to the world also involves making mission in the ex-
isting urban centers with millions of people- there are nearly three hundred
“megacities” with more than one million inhabitants. Also, Christians must
understand the new existential problems created by the modern atheism, ag-
nosticism and absorption in daily activities, as well as the new scientific and
cultural ideas. It is a fact that our planet has become a megalopolis where
Christians are a minority, less than a third. Hence the need for the Christian
unity and the dialogue with the representatives of other religions- especially
the Islam- to which one should add the need to understand the contemporary
world with all its developments. This is because the Christian message should
never abdicate from its mission- that to preach God’s plan for the salvation
of all men.
Regarding the relationship between the external mission and the pastoral
activity, one should note that they are interdependent. A polarization between
“inside”, “outside”, “us first, then others” can no longer be justified today.

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Assist. Prof. PhD Ciprian Iulian Toroczkai

Even at the beginning of the Church there was an indissoluble relationship


between preaching and conversion to the faith, on the one hand and the spir-
itual edification and the sanctification of the Church members on the other
hand. Church grows both by receiving new members and by facilitating those
already baptized to gain a deeper experience of the mysteries of life and love.
This intermingling between the quantitative and the qualitative, as well as of
the horizontal and the vertical aspect of the pastoral responsibility is suggested
by the words of St. Seraphim of Sarov: “Acquire inner peace and thousands
around you will find salvation”. (That mission and pastoral care go hand in
hand in the so-called “missionary” Orthodox communities is evident in the
case of the Orthodoxy in Korea and some African countries.)
One should also mention other impediments to the exercise of a true
pastoral- missionary work. From the administrative point of view, two exam-
ples should be mentioned: 1) the structure of the very large parishes in the
Diaspora and in the big cities and 2) a certain mentality of some churches
that have a large number of believers. They have the impression that the mis-
sionary activity is not their responsibility, but of some Orthodox churches
in certain geographical areas. One should fight against this narrow view, de-
manding that all the Orthodox Churches create a Pan-Orthodox Committee
for the mission; its duties would be to research, plan and promote realistic
proposals for the mission of Orthodoxy worldwide.
The theological thinking is called to proclaim ”again and again” that all
the believers are responsible for the life of the Church. Thus, one should redis-
cover the role of the laity and of the women in the Church. Although women
make up more than half of the church members and more than three quarters
of those who go to church regularly, their role is a minimal one. Therefore,
one must revitalize the institution of deaconesses and the wider use of them
as social workers, nurses, etc.
Finally, one can also list other ecclesial realities that can be defined as
“traumatic” at a missionary level: the large or small compromises with po-
litical or economic power, the abuse of material resources and the arbitrary
administrative practices in the Church, the believers’ difficulty to cooperate
with the others, the lack of care in implementing decisions, the indifference of
the young people who see in the Church the immobility, the division between
small Orthodox groups and so on.
These are some of the issues that the Orthodox mission is facing today,
both in terms of its “external” and “internal” dimension. In our opinion,
in the pan-Orthodox conferences, in the courses of Missionary Theology, in

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The Mission of the Orthodox Church Today

various academic or clerical national and international conferences, the mis-


sionary themes should be debated objectively, without idealization, so as to
provide theoretical and practical solutions to these current missionary chal-
lenges. Perhaps more than anything, the problem of the insufficient mission-
ary work of the Orthodox Churches today should be on the agenda of the
forthcoming Great Pan-Orthodox Synod; here one might find a consensus
to overcome some artificial obstacles in efficiently exercising an Orthodox
mission, especially in the Diaspora. For, making or not making an Orthodox
mission “following the model of Christ” ultimately depends on us...
We conclude with what Kallistos Ware, Bishop of Diokleia was saying
in the preface of a work dedicated to the exposure of the Orthodox Church
in Eastern Europe in the twentieth century “for the Orthodox Christians in
Eastern Europe, the twentieth century was a troubled epoch, full of major
challenges, but not without new hope”16. Passing these tests, the Orthodox
must learn from the mistakes of the past, while having an optimistic attitude
that would place the missionary work of the Church on the eschatological
way of the Kingdom of God.

16
Kallistos Ware, “Preface”, in Christine Chaillot, The Orthodox Church in Eastern
Europe in the Twentieth Century, translated by Liliana Donose Samuelsson, Humanitas Publi-
shing House, Bucharest, 2011, p 6.

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Ecclesial Experience – a Missionary-Apologetical Principle
in Apostolic Fathers and Apologists Thinking

Revd. Prof. PhD Cristinel Ioja

1. The Church – the birth of a new humanity inside the old one
Christianity appears inside the Jewish world and expands in the context
of the Roman - Greek world, as a new way of life, superior to any religious,
philosophical and cultural experience until then. Christianity wore inside the
strength and the novelty which radiated from the Incarnation of the Logos in
history, from the Resurrection and the Elevation of Christ with perfect body
to the heaven, and the foundation of the Church as a space where humans is
opened the possibility of contemplation of the Kingdom. That’s why, since
the beginning, Christians delimitated between the ecclesial life and the life of
the profane culture orientated idolatry – polytheistic. One of the first clues of
this delimitation we find in the Epistle to the Romans (1, 18-32) of the Holy
Apostle Paul in which is presented a disturbing picture of the pagan world
consumed by the sins and vices. Holy Apostle Paul speaks about humans who
“keep the injustice as a truth”, lost and dark people in their thoughts and
souls; about people who are sustaining they are wise became insane, changing
the glory of an incorruptible God with the similarity of corruptible man, of
birds, of four-footed beasts and reptiles. Certainly, Apostle Paul denounces an
entire orientation of the pagan world from that time to idolatry, serving the
creature instead the Creator.
This orientation of the pagan world has major spiritual orientation to
the human life in the world, for understanding interhuman relationships,
of relations with God and the Universe. Idolatry as a part of a pagan culture
introduces devastating confusions for the human life, confusions between the
creatures and the Creator, facilitating the premises of submerging the humans
in the passionate impulses of the body. “And changed the glory of the uncor-

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Ecclesial Experience – a Missionary-Apologetical Principle

ruptible God into an imagemade like to corruptible man, and to birds, and


fourfooted beasts, and creeping things.  Wherefore God also  gave  them up
to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own
bodies between themselves: Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and
worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for
ever. Amen. For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even
their  women  did change the natural use into that which is against nature:
And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned
in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is un-
seemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which
was meet. And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge,
God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not
convenient;  Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication,  wickedness,
covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate,  deceit, malignity;
whisperers, Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of
evil things, disobedient to parents, Without understanding, covenantbreak-
ers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful:  Who knowing the
judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death,
not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.” (1, 18-32).
Therefore, apparition of the Church, the New Israel with universal open
in the love and the truth of Christ, means the apparition in history of a new
humanity, of a new “lump” essentially different of the old one regarding the
way of life and the reference to God, man, Universe. This new humanity
was rooted in the transcendental roots of the Revelation with the mission of
transfiguration the immanence of history creating thus essentially marks of an
ecclesial and cultural manifestation which claims her strength and accuracy
in the mystery of the Human-God Person, Christ. Deeply influenced by the
Books of The Holy Scripture, Apostolic Fathers followed the same delimita-
tion between the Christian ways of life anchored in demanding of the Gospel
of Christ, and assumed by Christian communities, and the way of life of the
pagan world in which the vice was confused with the virtue, the acts of the
dark with the acts of the light, creature with Creator.
The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles shows that there are two ways, one of
life, and one of death, and the way of life it propose us to be experienced in
Christ, protecting us of the death way. From Christian perspective, things are
very clear concerning the life and death, because even Christ was that who
removed the life under the mastery of the death and all who want to release
their life under the mastery of evil and under the mastery of the dark, are

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Revd. Prof. PhD Cristinel Ioja

called to embody in their life the acts of light like sons of the light. “There are
two ways, one of life and one of death, but a great difference between the two
ways. The way of life, then, is this: First, you shall love God who made you;
second, love your neighbor as yourself, and do not do to another you would
not want done to you. And of these sayings the teaching is this: Bless those
who curse you, and pray for your enemies, and fast for those who persecute
you. For what reward is there for loving those who love you? Do not the Gen-
tiles do the same? But love those who hate you, and you shall not have an en-
emy. Abstain from fleshly and worldly lusts. (…)And the second command-
ment of the Teaching; You shall not commit murder, you shall not commit
adultery, you shall not commit pederasty, you shall not commit fornication,
you shall not steal, you shall not practice magic, you shall not practice witch-
craft, you shall not murder a child by abortion nor kill that which is born.
You shall not covet the things of your neighbor, you shall not swear, you shall
not bear false witness, you shall not speak evil, you shall bear no grudge. You
shall not be double-minded nor double-tongued, for to be double-tongued is
a snare of death. Your speech shall not be false, or empty, but fulfilled by deed.
You shall not be covetous, nor rapacious, nor a hypocrite, nor evil disposed,
nor haughty. You shall not take evil counsel against your neighbor. You shall
not hate any man; but some you shall reprove, and concerning some you shall
pray, and some you shall love more than your own life. (…) My child, flee
from every evil thing, and from every likeness of it.”1
Based on these aspects of life, Christians have understood that there is a
culture of life and a culture of death. But, even if were a lot of attitudes con-
cerning the profane culture of the first Christian centuries, however, the con-
sent of Fathers expressed a constructive attitude regarding the ancient culture.
Thus, references to the ancient culture were not a cancellation of it, but of
assuming, integration of her values in an updated and more accurate expres-
sion of the Holy culture.

2. Ecclesial experience: death and resurrection in Christ


But what does ecclesial experience means? Ecclesial experience means
communion and real union in mysteries with Jesus Christ, participating as-
cetic-mystical and spiritual-rational at the Mystery of stewardship of Holy
1
The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, I-V, in “Apostolic Fathers writings”, trans. Fr. D.
Fecioru, Editura Institutului Biblic şi de Misiune al Bisericii Ortodoxe Române Publishing
house, Bucharest, 1979, pp. 25-28

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Ecclesial Experience – a Missionary-Apologetical Principle

Trinity in the World. Union with Christ in Mysteries means assuming by


every Christian the death and resurrection of Christ in his personal life as
a premise of rebirth and experiencing a new life with God. Christ, Cruci-
fied and Resurrected was the center of the cult and Christian life in Holy
Spirit. Thus, the authenticity of Christian life emphasized in participation in
the union between the Cross and Resurrection of Christ, in ascetic-mystical
synthesis, present in community by love, Church and Mysteries. Apology had
a missionary-ecclesial-confessing character which targeted life herself, fidelity to
what you assumed you love. The request was very clear: “try to participate only
at one Eucharistic; because one is the body of the Lord Jesus Christ, and one
is the chalice to the union with His blood.”2 This sacramental-ecclesial experi-
ence distinguished the Christian life not only the diverse forms of the experi-
ences of the idolatry cults, but the heretical tendencies of that time. In this
sense, Saint Ignatius Theophorus affirmed that heretics have not convinced
about Christ, not prophecies, not Law of Moses, not Gospel, even the suffer-
ings of any of us.3
Thus, participation of the death and resurrection mystery of Christ was
not realized without the communion in Mysteries and without the assum-
ing of an ascetic which leads to sufferings and death for faith. Saint Ignatius
warned those who tried to evade from this communion, namely to not par-
ticipate at all: “No one to not deceive. If someone is not inside where is the
altar, he is deprived of the “bread of the God”. If prayer of someone or two
has so much power, even more of bishop and the entire Church. He who
does not come to the assembly is an arrogant and he separated himself.”4
This way of life was considerate to be “according to the truth”, between the
Christians from Ephesus. This apology which has his roots in the ecclesial life
was continuously expanded into the world, but from the positions ecclesial-
sacramental and community-missionary. From this perspective, confessing
had personal-ontological and community-missionary connotations.
Confession of the first Christians concentrate in expression the relation
between Incarnation, Cross, Resurrection and Doomsday. This was the es-
sence “Word preached from the beginning”5 Anyone didn’t confess this rela-
2
Saint Ignatius Theophorus, Epistle to Philadelphians, IV,1, in “Apostolic Fathers writ-
ings”, p.179
3
Idem, Epistle to the Smyrneans, V,1, in “Apostolic Fathers writings”, p.183
4
Idem, Epistle to Ephesians, V,2, in “Apostolic Fathers writings”, p.159
5
Saint Polycarp of Smyrna, Epistle to Philippians, VII, 1-2, in “Apostolic Fathers writ-
ings”, p.211

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Revd. Prof. PhD Cristinel Ioja

tion of salvation events in Christ, wasn’t in agreement with Gospel and, there-
fore, not with the Christian life permanently centered ecclesial-sacramental,
according to Gospel. Thus, holiness of life grounded on divine Revelation guard-
ed and exploited in Church is the essential criterion of confessing, mission and
apology as delimitation between Christian life and idolatry pagan life.
Ecclesial experience can’t conceive without Jesus Christ, He who opened
the perspective of experiencing Holy Trinity in Church. Holy Trinity is pre-
sented in Church, from Father through Son in Holy Spirit, the catabasis of
Trinity having consequence the anabasis of creature in Holy Spirit through
Son from Father. This double movement corresponds with Fathers of Church
affirmed regarding the center of divine stewardship: God became human that
human to become god by grace or to deify himself in grace. This deification
realizes in Church where is contained all the stewardship divine regarding
the creation, men and Universe, and center of this deification is Incarnation,
Sacrifice, Resurrection, Elevation of Christ to heaven with the humanity as-
sumed and deified.
Ecclesial experience doesn’t simply refer at intellectually reception, ratio-
nally of Christ in Church, but a real participation personal-community at His
personal presence in Church through Holy Spirit. This participation as expe-
rience means acetic-mystically integration of faithful and of Church commu-
nity in mystery of Incarnation, Death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ. This
integration begins with Baptism- Chrismation-Eucharist and continues with
the others mysteries that gravitate around the person of Jesus Christ. Saint Ig-
natius Theophorus shows: “Do not speak of Jesus Christ, and yet set your de-
sires on the world. (…) My love has been crucified, and there is no fire in me
desiring to be fed; but there is within me water that lives and speaks, saying
to me inwardly, Come to the Father. I have no delight in corruptible food, or
in the pleasures of this life. I desire the bread of God, the heavenly bread, the
bread of life, which is the flesh of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who became
afterwards of the seed of David and Abraham; and I desire the drink of God,
namely His blood, which is incorruptible love and eternal life.”6
Also ecclesial experience as experience of death and resurrection in Christ
realizes in Liturgy, in which the faithful participate at a crescendo spiritual-
6
Saint Ignatius Theophoros, Epistle to Romans, VII, 1, 3, in “Apostolic Fathers writ-
ings”, pp. 176-177. See: H. Koester, History and Cult in the Gospel of John and in Ignatius
of Antioch, „Journal of Theology and the Church” 1 (1965), pp. 111-123; John E. Lawyer,
Eucharist and Martyrdom in the Letters of Ignatius of Antioch, „Anglican Theological Review
“vol. 73, (1991), nr. 3, 280-296.

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Ecclesial Experience – a Missionary-Apologetical Principle

rational which has as starting point Incarnation- hymn Only-begotten Son and
immortal Word of God followed by Sacrifice of praise – Resurrection, Elevation
and Communion of faithful from the real presence of Jesus in Holy Gifts
under the bread and wine changed in Body and Blood themselves through
Holy Spirit. The immediate consequence of Communion of faithful with
Body and Blood of Christ is one gnosiological, not simple epistemological,
in sense of acquiring a view of the unseen, an understanding of the misunder-
stood, a knowing beyond the discursive knowing, rationalistically. With this
experience gnosiological-sacramental, Christians get out Church and confess,
expand the accumulated values assumed and experienced in Church, into the
World.
Ecclesial experience open human person deepened in communion with
Holy Trinity in Christ and in communion with peers to a kind of know-
ing which engage the integrity of human nature, unity of seen creation and
unseen through receiving the Holy Spirit. We have seen the true Light! We
have received the heavenly spirit! We have found the true faith! Worshipping the
undivided Trinity, who has saved us? Here we observe that the ecclesial experi-
ence centered triadological – Christological born premises of a such knowing,
more important than the purely intellectual and visual experience that cannot
be achieved fully without doxological image of our state in the Liturgy of
the Church and communion with the Body and Blood of Christ. Of course,
ecclesial experience doesn’t limit at these coordinates, but includes another,
which all converges to these to realize in fully.
Ecclesial experience generates premises to fully understanding of the
meaning of creation which lights in the personal communion between God
and man in Church. Divisions and contradictions supported ideologically are
overcome by ecclesial integrated man, who receive through a paradoxically vi-
sion on reality, an integrated vision of it, centered in the Person Scriptures call
“crucified and resurrected”. From this perspective even the relation of man
with God, but the vision of men of his meaning and Universe remain unitary,
being established on dynamic of experience which he assumes in the Church.

3. God wisdom and human wisdom – a lesson of Fathers for to-


day mission
In general secular philosophy is considered by Fathers as preparatory
of Christianity. Martyr Justin  the  Philosopher recognizes that his Greek
professors, especially Plato brought him to the threshold of Christianity.

119
Revd. Prof. PhD Cristinel Ioja

Greek philosophy play the role to patristic thinking that law Old Testament
plays to the New Testament. Saint Justin the Martyr, Tatian the Assyrian,
Theophile of Antioch, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, develop the theory
that the great Greek philosophers attended spermatikos Logos, Logos frag-
mented present in divine wisdom in creation.7 Attitude of first Christians to
“human wisdom” was divided, positive attitude of the role of this “wisdom”
gaining a lot of space in Fathers thinking, but the condition of selective as-
suming with distinction between culture placed in service of life and culture
placed in service of death, of passions and corruption, idolatry and heresies.
This principle is very present and can be successfully activated in postmod-
ern culture, prophetic function of theology clarifying hierarchy of values in
people conscience.
Clement of Alexandria for example, draw this line of demarcation illus-
trating with examples and affirming: “Do not strive philosopher, to present
my only one philosopher, illustrious Plato but show me and many others
who, if they were able to understand the truth preached by God’s inspiration,
loud, God, the only true God.”8 Saint Justin shows that the seeds of Word
is born in all human kind and highlight the unity of Revelation, natural/
supernatural in Christ. “Our doctrines, then, appear to be greater than all hu-
man teaching; because Christ, who appeared for our sakes, became the whole
rational being, both body, and reason, and soul. For whatever either lawgivers
or philosophers uttered well, they elaborated by finding and contemplating
some part of the Word. But since they did not know the whole of the Word,
which is Christ, they often contradicted themselves. And those who by hu-
man birth were more ancient than Christ, when they attempted to consider
and prove things by reason, were brought before the tribunals as impious per-
sons and busybodies. (…). For no one trusted in Socrates so as to die for this
doctrine, but in Christ, who was partially known even by Socrates (for He was
and is the Word who is in every man, and who foretold the things that were to
come to pass both through the prophets and in His own person when He was
made of like passions, and taught these things), not only philosophers and
scholars believed, but also artisans and people entirely uneducated, despising
7
Fr. Prof. Ioan G. Coman, Probleme de filosofie şi literatură patristică, Editura Insti-
tutului Biblic şi de Misiune al Bisericii Ortodoxe Române Publishing house, Bucharest,
1995, p. 31
8
Clement of Alexandria, Cuvânt de îndemn către elini, VI, 71, in „Writings”, part I,
PSB. vol.4, trans. Pr. Dumitru Fecioru, Editura Institutului Biblic şi de Misiune al Bisericii
Ortodoxe Române Publishing house, Bucharest, 1982, p. 128.

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Ecclesial Experience – a Missionary-Apologetical Principle

both glory, and fear, and death; since He is a power of the ineffable Father,
and not the mere instrument of human reason.”9
Fundamental criterion that this Christians should consider, in a given
historical context, regarding the report between their faith and their con-
temporary culture, is precisely one evaluation of this culture in the light of
Revelation. If you make a parallel between Plato, Prophets and Apostles we
should affirm the universality and ontological implications which lies from
the holiness of life within supernatural Revelation relative to the natural one.
Thus, the first, man learned, schooled, the last in generally unschooled, writ-
ings of Plato in general for schooled and the writings of Scripture, for every-
one – schooled and unschooled, but the subtle conceptions of Plato related
to the “Supreme Good”, conceptions that doesn’t have a deeply existential
relevance and the words of Prophets which have profound implications per-
sonal-ontological.
Words of Prophets and Apostles doesn’t refer to philosophy which had
like aim her embody in humans life, remaining cool and distant of their life,
but they were “words of the eternal life”, so they refer to a teaching that keep
the strength, and gives authenticity to life to the extent that is embodied,
experienced, are inextricably linked of soteriology, the commandments, the
work of virtue and a common vision of history and eschatology. “For whatever
either lawgivers or philosophers uttered well, they elaborated by finding and
contemplating some part of the Word. But since they did not know the whole
of the Word, which is Christ, they often contradicted themselves. And those
who by human birth were more ancient than Christ, when they attempted to
consider and prove things by reason, were brought before the tribunals as im-
pious persons and busybodies. And Socrates, who was more zealous in this di-
rection than all of them, was accused of the very same crimes as us. They said
that he was introducing new divinities, and did not consider those to be gods
whom the state recognized. (…)For no one trusted in Socrates so as to die for
this doctrine, but in Christ, who was partially known even by Socrates (for He
was and is the Word who is in every man, and who foretold the things that
were to come to pass both through the prophets and in His own person when
He was made of like passions, and taught these things), not only philosophers
and scholars believed, but also artisans and people entirely uneducated, de-
spising both glory, and fear, and death; since He is a power of the ineffable Fa-
9
Saint Justin the Martyr and Philosopher, Second apology, X, in „Apologeţi de limba
greacă”, col. „Părinţi şi Scriitori Bisericeşti” vol. 2, Editura Institutului Biblic şi de Misiune al
Bisericii Ortodoxe Române Publishing house, Bucharest, pp. 84-85

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Revd. Prof. PhD Cristinel Ioja

ther, and not the mere instrument of human reason. (…)For each man spoke
well in proportion to the share he had of the spermatic word, seeing what
was related to it. But they who contradict themselves on the more important
points appear not to have possessed the heavenly wisdom, and the knowledge
which cannot be spoken against. Whatever things were rightly said among
all men, are the property of us Christians. For next to God, we worship and
love the Word who is from the unbigoted and ineffable God, since also He
became man for our sakes, that, becoming a partaker of our sufferings, He
might also bring us healing. For all the writers were able to see realities darkly
through the sowing of the implanted word that was in them. For the seed and
imitation imparted according to capacity is one thing, and quite another is
the thing itself, of which there is the participation and imitation according
to the grace which is from Him.”10 From this considerate, in the mission of
Church we should make a distinction between holiness and genius and to see, in
the same time, a special relation between holiness and genius. Given this recipro-
cal relationship, in orthodox vision, both holiness and genius impose respect.
Genius isn’t a condition of holiness, and holiness is much more than genius.
This report should be clearly affirmed inside postmodern culture, secularized
and globalized. So, both reason and culture of every historical time, and faith
and holiness have a fundamental value in human life and perfection, which,
in the same time, is rational and faithful, is integrated in certain culture and
participate at the holiness of God, assuming and transfiguring culture of the
time. A theology which make abstraction of culture is doomed not only in itself
closing, without relevance for the world in which she confess the revealed Truth,
but the traps of mysticism and pietism, and a culture that make abstraction of
theology, of what this confess, is doomed to secularization and atomization, is
doomed in itself closing in skyline of history. In other words, culture is called to
eternity but not independently, but through participation-transfiguration of
Christ and the Church, a process in which reason cannot miss.
In Fathers vision, man culture and Holy culture can coexist – excepting
that culture submissive to demonic influences, sins and human degradation.
Horizontal human culture is in inner relation to the vertical “Holy Culture”
in the human person committed to perfection. Holy culture as expression of
the ethos of Church cannot be in relation with culture of death as expression
of “death way” about Fathers spoke. Holy culture remain in relation with hu-
10
Saint Justin the Martyr and Philosopher, Second apology, VI, VIII,X, in „Apologeţi de
limba greacă”, col. „P.S.B, vol. 2, pp. 374-375, 447

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Ecclesial Experience – a Missionary-Apologetical Principle

man culture as far as he remain devoted to the life way revealed by God in his-
tory and described by Fathers as being opposite to way and culture of death.

4. Ecclesial experience – missionary–apologetically principle for


affirming Holy culture in secular culture
Patristic perspective regarding relation between Church and culture, be-
tween what Church offers to experience and what human culture offers to
experience is based on the way Jesus Christ understood this realities. As Christ
assumed human culture through His Incarnation and transfigured through
his Resurrection and Elevation, so on, Church – Christ Body, assumes selec-
tively human culture in her conscience and life to transfigure it continuously
in Kingdom perspective. Church Fathers permanently reported to the exam-
ple of Christ for confessing a perihoretical vision on relationship between
Gospel and culture, between Church and culture, between the transient and
immutable values.
By following the evangelical model of Christ, by following the arche-
typal model He gives us in all his earthly life manifestations, we can update
in every century saving truth made ​​possible by Him. Jesus Christ as a model
of confessing Father’s will, and defense of this confessing with His life, in
every century, watch us on one side of demonizing culture, and on the other
by idolizing culture. The Gospel and culture are not separate nor confuse.
Gospel expresses in a certain historical context, appealing at the best culture
part of that time, meanwhile culture of every historical context is put through
Gospel is tight relation with universal culture and her transcendent possibili-
ties of remaining beyond death.
Missionary stake of the early Christians was the power of faith that managed
to make transparent in the middle of a pagan world, their God. To show beyond
simple concepts, as an actual fact of everyday life your God is the great chal-
lenge to all Christians in all times and places. That’s why; the great stake of
Christian life in the millennia we are will be to make present, feel and under-
standable painting Christ in hearts and conscience of world and people. Are
times where people, increasingly reoriented towards neo-paganism, we will
ask - as sometimes to the first Christians, living in a pagan world - where is
your God? Show us your God! And a painting of abstracts words of God image
so how can it be painted in our lives, in our person created in God’s image and
called to an endless likeness in grace. Difference is life, personal-community
experience with The One confessed, and the strength we manage to express

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Revd. Prof. PhD Cristinel Ioja

this confession, cultic, doxological, theological, cultural, and social. Not only
words, but life confessing; not a speech about God, but a confessing into
God. Apologists will highlight against idolatry the reality of God alive and
personal, God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, the God incarnate in Jesus Christ.
In First Apology, Saint Justin shows the attitude that plays a true Eu-
charistic thanksgiving to man in creation, thanksgiving addressing God, the
Creator of the universe for all His gifts. This Eucharistic attitude of men in
creation distances of idolatry attitude, pagan of food and gifts of creation
consuming through fire. Eucharistic attitude of men to universe discovers in
darkly, eschatological destination of the entire creation. “What sober-minded
man, then, will not acknowledge that we are not atheists, worshipping as we
do the Maker of this universe, and declaring, as we have been taught, that He
has no need of streams of blood and libations and incense; whom we praise
to the utmost of our power by the exercise of prayer and thanksgiving for
all things wherewith we are supplied, as we have been taught that the only
honor that is worthy of Him is not to consume by fire what He has brought
into being for our sustenance, but to use it for ourselves and those who need,
and with gratitude to Him to offer thanks by invocations and hymns for our
creation, and for all the means of health, and for the various qualities of the
different kinds of things, and for the changes of the seasons; and to present
before Him petitions for our existing again in incorruption through faith in
Him. Our teacher of these things is Jesus Christ, who also was born for this
purpose, and was crucified under Pontius Pilate, procurator of Judea, in the
times of Tiberius Cesar; and that we reasonably worship Him, having learned
that He is the Son of the true God Himself, and holding Him in the second
place, and the prophetic Spirit in the third, we will prove. For they proclaim
our madness to consist in this, that we give to a crucified man a place second
to the unchangeable and eternal God, the Creator of all; for they do not dis-
cern the mystery that is herein, to which, as we make it plain to you, we pray
you to give heed.”11
The base of this attitude, her source is Church experience itself centered
on Mysteries, in Eucharistic Mystery which means thanks for Creator gifts
and their return. “Having ended the prayers, we salute one another with a
kiss. There is then brought to the president of the brethren bread and a cup
of wine mixed with water; and he taking them, gives praise and glory to
the Father of the universe, through the name of the Son and of the Holy
11
Idem., First apology, XIII, in „Apologeţi de limbă greacă”, PSB vol.2, p.33.

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Ecclesial Experience – a Missionary-Apologetical Principle

Ghost, and offers thanks at considerable length for our being counted wor-
thy to receive these things at His hands. (…)And this food is called among
us Εὐχαριστία [the Eucharist](…) For not as common bread and common
drink do we receive these; but in like manner as Jesus Christ our Savior, hav-
ing been made flesh by the Word of God, had both flesh and blood for our
salvation, so likewise have we been taught that the food which is blessed by
the prayer of His word, and from which our blood and flesh by transmutation
are nourished, is the flesh and blood of that Jesus who was made flesh.”12
A personal life grafted on the sacraments, the Gospel and the Church’s
experience, selective culture will take time, it will heal and will open in the
various daily events to Christian values. This reality is depicted in moving
words in the Epistle to Diognetus, an expression of how Christians of the first
centuries were able to separate what was contrary to the message Revelation
and to apologetical manifest a way of evanghelical life in middle of o hostile
world to Christian values.13
The naturalness of Christian living is not against history, social and cul-
tural statutes, but always against the ugliness in the world, in society and
culture that has hated sin and passion as well as something irrational and
broke the will of the Creator. Ecclesial experience of men is in an evident
way of confession of Truth and a totally existential apology. Such an apology
anchored in the experience of the Church moves hearts to the Truth. This di-
mension apologetically-confessing was viable and will remain in any historical
epoch in which Jesus Christ will be confessed. This way of life remains the fire
core of orthodox mission, in which different answers insert of the contempo-
rary challenges. The designing after the Church project their entire profession
in the world must be that of Christ, the Apostles, the Fathers. Let us remem-
ber how the Son of God came into the world, went down to our condition,
assuming it to Him and perfecting it. This movement should guide a way to
do mission: a “descent” of the missionary needs and interrogations of con-
temporary man, their ownership and an indication edifying itinerary of the
Kingdom.
We don’t do from our apology something transient, an apology for ameliora-
tion of certain conditions of living into the World, but for recovery of people for
God Kingdom. In this perspective, Church in Fathers spirit, speaks about a
culture which participate at Kingdom way can eternalize and about the im-

12
Ibidem, LXV-LXVI, p. 70
13
Epistle to Diognetus, V, in „Apostolic Fathers Writings”, pp. 339-340

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Revd. Prof. PhD Cristinel Ioja

portance of assuming selectively of human culture in divine-human reality of


Church, after the example of God-Human Person. This selective assuming
of world culture realize not only in the divine-human reality of Church, but
in the paradoxically reality of human person which is integrated in Church
experience and in world culture, in Spirit experience and claims of the world
through philosophy, science, technology, information.
This reality shouldn’t generate two experiences, but one alone projected
after example of Christ, in which humanity and all her values were made
obedient to God will in Christ. Paradox of human person having as example
paradox of Christ, have all the potentialities to realize a unitary vision of
world and Church, of Holy culture and human culture and so to unite with-
out vertically to horizontally confusion the experience in ambient of Christ
Body, Church and the whole world. In orthodox perspective, human culture
cannot be dominated or cancelled by Holy culture, but inspired and so connected
profoundly to her transcendental roots discovered in Jesus Christ.
Thus, post-modern culture should be assumed, healed and transfigured
in the “metabolism” of Christian life, which is not only in spiritual life of
Church, but in today society. Only an authentic Christian will realize to unify
without confusion Church life with world life under the same healing love
of Jesus Christ, working in his life. Result will be a life and culture of world
healing through the life and Spirit of Church, embodied in life of persons
and community. Through these actions we believe that culture will gradually
abandon anthropocentric perspectives gaining theandric manifestations, di-
vine and human, manifesting itself in accordance with the purpose of human
and creaturely world and not against them.

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Preaching the Gospel and Establishing Local Churches
Important Goals of the Mission

Revd. Prof. PhD. Aurel Pavel

The Orthodox theological thinking about mission has never been de-
veloped in a systematic way, admits without hesitation in one of his works
the current Archbishop of Albania Anastasios Yannoulatos. This differs from
Western thinking, more preocupied about the purpose and the reason of the
mission. Talking about the mission from the Orthodox viewpoint entails a
double risk: either limitating ourselves to repeating ideas of others, after stud-
ying the Catholic and Protestant views, either filling these two, in the sense
of creating something totally distinct from them. A third way, more serious,
more modest, is the right one: avoiding the tactics of controversy and medi-
tating on Orthodox soteriology, ecclesiology and eschatology from a mission-
ary perspective1.
This view we had in mind when we worked on editing some lesser known
studies of one of the greatest Orthodox missionaries theologians of the twenti-
eth century, Fr. Prof. Ion Bria (June 19, 1929 – July 2, 2002)2. Going through
his texts, we realized that the critical reflections of Archbishop Yannoulatos
are not entirely valid; probably his intention was to provoke theologians to
reflect on the nature and specificity of Orthodox mission, being convinced
that, although he constantly had a “missionary conscience” – proven by his
activity – The Orthodox Church was not particularly concerned with the
development of a “missionary system”, of a “missionary theoretical basis”. On
the other hand, in this study we want to point out that it never missed from

1
Archbishop Anastasios (Yannoulatos), Mission in Christ’s Way. An Orthodox Under-
standing of Mission, Holy Cross Orthodox Press, Brookline, Massachusetts/ World Council
of Churches Publications, Geneva, 2010, p. 41.
2
Ion Bria, Studii de Misiune și Ecumenism (Studies on Mission and Ecumenism), Astra
Museum Publishing, Sibiu, 2013.

127
Revd. Prof. PhD. Aurel Pavel

the Orthodox theologians the emphasize on what mission is and is aimed to.
As proof we will resort to pointing out some key themes of the Romanian
theologian thinking, without any exhaustive claims. For us it is important to
illustrate why mission pursued, as immediate goals, two fundamental princi-
ples: preaching the Gospel and Church expansion “among all nations”, as in-
trinsic requirement of our Savior’s command to do mission (Matthew 24:28).
Christ, the God-Man is the original and all-embracing mystery of our
salvation, for in Him it has been given to us the basis of the union between the
divine and the human. The fundamental truth which underlies the Church
is this: our body and nature were assumed by One from the Trinity. The
Church, as divine-human institution, is a direct consequence of the hypo-
static union from Christ. For if the Son of God took our flesh, united Himself
with it, shapes it and sanctifies it from the inside, thereby transforming the
human nature that He has made His own, refreshing and personalizing it, all
this make possible the recovery and restoration of the cosmos and the reopen-
ing of the personal union perspective of each individual with God, refreshing
the theandric nature in every man, consciously and freely. This is nothing but
extending the Person of Christ in all who stick to Him, which is the Church.
The scriptural quote “as my Father has sent me, even so I send you” (John
20:21), through which Jesus Christ sent the Holy Apostles to the missionary
work, coincides with the “sending” the Church into world, which refers to a
double aspect: the act of universalization of the Gospel and integration of all
people in the redeeming condition of the Kingdom of God. The seen sending
of both Son and Holy Spirit into the world, deliberated and initiated by the
heavenly Father is the basis of the mission. The participation of the faithful
in the sending of the Son and of the Holy Spirit means participation in the
communion life of God; and again, fellowship to this is synonymous with
the accession to the kingdom of God, whose prediction is achieved even from
now in the life of communion of the Church – Mystical Body of Christ and
temple of the Holy Spirit3.
Preaching the Gospel is nothing but the work of proclaiming the Person
and work of salvation of Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God Incarnate “at the
fulness of the time”. Thus, in the New Testament by gospel is understood “the
good news” or the revelation of God in the Person and the redemptive work
of Jesus Christ, the message or the content of this discovery contained in the
3
Ion Bria, Mărturia creştină în Biserica Ortodoxă: aspecte, posibilităţi şi perspective ac-
tuale (Christian Witness in the Orthodox Church: Current Aspects, Opportunities and Insights),
in G.B. 41 (1982), No. 1-3, pp. 81-83.

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Preaching the Gospel and Establishing Local Churches

preaching and teachings of Jesus (see Mark 13:10, 14:9 or Romans 2:16), as
well as preaching this message (Philippians 4:3). The Gospel of Christ is “the
power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and
also to the Greek” (Romans 1:16, cf. Ephesians 1:13, I Corinthians 15:1-2).
But the Gospel has a universal dimension, becauseit is “the perfection of im-
mortality” (St. Ignatius, To Philadelphians, IX, 2), as it represents “the happy
news of peace and love brought by God to earth, intended for all, all human-
ity, everywhere and from all times”4.
Since the beginning of the Church, the gospel was understood as being
the oral tradition of Jesus Christ’s preaching. Then recorded in writing, it
became normative for the Church’s teaching. Thus, all “evangelists” used the
original form of the Gospel – that is oral tradition – to which the Church
gave a final form before the end of the first century. But, as Father Bria draws
attention, “the evangelists are not mere collectors of traditions, without a per-
sonal contribution to the interpretation of the material that circulated. They
have an important role not only in terms of putting the material on a plan
that centers on Jesus Christ, for missionary and catechetical purposes, but also
regarding the theological interpretation that each biblical writer gives to the
tradition he has at his disposal”5.
Just as the Lord Jesus Christ presented Himself in the Gospels as being
“teacher” – rabbi (Matthew 19:16, 23:8, Luke 9:49, John 1:49), whose pri-
mary mission was to preach the Gospel (Mark 1:38), so also His chosen ones,
the Apostles, have to fulfil this mission: “your teacher is one: Christ” (Mat-
thew 23:10), and His chosen twelve are invested with the power of forgive-
ness of sins (Matthew 18:18) and with the mission to preach (Mark 3:14-19),
to be His “witnesses” “unto the uttermost part of the earth” (Acts 1:8).
Also in terms of content of the sermon there is identity between the mes-
sage of Jesus Christ and that of His disciples. On the one hand, Jesus speaks
in synagogues, engages contradictory discussions with the scholars of the Law,
uses the rabbinical exegesis of Scripture, but, on the other hand, He does not
hesitate to preach publicly, on the streets, in private houses, out of doors, on
the field, on top of hills, on the shores of lakes or the Sea of Galilee. The main
difference from the Pharisees human teaching comes mainly from the fact
that His teachings that come from the fullness of God, which He proclaims as
4
Idem, Dicționar de Teologie Ortodoxă (Dictionary of Orthodox Theology), 2nd edition,
Publishing House of the Mission and Bible Institute of the Romanian Orthodox Church,
Bucharest, 1994, p. 160.
5
Ibidem, p. 161.

129
Revd. Prof. PhD. Aurel Pavel

“sent by God” (John 3:34). The same quality have His Apostles and their dis-
ciples, who preach “the Good News”, the Gospel of God’s kingdom (Matthew
4:23) to all people. Be noted that they also have a word “with great power”
as the words of the eternal Word, Son of God Incarnate. He told them: “The
Words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life” (John 6:63).
The word of Jesus Christ is full of truth and divine love (Mark 1:22), and the
same power have the words preached by His disciples: their message has the
divine power of transforming souls, because in them people find answers to
the problems of their spiritual life6.
Preaching the Gospel must follow the birth and transmission of true
faith, because the rule of faith becomes the rule of life. Authentic Christian
life is possible only through an act of self-identification of each generation of
believers with the continuous practice of the Church, by reliving in “the com-
munion of saints” in unity of thought and life with their predecessors (hence
the transmission of Tradition as requirement of the mission).
Analyzing the concept and the action of evangelization, Father Bria shows
that this is “essential for building the Church, the Body of Christ in history, by
converting those who accept the word of God as the ultimate truth”7. In this
sense, we can speak of the missionary, apostolic Church’s dogmatic dimen-
sion, sent into the world by the Envoy of the Father, the Son of God, with His
Holy Spirit to make of each person in its historical condition and the entire
human community, place of illuminating, transfiguring and redeeming pres-
ence of Go. But the apostolicity of the Church is intimately, closely linked to
its other attributes, namely, unity, holiness and its universality. In the life of
holiness of the Christians, in their ecclesial unity, is expressed most obviously
the aspect of Christian witness and of real confession of God, which is par
excellence one of the spiritual sights of Him, of feeling of the mysterious pres-
ence of the Spirit and work with fear and trembling, existential for salvation.
The grace of the Holy Mysteries and especially the Eucharistic union with
Christ the Lord is viewing, in the temporal measure of eternity, the kingdom
of God and constitutes the active and tangible basis for Christian witness,
spiritual and material support to fulfill the commandments.
The work of a new evangelization of Europe, in the difficult context of
installing a postmodern and post-Christian society, is the great challenge of
6
Ibidem, p. 161.
7
Idem, Ortodoxia în Europa. Locul spiritualităţii române (Orthodoxy in Europe. The
Place of Romanian Spirituality), Trinitas Publishing, Iaşi, 1995, p. 193.

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Preaching the Gospel and Establishing Local Churches

Christianity, no matter the religion, once entered in the third millennium.


Father Bria had the courage to achieve a sharp radiography of the influences
of atheism and secularization in this geographic area, especially in its Western
part, which he knew very well. That is why, he speaks of the need for recon-
struction of Christianity, from a true amalgam of competing religious para-
digms and alternatives8. Most often, they define aspects of counter-testimony
(proselytism), being “in contradiction not only with a certain text of Scripture
or some traditional doctrine, but with the universality of the Gospel, with
Jesus Christ in a cosmic vision”9. The Church is the condition of Christian
mission, its tool and, moreover, the purpose of the mission and its comple-
tion because the Church is part of the Gospel message. The Church is also
a result of the mission as God leads people to salvation and gives them His
grace through the Church’s missionary activity. The New Testament has re-
corded more images and symbols that define it in the apostolic period: “God’s
people” (I Peter 2:10), “Body of Christ” (Romans 12:4, I Corinthians 12, 13,
27), “God’s temple” (I Tim. 3, 15, Ephesians 2:19, I Corinthians 3:16), “royal
priesthood” (I Peter 2:9) or “bride of Christ” (Revelation 21:2). Of all these,
Father Bria shows that the expression “Body of Christ” best expresses the
report between Christ and His Church. After the Resurrection, Jesus Christ
is the Head of the Church which was redeemed with His own blood (Acts
20:28). He also raised it in His humanity, at the right of the Father, restoring
all creation (Colossians 1:18-19). The Church has a Christophoros dimension
(see Ephesians 5:25-27) because it lives from the power of the Risen Christ
and awaits His second advent. Representing “the sign” or the sacrament of
redeemed humanity (Ephesians 1:23), the Church not only transmits the
message and ministry of Jesus Christ, but “extends” His incarnation, so that
Christ can be met only in this ecclesial environment10.
The Church is the sacrament of God’s kingdom brought to us in Jesus
Christ11. Founded on the day of Pentecost, the Church participates in Christ’s
holiness (Hebrews 13:12) and is even patterned after the Holy Trinity. Its
8
Idem, Spre plinirea Evangheliei. Dincolo de apărarea Ortodoxiei: exegeza şi transmiterea
Tradiţiei (Towards the Fullness of the Gospel. Beyond the Defense of Orthodoxy: Exegesis and
Transmitting the Tradition), Reîntregirea Publishing, Alba Iulia, 2002, p. 9.
9
Idem, Destinul Ortodoxiei (The Destiny of Orthodoxy), Publishing House of the Missi-
on and Bible Institute of the Romanian Orthodox Church, Bucharest, 1989, p. 153.
10
Idem, Dicţionar de teologie ortodoxă (Dictionary of Orthodox Theology), p. 55.
11
Idem, Credința pe care o mărturisim (The Faith We Profess The Faith We Profess),
Publishing House of the Mission and Bible Institute of the Romanian Orthodox Church,
Bucharest, 1987, p. 121.

131
Revd. Prof. PhD. Aurel Pavel

purpose is the manifestation of the “new creation” – symbol of the kingdom


“which comes down from heaven surrounded by the glory of God, a new
reality that can not be explained perfectly by the images or the analogies that
exist in the world”12. The fact that the Church has an obvious divine character
does not exclude the human, historical aspect one. Specifically, the Church
presents itself as a “theandric” body, possessing even this double dimension:
divine-human, seen-unseen. The intermingling of the two dimensions abso-
lutely necessary to sends the Person of the Holy Spirit. He is “the witness”
par excellence of Jesus Christ of Jesus Christ (John 15:26), and therefore the
Church can confess Christ only in and through the Holy Spirit (I Corinthians
12:3), that is the principle of its existence and vitality (see Acts 9:31).
The unceasing presence of the Holy Spirit within the Church since its
foundation reveals another dimension which it has: the eschatological dimen-
sion (Matthew 25:1, Mark 2:1, Revelation 21:2). It is the sign, the parable
and the anticipated presence of God’s Kingdom. Again we speak of a dou-
ble reality: The earthly Church, the community of Christians in a particular
place, is inseparable from the heavenly Church or the Communion of Saints,
thus being a prophetic sign of the coming kingdom13.
The Nicene symbol of faith says: “I believe in the communion of saints”.
Being “one body in Christ” (Romans 12:5), Christians form an inseparable
unity. Not even death can destroy, because “love never dies” (I Corinthians
13:8), and through Baptism and the communion of grace in love “we are
members one of another” (Ephesians 4:25) forevermore.
One of the fundamental questions to which Father Bria gives the answer
is this: Who forms this communion of saints14? The answer is straightforward:
12
Idem, Dicţionar de teologie ortodoxă (Dictionary of Orthodox Theology), pp. 55-56.
13
Just as the Church was prefigured in the Old Testament, here we find prophecies
about God Who will establish His eternal kingdom that will cover the whole earth (Isaiah
2:2, Jeremiah 31:31). These prophecies are backed by some texts of the New Testament,
which state that the Kingdom is anticipated in the Church and that it is called to embrace
the whole creation, all peoples and centuries (Matthew 28:20, Mark 16:15, Acts 1:8). See
Ibidem, p. 56.
14
And an adjacent question, but equally fundamental, is this: In the context of today’s
Christian multi-confessionalism which is the true Church of Christ? Despite some “accusa-
tions” more or less direct – that would cover certain relativization or concessions that it would
have made –, Father Bria strongly affirmed that the Orthodox Church is the true successor of
the Apostolic Church. Thus primarily in the discussion on the catholicity of local churches,
he emphasizes the Orthodox faith within the uniqueness of the Church, Una Sancta, as be-
ing the core of Orthodox ecclesiology. From his perspective, the manner in which the local
Churches relate themselves to Una Sancta is the key of ecumenical ecclesiology: “There can

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Preaching the Gospel and Establishing Local Churches

First of all the patriarchs and prophets of the Old Testament, then “the saints”
in the broad sense, that is those who are baptized, and, eventually, the saints,
in the narrow sense. At the head of all is the One who believed in the word of
God, becoming co-worker to the incarnation of the Son of Man: Theotokos15.

not be Churches (in plural) than as manifestations of the one and true Church”. Fr. Prof.
Ion Bria rejects any vision of Church unity by creating a global organization, often called
structural unit. “The one Church can not be created by uniting all the local Churches and
the individual denominations within an international structure”. See I. Bria (editor), Jesus
Christ – the Life of the World: an Orthodox contribution to the Vancouver theme, WCC, Geneva,
1982, pp. 12-13. The Church Una Sancta is the one that is manifested in its Catholic fullness
in each local Church, the local Church not being a part of another reality called the Uni-
versal Church, which in turn is sometimes understood as being composed of local churches.
Thus in his view, the universal Church is not a federation of independent Churches united
hierarchically with institutional and administrative purposes, but a communion of auto-
cephalous Churches possessing internal Eucharistic and canonical unity. Cf. Ovidiu Ioan, De
la ospitalitatea euharistică la comuniune deplină: viziunea ecumenică a Părintelui Bria (From
the Eucharistic Hospitality to the Full Communion: the Ecumenical Vision of Father Bria), in N.
Moșoiu (coord.), op. cit., p. 530. In a dense study, entitled Sinteză ortodoxă a Teologiei Dog-
matice (Orthodox Synthesis on Dogmatic Theology), in Revista Teologica/ Theological Review 5
(1995), No. 3, pp. 4-5, Father Bria synthetically exposes the cardinal points of Orthodoxy: 1)
Orthodoxy is directly linked to the history and origins of Christianity; 2) Orthodoxy believes
that the undivided Church of the first millennium is an essential reference point for the res-
toration of Christian unity separated from history; 3) Orthodoxy notes that in the middle of
the ecumenical interfaith differences is the mystery of the Church; 4) For the Orthodox the
Christian unity is seen as a communion of local churches (koinonia), united by the profession
of apostolic faith transmitted in Tradition; 5) Orthodoxy is a matter of history of a people in
the sense that a nation’s history can not be understood without a local Church history. With
such a vision, Orthodoxy has to play a key role in the Ecumenical Movement. However, this
strong conviction does not draw Father Bria into the trap of cheap triumphalism: he “shows
that the Church – Una Sancta – can not be conceived without the Orthodox, but neither is
owned by Orthodox”. Cf. Cristinel Ioja, Părintele Profesor Ion Bria şi contribuţia sa specifică în
elaborarea unei Teologii Dogmatice (Fr. Prof. Ion Bria and His Specific Contribution to the De-
velopment of Dogmatic Theology), in N. Moșoiu (coord.), op. cit., p. 327; Mihai Iosu, Părintele
Profesor Ion Bria. Demersuri şi soluţii pastorale (Fr. Prof. Ion Bria. Approaches and Pastoral Solu-
tions), in Ibidem, p. 376; David Pestroiu, Părintele prof. dr. Ion Bria – misionar al Ortodoxiei
(Father Prof. PhD. Ion Bria – Orthodox Missionary), in Ibidem, p. 441.
15
I. Bria, Tratat de teologie dogmatică şi ecumenică (Treaty of Dogmatic and Ecumeni-
cal Theology), p. 167. About Theotokos, Ion Bria wrote that is one “of the favorite topics of
hymnody and liturgical poetry”, bringing as an example the intercessory prayer that is uttered
after the transformation of the Eucharistic gifts. Among the most important aspects of the
Orthodox Mariology are: cooperation to the Mystery of the Incarnation, that fiat or consent
given at the Annunciation by Virgin Mary (Luke 1:26-38). She is aware of her role and des-
tiny, she accepts them with responsibility and joy (Luke 1:45-49). Another aspect, especially
formulated at the Council of Constantinople in 681, is that of parthenia, perpetual virgin-

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Revd. Prof. PhD. Aurel Pavel

The testimony through the quality and holiness of life is the most effec-
tive means of mission. Because nothing is more attractive and more convinc-
ing than the Christian, the community or the saint, which provide a concrete
example of fulfillment of the meaning of life and radiate tranquility, peace
and love. This all the more so in a society that can not provide coherence and
a meaning of life. Against the growing tendency of secularization we can op-
pose efficiently only with the alternative of the example of a full life in com-
munion with God, because “any word can oppose another word, but who
shall stand life?” Even in hard times for the Church, like the Nazi or the Com-
munist atheistic pressure, holiness has never ceased to manifest, which means
that “leaving” the Church in the hands of secular power was not total16.
The Orthodox ecclesiology possesses in Father Bria’s opinion – view
shared, in fact, unanimously by the Orthodox theologians – a deep triadologic
basis: all the Persons of the Trinity are active in the life of the Church: “The Fa-
ther built this house, the Son strengthened it, the Holy Spirit has renewed it”.
The Church is the work of the Holy Trinity, in other words, it has as the very
source the communion of the Trinitarian life. It is no coincidence that some
Holy Fathers do not speak about the Church only from the moment of its
foundation at Pentecost; it was foreshadowed even from creation and prepared
under the Old Covenant, as it aims to show and communicate God’s life17.
ity of the Theotokos. Compared with “burning bush that was not consumedand” with the
heavenly ladder on which God came down to man and man ascended to God, She gave birth
to Jesus Christ in a wonderful way and beyond nature, through the power of the Holy Spirit
(Luke 1:34-35), remaining a virgin before, during and after the birth. A third aspect refers
to Mary as Theotokos (Theotokos). Finally, Virgin Mary is also panaghia, the “Full of Grace”
(Luke 1:28). “Her humanity was blessed by the Godhead of the Word through His indwell-
ing in Her. She is full of grace because of this indwelling. She is ... higher than all heavenly
and earthly creatures more honorable than the Cherubim and more glorious than the sera-
phims, Lady and Mistress”. Representing not only a moral model for humans, but also the
historical materialization of deification – being the first human being sanctified directly by
Jesus Christ –, the Theotokos is attributed in the Orthodox Church a cult of worship. This
cult of veneration of the Virgin Mary is based “on both Her contribution to the incarnation
of the Son, and Her intercession and help as mother of the Church, inseparable from the
Son”. See Ibidem, pp. 167-168.
16
Idem, Martyre, in Ion Bria Philippe Chanson, Jacques Gadille, Marc Spindler (eds.),
Dictionnaire oecuménique de missiologie. Cent mots pour la mission, ed. du Cerf, Labor et Fides,
CLE Yaoundé, Paris-Genève-Yaoundé, 2001, pp. 196-199. See also anothervolume edited by
Fr. Bria, Martyria-Mission. The Witness of the Orthodox Churches Today, WCC Publications,
Geneva, 1980.
17
Idem, Tratat de Teologie Dogmatică și Ecumenică (Treaty of Dogmatic and Ecumenical
Theology), România Creştină Publishing, Bucharest, 1999, p. 158.

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Preaching the Gospel and Establishing Local Churches

Referring to the Pentecostal mutations, to the horizontal ecclesial chang-


es, Father Ion Bria noted: “On the Cross and in the Resurrection, the Church
is not only redeemed, restored in communion with God, but it becomes a
sharer in His Resurrection. His mission continues after the Resurrection.
Once inaugurated the Kingdom of God, Jesus manifests Himself and sents
the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, to make from the Church His body and temple
of the Holy Spirit”18. The Church has a universal dimension, it is intended
to redeem and sanctify all nations. It is “the holy firstfruits of the nations”
(Revelation 14:4), which gives meaning to the attributes or qualities that it
possesses: unity – the Church is one because God is One, Christ – its Head
– is One, the faith is one, the Baptism is one (Ephesians 4:4-6); holiness –
comes from God, from Christ-the Anointed One, consecrated and glorified
as Lord on the cross, şi de la Duhul Sfânt, Who puts “the anointing seal” with
the gift of God over all the baptized; universality or catholicity – has as source
precisely the relationship of the Church with the Holy Trinity, a fact that
determines it to possess the fullness of the means of salvation: the doctrine of
the Apostles, the sacramental worship, the priestly ministry and the fraternal
communion; apostolicity – the Church is apostolic because it is built on the
rock of faith of the Apostles: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God”
(Matthew 16:16). “Christ Himself leads the Church through His Apostles,
present in their successors, the bishops consecrated by ordination”19.
Although closely related with all the attributes of the Church, the mis-
sionary work is the most related to apostolicity20. The Church is built on the
foundation of prophets and apostles “in the sense that the mission of the
Apostles as direct witnesses of Christ, should continue after their disappear-
ance”. The apostles thus meet a divine call and enjoy a sending to apostolate
of divine origin, because their work is done according to the will of Christ
Himself: “As my Father has sent Me, even so I send you” (John 20:21). The
same is the case with the successors of the Apostles. They are placed in the ser-
vice of the Church through a work of apostolic succession, through a special
Mystery called Ordination. Although the Christian Church entirely is consti-
tuted as a “sacerdotal body”, two priesthood coexist in it: a universal one, of
the baptized (see I Peter 2:4) and one particular or special, received through
18
Ibidem, p. 159.
19
See Ibidem, pp. 160-161.
20
Idem, Credința pe care o mărturisim (The Faith We Profess), p. 168; Idem, Dicționar de
teologie ortodoxă (Dictionary of Orthodox Theology), p. 35: “Church’s missionary vocation falls
within its apostolic character, its apostolicity”.

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Revd. Prof. PhD. Aurel Pavel

the Sacrament of Ordination, knowing three forms of ministry: bishop, priest


and deacon. As we have said, this priesthood is of divine right also: “Take heed
therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over which the Holy Ghost has
made you overseers, to feed the church of God” (Acts 20:28). Also the bishop
does not replace Christ, Who is present unseen in the Church “even unto the
end of the world” (Matthew 28:20). The Bishop has a vital role in the life of
the Church – He preaches the Gospel, celebrates the mysteries and keeps the
unity of the Church – but only in the name of Christ. This balanced view of
the Orthodox Church prevented the fall in certain extremes, such as the infal-
libility and the primacy of the bishop of the Church of Rome. The authority
of each bishop does not involve a jurisdictional primacy, of leadership; on the
contrary, his work of leadership shall take place only within a synod – and St.
Ap. Peter and his successor, Pope of Rome, has no special authority over the
other Apostles, but amongst them, as primus inter pares21.
The missionary work of the Church has two sides: on the one hand,
the problem of those who are entitled to enter the Church, and on the other
hand, the problem of those carrying out the work of attracting people to
the Word of the Gospel. The first problem does not pose serious difficulties.
Who has the right to enter the Church and by what means was the question
debated by the Apostolic Synod from Jerusalem (50), where it was recognized
that not only the members of the chosen people, but also the the pagans
can enter the Christian community without any other conditions than faith
and Baptism. “Then has God also to the Gentiles granted repentance unto
life” (Acts 11:18). God is the Father of all people (Romans 3:29), and so
the Church is open to all, it is ecumenical, that is designed to include all the
earth (oekumene). Revealing is the encounter of Jesus with the Roman officer
in Capernaum. The meaning of the scene is this: “No one is excluded from
God’s grace. This (the centurion, author’s note) does not believe in miracles,
does not expect the Messiah, but recognizes the authority of Jesus, whom he is
asking to say the word to heal his servant (Luke 7:1-9). Jesus recognizes here,
the faith that can be found right out of Israel and the Church”22.
With reference to these issues we conclude this study; as conclusions we
emphasize once again the following three aspects:
21
Idem, Comentariu la catehismul ortodox (Comment on the Orthodox Catechism), Oast-
ea Domnului Publishing, Sibiu, 2000, pp. 100-101, respectively, pp. 102-103.
22
Idem, Tratat de teologie dogmatică şi ecumenică (Treaty of Dogmatic and Ecumenical
Theology), p. 161.

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Preaching the Gospel and Establishing Local Churches

1) The church is the condition of Christian mission, its tool and, moreo-
ver, the purpose of the mission and its fulfillment, because the Church is part
of the Gospel message. The church is also a result of the mission as God leads
people to salvation and gives them His grace through the Church’s missionary
activity.
2) The Eucharistic Liturgy remains source, model and inspiration of so-
cial life. As Father Ion Bria details, “the fruits of creation and of the work of
the believers are offered at the altar and transformed into Eucharistic gifts, to
be then shared to all as communion forces. God is generous and invites them
all to the wedding feast, provided that those invited to become an example
of conviviality and solidarity with their peers. Unique ritual of mental and
affective communion, The Liturgy is able to restore all human relations, not
only with God, in an abstract manner, but also with the social community,
with family and society. The Liturgy and the diakonia are thus inseparable”23.
3) The missionary work, fulfilling the requirements claimed by “Liturgy
after Liturgy”, concerns both the clergy and the laity. Ion Bria has repeatedly
stressed that the Church’s missionary activity is not the exclusive privilege of
some specialists. Moreover, every priest ought to especially exercise his mis-
sionary work. Every priest “must be fully bearer of the Good News of the
Resurrection”. His attitude must be adapted to the changes of the contem-
porary society. He can not remain passive and fatalistic. Informed about the
new requirements of the times, he is called to preach the Gospel not only by
words, but by his entire life.

23
Idem, Liturghia după Liturghie. Misiune apostolică şi mărturie creştină – azi (Liturgy
after Liturgy. Apostolic Mission and Christian Witness - Today), Athena Publishing, Bucharest,
1996, p. 126.

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A Fourth-century Proto-Romanian Ecumenical Theologian
Saint John Cassian: the Synergism
between Grace and Freedom of Will

Rev Assoc. Prof. Dr. Mircea Ielciu

Saint John Cassian’s spirituality is crucial to Western monasticism. He


was a great theoretician but also a supporter of austere life, as a way to de-
feat passions through ascetic practices, constant prayer, contemplation retreat
from the world and union with the Creator of all. He emphasized both the
values of anchoritic (prayer and contemplation) and monastic life (quietude
and submission).
Therefore, he is counted among the “great teachers and spiritual
masters”.1 Owen Chadwick argues that Cassian, along with the other domi-
nating fifth-century personality, i.e. Augustine, was the “precursors” and even
the “founder of the Benedictine tradition.”2 Moreover, from a dogmatic point
of view, Cassian is also “one of the greatest Church Fathers.”3
The predestination issue, which, through Augustine’s theses brought
great distress at that time, asked questions that Christian Theology have failed
to answer. The opinions of the East and the West on the issue of predestina-
tion have always been antagonistic from a theological point of view. Beyond
any nuance, according to N. Chițescu, predestination is one of the mysteries
that remain inaccessible to the human mind.4 Even if the issue of the relation

1
Marcel Viller, Karl Rahner, Aszese und Mystic in der Väteryeit, Freiburg im Breisgau,
1939, p. 184-192.
2
Owen Chadwick, John Cassian, 2nd Edition, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press,
1968, p. 162.
3
Cf. N. Chițescu, “Învățătura Sfântului Ioan Cassian despre raportul dintre har și li-
bertate” in Telegraful Român, Omagiu Înalt Prea Sfinției Sale Dr. Nicolae Bălan, Mitropolitul
Ardealului (1905-1955), Sibiu, 1955, p. 306.
4
Ibidem.

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A Fourth-century Proto-Romanian Ecumenical Theologian

between the grace and the free will can be solved, and it has been actually,
there are several details that remain a mystery to theologians.5
Concerning this issue, the Eastern Orthodox Church accepts a general
predestination in the biblical sense, according to God’s wish, who desires all
men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth (1 Tim. 2:4). However,
only some will be saved. This means that God’s will is not be fulfilled and that
man may accept or deny God’s calling: Behold, I stand at the door and knock.
If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine
with him, and he with Me (Rev. 3:20). Saint Paul the Apostle adds that God
foreknows those who answer his calling (Rom. 8:28-…). He has predestined
them to receive everlasting happiness: Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit
the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. Moreover, God
also foreknows those who are not going to listen to his calling and has already
prepared the proper punishment for them: Depart from Me, you cursed, into
the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels (Mt. 25:34, 41).
Thus, from an Eastern Orthodox standpoint, the issue of the predestina-
tion involves man’s freedom to co-work with the grace and the calling of all
men to salvation. It is based on God’s foreknowledge.
The Eastern Orthodox doctrine states, along with the ecumenical Chris-
tianity, that the grace begins our salvation, thus contradicting Pelagianism and
Semipelagianism.6 The fact that man co-works with the grace or not, by mak-
ing use of his freedom of will, is by no means the first step towards his salva-
tion. The acceptance of this collaboration with the grace received from God is
not potentially equivalent to a human initiative, but it is rather man’s yearn-
ing or nostalgia for God, his tendency to overcome himself so as to achieve
deification, all of which have remained active in man’s soul after the Fall. This
is impossible to attain outside the grace man has received from God, for the
5
In general, theology explains freedom as being governed by the capacity and power
of self-determination received by man after the restoration of God’s image in him through
Christ. Moreover, free is the one who wants to do good things, for that one is free from pas-
sions and sin. This explanation raises two objections: if free is exclusively the one who was
born again, then all non-Christians are denied freedom. In addition,
6
See G de Plinval, Pélage, ses écrits, sa vie et sa réforme: étude d’histoire littéraire et reli-
gieuse, Payot, Lausanne, 1943; Idem, “Pelagio e Pelagianismo”, in Encilcopedia Cattolica, t.
IX, Rome, 1952, pp. 1071-1077; Idem, „Points de vue récents sur la théologie de Pélage”,
in Recherches de Science Religieuse, t. 46, (1958), p. 227-236; Jean Chéné, Les origines de la
controverse semi-pélagienne…, p. 56-109; Idem, „Le semipélagianisme du midi de la Gaule”,
in Recherches de Science Religieuse”, t. 43, (1955), p. 321-341; Karl Rahner, „Augustin und
der Semi-Pelagianismus”, in Zeitschrift für Katholische Theologie, t. 62, (1938), p. 176-189.

139
Rev Assoc. Prof. Dr. Mircea Ielciu

grace is the only power able to restore God’s image in man and, simultaneous-
ly, to restore his freedom weakened by sin. Free will, as a constituent of God’s
image in man, was not completely destroyed by the fall into sin but merely
weakened. The divine grace is able to restore it to its original state. Therefore,
considering the above, supreme freedom is the ability to identify personal will
with the Supreme Good, i.e. God’s will expressed by the moral law.
However, there is another issue that has not been yet resolved satisfacto-
rily: How did man use to live his connection with God, as a result of God’s
decision and will or as an act of man’s free will? The disputes in the patristic
period started by Pelagians and Semipelagians, as well as those in the Middle
Ages, started by Protestantism, were, almost exclusively, related to this aspect.
Widely known is the dispute between the Thomists, Augustinians, Molinists
and Congruists.

a) Saint John Cassian’s Approach to Predestination


When Cassian discusses the issue of grace and free will, he does not ad-
dress directly the doctrine of predestination. Cassian believed in God’s uni-
versal desire that all men be saved, in God’s sending his call out to the entire
mankind, and bestowing his grace upon all people on earth. He also clearly
rejected the idea that man’s decay was complete and his choice was arbitrary.
Thus, we might argue that Cassian did not believe in predestination as the
effect of the arbitrary decree of God.
Although Conference XVII contains enough information that could be
used against Augustine’s predestination, however, Cassian addresses the pre-
destination issue directly only in chapter 25 of Conference XVII.7 It could not
be determined why Cassian postponed the discussion on predestination until
Conference XVII. His approach to predestination is however rather limited
and this makes it harder for his commentators to outline his doctrine related
to predestination.
In the Conference XVII, Cassian rejects Augustine’s teaching about lying
in his Contra mendacium8 released in 420-421. Cassian took this additional
opportunity to clarify his doctrine of predestination.
Having to face a doctrine aiming to threaten the foundations of tradi-
tional monastic theology itself, Cassian formulated and conveyed what he had
7
Robert Floyd Rea, Grace and Free Will in John Cassian, Saint Louis University, 1990,
p. 119 forward.
8
PL, t. 40, col. 517-548.

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A Fourth-century Proto-Romanian Ecumenical Theologian

understood to be the correct position, taught by the Holy Scripture and by


the monastic tradition.
Cassian addresses the issue of predestination in chapter 25 of his Confer-
ence XVII in the context of the debate about breaking promises made. After
he mentions some of the saints who have breached their promises for the
sake of righteousness, Cassian cites two instances when God made a prom-
ise or statement, and then, later breached the promise originally made for a
righteous cause.9 Even then, when he knew the results in advance, God made
promises and proceeded as if he had not known what would happen. Fur-
thermore, God told both of Jeremiah and Ezekiel that the promise and his
intent would change if the people or the peoples who had made wrongdoing
chose to repent.
Before referring to people whom God had chosen, even foreknowing
that they would have been later rejected and destitute of holiness, Cassian
makes an important statement that contradicts the doctrine of Augustine
about predestination: “For this above all that invaluable sentence teaches us,
because though each man’s end is known beforehand to Him before his birth,
yet somehow He so orders all things by a plan and method for all, and with
regard to man’s disposition, that He decides on everything not by the mere ex-
ercise of His power, nor according to the ineffable knowledge which His Pres-
cience possesses, but according to the present actions of men, and rejects or
draws to Himself each one, and daily either grants or withholds His grace.”10
In any case, Cassian means to say that God chooses to act in more hu-
man a way, instead of a way that reveals his true Divine Majesty, power, au-
thority and knowledge he actually possesses.11 This teaching, of course, un-
derlines and shakes the whole theology of predestination by the hand of God.
In fact, Cassian says that although God could issue divine decrees, whether by
his omnipotence, his omniscience or his foreknowledge, he chooses instead
to act in a rather human way, responding to the needs, circumstances and ac-
tions of the people.
The researchers who dealt with St. John Cassian and his work, mostly in
the twentieth century, had rather divergent opinions related to his approach
to predestination. The most common position was that John Cassian believed
9
Conférence XVII, 25, ed. E. Pichéry, SC, nr. 54, p. 277; PSB, nr. 57, p. 609-610.
10
Ibidem, XVII, 25, p. 268; PSB, nr. 57, p. 612.
11
Philip Rousseau agrees that God has many ways, “adopting a very human attitude”
(cf. Philip Rousseau, “Ascetics, Authority, and the Church in the Age of Jerome and Cassian”,
in Oxford Historical Monographs, 1978, p. 233-234).

141
Rev Assoc. Prof. Dr. Mircea Ielciu

in predestination, but reduced it to the judgment of God based on his divine


foreknowledge.12 In order to strengthen this position, they cite, in general,
chapter 25 of Conference XVII and the letters of Prosper of Aquitaine and
Hilary to Augustine.
J. Laugier argues that John Cassian says or claims “the divine judgment
or decree”, sometimes before foreknowledge, sometimes consistent with the
foreknowledge. However, none of the texts that he cites in support of his al-
legations strengthens and or gives consistency to his position.13
All modern researchers, commentators of John Cassian’s works, seem
to agree that his extant works do not teach predestination. However, these
researchers do not discuss predestination in detail, but just make reference
to the issue.14 Similarly, some scholars of the nineteenth century conclude
that John Cassian had no idea about the “divine decree”, pointing out that
God pours His grace over everyone, according to their current actions and
behavior, without having in mind any ultimate goal or outcome.15 Another
opinion is that John Cassian did not clearly express his personal views on
predestination.16
In fact, John Cassian gave no special attention to the issue of predes-
tination, because he did not believe that God had chosen to work with his
creatures in such a way. Whereas the doctrine of predestination through
divine decree or arbitrary divine decision is connected and dependent on
a number of other doctrines which Cassian believed that he had already
rejected, probably, he thought that a rejection in extenso of predestination
as such was not required.
Thus, one of the recent Cassian scholars believes that in his chapter 25
of Conference XVII Cassian is openly critical of the predestination based on
12
P. Godet, “Jean Cassien”, in Dictionnaire de Théologie Catholique, t. II, Deuxième
Partie, Paris, 1923 col. 1828; A. Hoch, Lehre des Johannes Cassianus von Natur und Gnade:
Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des Gnadenstreits im 5. Jahrundert, Freiburg, 1895, 69-75; F. Wör-
ter, Beiträge zur Dogmengeschichte des Semipelagianimus, Paderborn, 1898, p. 77-79; Norman
Powel Williams, The Grace of God, London, 1930, p. 59-60.
13
Joseph Langier, Saint Jean Cassien…, p. 69-70.
14
Owen Chadwick, John Casssian…, p. 126-127 and PHILIP ROUSSEAU, Ascetics,
Authority, and the Church…, p. 233.
15
Gustav Friederich Wiggers, Versuch einer pragmatischen Darstellung des Augustinimus
und Pelagianismus von dem Anfange der pelagienischen Streitgkeiten bis zur dritten oecumeni-
schen Synode, vol. II, Hamburg, 1833, p. 125; Johannes Geffcken, Historia seminpelagiana
antiquissima, Göttingen, 1926, p. 18.
16
Norman Powel Williams, op. cit., p. 59-60.

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the arbitrary judgment of God, taught and promoted by Augustine, but also
seems to reject predestination based on divine foreknowledge, which most
researchers attributed to Cassian.17

b) Summary of Cassian’s teaching on the relation between grace


and free will in the process of salvation
As pointed out above, in the analysis of Conference XIII, Saint John Cas-
sian actually starts the debate, with the statement that God’s plan according to
which he had made the man, namely so that he should never perish but live
forever, remained unchanged. Thanks to this fact, when God’s goodness finds
in us a small spark of goodwill, even if he has to pull it out from the rough
stone of our hearts, he nourishes and strengthens it through his insufflation.
It was also pointed out that Saint Cassian support his argument with many
biblical texts (1 Tim. 2:4; Mt. 18:14; 2 Sam. 14:14. Ezek. 33:11; Mt. 13:37;
Jer. 8:5). From these texts it appears that God wants to save everyone, at any
cost, and those who have perished, perished according to their own will and
against the will of God.
Cassian repeats this idea in other places, in various forms. Thus in chap-
ter 8 of the same Conference XIII, Abbot Chæremon, teaches that when God
sees in us a good thought, he enlightens it, urges it to salvation, taking that
beginning unto himself – whether that goodwill has been planted by him or
it has gushed forth as a result of our own endeavor. In favor of the free will,
Cassian brings froth the argument of the two angels, referred to by The Shep-
herd of Hermas, VIII, 17, 1, of which one is good and the other bad, and they
follow every man wherever he may go. He has the power to follow the former
or the latter, as he wishes. Therefore, man always has the free will, “which may
neglect or love the grace of God.”
Therefore, there must be in man that striving for salvation, for the trans-
cendent, that yearning for God, that impetus to the highest, whether in the
most limited form of “good will” or “a little spark of kindness” that manifests
itself in collaboration with the grace.
Made in the “image of God”, man strives to achieve “likeness” with him.
According to the Christian teaching, innate human inclination towards the
Creator is fulfilled through the perfect collaboration of all functions of the
spirit, namely the image of God in man, with grace, to reach likeness. This
is possible because, even after the fall, free will remains in man, which gives
17
Robert Floyd Rea, op. cit., p. 205.

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Rev Assoc. Prof. Dr. Mircea Ielciu

him the power to either reject or accept and cooperate with the grace of God.
When God sees that spark, he nourishes it, makes it grow and bring forth the
precious fruit of salvation.
Westerners, particularly Roman Catholic theologians, argue that Saint
Cassian suggests that man is the one who begins his redemption. Man’s “good
will”, who responds this way to the mysterious calling from above and through
which human freedom is intertwined with divine grace, is not the beginning
of salvation, but rather occasions or gives grace this supernatural work, in col-
laboration with human freedom.18
This is in fact the “Gordian knot” in the long dispute on the relation
between grace and freedom.
These accusations the westerners formulated against Cassian are ground-
less, since, as was clearly shown in the analysis of Conference XIII, this “spark”
of goodwill and inclination of human will towards good is due to the Creator,
who “made us for himself ”; but it can be corrupted to that extent so as to
refuse collaboration altogether.
According to the westerners, Cassian’s thought somehow confuses the
natural and the supernatural. To them, man appears unable “to collaborate”
in the strict sense with God, although St. Paul (1 Cor. 3:9) and Cassian him-
self refer to this collaboration as possible. Cassian’s position is different from
that of Pelagius, who says that man is perfectly healthy in terms of grace, and
from that of Augustine, who says that man is totally dead. For Cassian, the
fallen man is just sick and the image of God is still present in him, but it is
darkened. Similarly, free will continues to operate in the fallen man. The im-
age and the free will are prerequisites that man can wish to attain holiness and
is able to connect with God.
It is natural to think that the “spark of kindness” Cassian
repeatedly refers to, is the means of restoring the organic connection between
the divine and the human, between the Creator and his creature, of providing
fertile ground for God to throw the “seed of salvation.”19
Orthodoxy categorically affirms the existence of “apperceptive points” of
intertwining two realities: grace and free will. The soul of man is the image of
God, altered, broken, but not completely destroyed and it leans towards God,
wishing for him.
Cassian’s point of view is confirmed by a number of outstanding Eastern
Fathers. Thus, Origen argued that as the visually impaired participate poten-
18
Ibidem.
19
Cf. N. Chiţescu, op. cit., p. 312.

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tially in the light, so the fallen man remains potentially in the spirit.20 Both
seek eagerly what they lack.
Grace is the beginning of salvation, for it finds in man the inclination to-
ward God, an altered “image”, but not yet destroyed, which it restores gradu-
ally until it reaches the “likeness” bringing the creature in a position to coop-
erate with God in true freedom, i.e. the freedom of the soul healed by grace.
Cassian’s “spark” of good will, no matter how small it might be, is re-
ferred to in Saint Basil the Great’s work as well.21 It is the prehistory of salva-
tion, which begins with this collaboration, accepted by the mysterious mani-
festation of Christian freedom, imperfect but real, which welcomed into the
room of the human soul the one who knocks at its door.
St. Gregory of Nyssa also teaches that as the eye is dependent on the
aurora and naturally partakes in the light, thus appropriating those related
through the inborn power, there is something which relates the human na-
ture to the divine, so that the former may be forgiven, through compliance to
something that was previously familiar.22
St. John Chrysostom, whose great admirer and disciple St. John Cas-
sian was, developed in detail a number of ideas that we find then in Cassian’s
work. He states that the man in collaboration with God brings the faith we
all carry within us.23 God does not save us by force, “but made us masters of
our actions, although he wants only our good deeds… for no one can be good
through faith and innate inclination.”24 Indeed, “not only the calling works
towards our salvation, but also the intention of those called to salvation: for
salvation is necessary, but not mandatory. All have been called, but few have
followed the calling.”25
In the spiritual life, God’s grace is always ready to hand and absolutely
required for each stage of the salvation and development process, from the
beginning to the end. Because of concupiscence, of the influence of the good
and the evil angel, the individual is constantly attracted to God and then
drawn away from him. This tension is a divine grace too, given for the benefit
of the individual; but the choice that person makes, through his free will,
determines the direction to be followed. For Cassian, even the withdrawal of
20
See PG, t. 11, col. 280.
21
PG, t. 31, col. 908- 911.
22
Marele Cuvânt Catehetic, V, in PG, t. 45, col. 21.
23
Epistola XI Catre Romani, 1, in PG, t. 50, col. 483.
24
PG, t. 49, col. 377.
25
PG, t. 60, col. 1541.

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Rev Assoc. Prof. Dr. Mircea Ielciu

the grace by God himself for the good of the person is actually a work of the
divine grace.
Therefore, God is the Lord and Master of the whole process of salvation.
God created mankind so that each individual can know and do what is good;
God chooses what kind of call is best for each individual; God decides whether
to intervene in order to attract a person who is ignorant or resists his calling,
or whether to retain the inner grace until a person shows a desire for salvation;
God decides to withdraw the grace in order to test one’s faith and therefore
develops both faith and virtue; God makes opportunities for salvation and
improvement; God is responsible for the beginning of good will, either by
raising it through his direct intervention, or indirectly through patience and
providence; God gives man power to accomplish the virtue and achieve the
perfection he wishes for.26
Nevertheless, God’s rule is also expressed in God’s plan that the human
being will inevitably participate in the process of salvation and perfection.
God chose that man’s will respond to him by making free personal choices,
either in search for him, or as an answer to God’s direct calling. Consequently,
the human will must strive to become like God through prayer, meditation,
fasting and other spiritual practices and struggles. No one can attain perfec-
tion without these deliberate efforts of will.
This does not mean however that free human will is itself capable of
achieving salvation and perfection. The human will must receive help from
God, from the divine grace. Therefore man cannot get all the credit for his
salvation. This must be attributed to God.
God helps, assists, comforts, protects, supplies, guides, enlightens,
stimulates and boosts the efforts of the free will of man in its struggle. God
fulfills, covering every need, either directly addressing that specific need, or
withdrawing his divine grace so that the person might be able to meet that
need through personal growth and work. Therefore God, choosing to seek an
answer from each person’s free will, complements the salvation of each indi-
vidual who answers the divine calling.
God is the Master of the whole process of salvation. He oversees the
the human will while it is working within the realm of grace, providing sup-
port and encouragement whenever needed. In this way, God is ultimately
responsible for each stage of the salvation of man. In conclusion, God is the
author of the beginning of salvation, but the confirmation and consumma-
26
Philip Rousseau, op. cit., p. 233-234.

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A Fourth-century Proto-Romanian Ecumenical Theologian

tion of this process is the result of the collaboration between the divine grace
and the human will.

***
The analysis of St. John Cassian’s teaching on the relationship between
grace and free will in the process of achieving perfection and salvation dis-
cussed above hopefully brings extra light and understanding on this particu-
larly controversial subject, contributing to a better understanding of the doc-
trine of the great Church Father from Dobrogea.
We emphasize that Blessed Augustine’s doctrine about grace and free will
brought about product diverse and contradictory reactions: from confusion—
as that of the monks in Hadrumetum, to the passionate adhesion—like that of
Prosper of Aquitaine, labeled as more Augustinian than Augustine himself, or
resistance and rejection—as that of the monastic communities in Lerini and
Marseille. The Eastern Church came in the latter position on Augustinian
teaching on predestination. Therefore, the Eastern Orthodox Church never
confirmed officially the rulings of some authoritative local assemblies in the
West against the teaching of St. John Cassian on grace and freedom.
Orthodox theology receives Cassian’s doctrine as its own, because it
avoids both the exaggerations of Pelagius, a supporter of the sufficiency of
human effort in the process of salvation, and those of Augustine, who denied
the freedom of man, reaching absolute predestinarianism.
The accusation that St. Cassian is guilty of semipelagianism, moreover,
that he would be “father and the foremost representative of this doctrine” is
grounded on the misinterpretation of his claim that there is a spark of good
will in man which brings about the support of divine grace. This statement,
however, should be either removed from the context of the grace and free will issue,
or should be understood as St. Cassian understood it when he said that freedom
itself is a gift from God. Then, Cassian grounds that “spark of good will” - as
we have seen – on the authority of several great Fathers of the Church, such
as Saint Basil the Great, Saint Gregory of Nyssa and Saint John Chrysostom.
His teaching explains how it is possible that, although God desires all men to
be saved (2 Tim 2:4), this is not to be accomplished and why not the Creator,
but the creature, i.e. man is responsible for his condition. These allegations
were unable to destroy his spiritual authority in the Church. Cassian is gradu-
ally becoming the “master par excellence of the ascetic and mystical ways.”
His works have exercised capital influence on the development of Western

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Rev Assoc. Prof. Dr. Mircea Ielciu

spirituality. Cassian has gained his spiritual primacy in the West, his teach-
ing being incorporated in the Benedictine Rule. Thus, Chapter 42 of this Rule
requires that, during meals in monasteries, one of the brothers read for the
community the Conferences or the Lives of Egyptian Fathers. Chapter 73 of
the same Rule recommends that spiritual vacuum be filled with meditations
on Scripture, the Fathers, St. Cassian’s Conferences and Institutes.
Furthermore, these conclusions on grace and free will, assimilate the life,
teachings and personal experience of one who devoted almost his entire life
striving to achieve perfection. Cassian was a monk. When he finished writing
his Conferences, he had completed almost 50 years of obedience and con-
templation, and he was fully aware of the major monastics ways of the time,
namely the Palestinian and the Egyptian.
The most important authoritative source for understanding the signifi-
cance of the doctrine of Cassian is the Holy Scripture. Cassian quotes the
Scriptures extensively. He shows the universal need of grace and that of free
will, using for both claims, numerous Scriptural passages. Without doubt, the
Scripture is the primary basis for his beliefs and teaching.
The understanding and interpretation of those scriptural passages he uses
are by no means subjective, but in line with the tradition communicated by
the Church Fathers. He believed that was transmitting the Church’s teach-
ing he had received consistently throughout his life and that his position is
grounded in the tradition and practice of the Church. On such grounds did
Cassian reach his conclusions. The teaching of the Scripture, preserved in the
tradition of the Church and verified through personal experience, provided
him with enough evidence that his view of the relation between divine grace
and human freedom was accurate. This is the message he wanted to convey to
the ascetics in the West.
Cassian was sure that Christian life is an active life, aiming to promote
high morality, so the purpose of his writing was both practical and moral.
He felt compelled to defend the truth against all those who would make
“innovations” and thus ignored their name, popularity or influence. He was
convinced that his message was the message of God and that the salvation of
many beings depended on that truth. By the way he fought all exaggerations,
in a persuasive and subtle way, Saint Cassian proved to be an excellent theo-
logian and interpreter of the faith.
With humility and sobriety, but also a subtle sense of humor, Cassian
gave a great impetus to the monastic movement in the West, producing the

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A Fourth-century Proto-Romanian Ecumenical Theologian

first guide of the contemplative monastic ideal in the history of Western theo-
logical thought.
John Cassian occupies a very special position between the East and the
West, his work representing today a bridge which gaps the unfortunate dif-
ferences between the Eastern and Western theologies. His erudition and in-
depth knowledge of Greek and Latin theology, in addition to his outstanding
literary talent, recommend his work as one of great ecumenical value.
His insight into the theological and secular literature, his experience in
Palestine, Egypt, Constantinople, Rome and Southern Gaul made Cassian
aware of all specific nuances and differences of major theological schools of
thought, such as those in Alexandria, Antioch and Palestine, and protected
him from the influences of their dangerous extremes, thus enabling him to
develop theology of a great balance.
Cassian was able to convey to the Westerners, with quite enough accura-
cy, the theology of the Eastern ascetics. His teaching on grace and free will was
the teaching he himself had learned from the Scripture, from the theologians
of the East and most of the writers in the West before Augustine. In the East,
John Cassian is Saint John Cassian. His practical theology is still an important
part of the theology of the Eastern Orthodox Churches. Cassian was a monk
interested in the practical and moral consequences of Christian life, rather
than in philosophical speculation. He believed that ascetic principles, not
necessarily anchoritic life, were necessary for salvation. Truth must be verified
through Christian life and not through human words and human reasons. It
is imperative that the grace of God help the man who strives for perfection.
This is the teaching of the great spiritual Fathers of the Eastern Church, be
they from Egypt, Palestine, Syria or Asia Minor. Cassian, through his life and
work, was perhaps the most important spiritual authority who managed to
convey and spread this teaching in the West, where his works were copied
everywhere and hence strongly influenced the great organizers of monastic life
in the West, such as Saint Benedict and Saint Francis of Assisi.

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Missio Dei Triunius – some considerations on the Christian mission
The unity of the Church and the theological education

Revd. Assoc. Prof. Nicolae Moșoiu

The Trinitarian perspective on the Christian mission was clearly underlined


by Archbishop Anastasios of Tirana1 in an important study written in 1988:
„Orthodox witness is imbued with the desire to carry out God’s
will in a loving and heroic manner. The living in Christ and the
following in his footsteps has always been the ideal, the heart of
Orthodox spirituality. (...) The transforming glory and power of
the Trinitarian God must shine forth in time, in every manifes-
tation of human life, and throughout the creation, through the
mission of the Church. Since the key word mission is often used with
different nuances, it is necessary to state that by this word we mean
witness to the living Trinitarian God, who calls all to salvation and
binds human beings together in the church, who otherwise would
not belong to it or who have lost their tie to it. This characteristic
distinguishes it from mere pastoral care, which is directed towards
those already incorporated in the church. The field of Christian mis-
sion today is both the distant geographical regions of the third world
(more precisely, of the world of two-thirds of the total population),
and the rest of the inhabited world. It is henceforth a question of
mission to all six continents. For every local church, mission is in-
ward or internal, when it takes place within its geographical, linguis-
tic and cultural bounds, and outward or external when it reaches
beyond these bounds to other nations and lands”2.
1
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anastasios_of_Albania
2
https://www.google.ro/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q­
=orthodox+mission+perspectives+past; doc: Orthodox Mission: Past, Present
and Future, Bishop Anastasios of Androusa (1988), p.1

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Missio Dei Triunius – some considerations on the Christian mission

We find the same Trinitarian perspective, which was always empha-


sized by the Orthodox theologians, in the recent WCC document: „To-
gether Towards Life: Mission and Evangelism in Changing Landscapes”3:
„God invites us into the life-giving mission of the Triune God and
empowers us to bear witness to the vision of abundant life for all in
the new heaven and earth. How and where do we discern God’s life-
giving work that enables us to participate in God’s mission today?
Mission begins in the heart of the Triune God and the love which
binds together the Holy Trinity overflows to all humanity and crea-
tion. The missionary God who sent the Son to the world calls all
God’s people (John 20:21), and empowers them to be a community
of hope. The church is commissioned to celebrate life, and to resist
and transform all life-destroying forces, in the power of the Holy
Spirit”4. (...) „What is clear is that by the Spirit we participate in
the mission of love that is at the heart of the life of the Trinity. This
results in Christian witness which unceasingly proclaims the salvific
power of God through Jesus Christ and constantly affirms God’s
dynamic involvement, through the Holy Spirit, in the whole cre-
ated world. All who respond to the outpouring of the love of God
are invited to join in with the Spirit in the mission of God”5. (...)
„Authentic Christian witness is not only in what we do in mission
but how we live out our mission. The church in mission can only be

3
„The Commission on World Mission and Evangelism (CWME) has, since the WCC
Porto Alegre Assembly in 2006, been working and contributing toward the construction of
a new ecumenical mission affirmation. The new statement was presented to the WCC 10th
assembly at Busan, Korea, in 2013. Since the integration of the International Missionary
Council (IMC) and the World Council of Churches (WCC) in New Delhi, 1961, there
has been only one official WCC position statement on mission and evangelism which was
approved by the central committee in 1982, “Mission and Evangelism: An Ecumenical Affir-
mation.” This new mission affirmation has been unanimously approved by the WCC Central
Committee held in Crete, Greece on 5 September 2012.  It is the aim of this ecumenical
discernment to seek vision, concepts and directions for a renewed understanding and prac-
tice of mission and evangelism in changing landscapes. It seeks a broad appeal, even wider
than WCC member churches and affiliated mission bodies, so that we can commit ourselves
together to fullness of life for all, led by the God of Life”. http://www.oikoumene.org/en/
resources/documents/commissions/mission-and-evangelism/together-towards-life-mission-
and-evangelism-in-changing-landscapes
4
file:///C:/Users/User/Downloads/Together_towards_Life%20(1).pdf, p.4
5
Ibidem, p.9

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Revd. Assoc. Prof. Nicolae Moșoiu

sustained by spiritualities deeply rooted in the Trinity’s communion


of love”6.

A. Some considerations on conceptions and misconceptions con-


cerning the Christian mission
We all are aware that we need “fresh wineskins for new wine”. The for-
mer WCC general secretary Rev.Dr. Konrad Raiser launched the discussion
on the reconfiguration of the ecumenical movement. Rev.Dr. Samuel Kobia,
also former WCC general secretary followed up the process using the expres-
sion “ecumenism in the 21st century”7. It would be wrong to burden new
generations with the consequences of centuries of heresies and schisms. To-
day, after so many wars, conflicts and disasters, we have to reach the authentic
meaning of mission and unity of the Church8.
Dr. Namsoon Kang, vice-president of the World Conference of The-
ological Institutions (WOCATI) noted that the term “mission” became a
popular word used for almost everything from military objective to the
frenzy of the mission statements that corporations use to promote their
profit-making purposes. Many churches have developed “mission state-
ments” as a basic part of their own planning. There are “pop” images of
mission: it is a foreign enterprise; it is a programmatic opinion for a church;
it is money sent to a denominational headquarters; and on and on9. “Ac-
cording to widespread public opinion Christian mission has no role to play
in a religiously plural society and is incompatible with religious pluralism.
6
Ibidem, p.12
7
Ecumenism in the 21th Century, Report of the Consultation convened by the World Coun-
cil of Churches, Geneva,2005
8
One can feel very encouraged while reading the statements on mission formulated
in the past 20 years and the texts like Baptism, Eucharist, Ministry (1982) or The Nature and
Mission of the Church ; and also the more recently documents: The Church Towards a Common
Vision, Faith and Order Paper No. 214, WCC Publications, Geneva, 2013 -http://www.
oikoumene.org/en/resources/documents/wcc-commissions/faith-and-order-commission/i-
unity-the-church-and-its-mission/the-church-towards-a-common-vision; „One Baptism:
Towards Mutual Recognition A Study Text”, Faith And Order Paper No. 210 World Council
Of Churches, Geneva - https://www.oikoumene.org/en/resources/documents/wcc-commis-
sions/faith-and-order-commission/ii-worship-and-baptism/one-baptism-towards-mutual-
recognition?set_language=en. Although it will be a long way to reach full agreement, it is
very important that we learned to speak together and to hear one another.
9
Dr. Namsoon Kang, „The Centrality of Gender Justice in Prophetic Christianity and
the Mission of the Church Rediscovered”, in IRM, 94 (373, April 2005), 280

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Missio Dei Triunius – some considerations on the Christian mission

The term mission is, in this sense, equated with religious propaganda, with
proselytism, with an assault on the perception of truth, with intolerance to-
wards people of other faiths, atheists or agnostics. Based on such prejudice,
the theory and practice of mission are forced to operate in a permanent
apologetic posture”10.
The calling to mission is a radical calling into the world as it is, not out
of the world. If we look at Acts ( ch. 3, 4 and 5) we discover at least three
misconceptions about mission.
The first misconception is that our engagement in God’s mission has to
do with spiritual as opposed to material things. For the apostles as with Jesus,
there was no divide between the spiritual and the physical; there was only the
work of God to witness to the shalom of the kingdom of God. We see this fact
in these chapters through the importance of bodily healing.
The second misconception is that our engagement in God’s mission
should not bring us into conflict with the authorities. We have been seduced
into thinking that Romans 13 is the only word in the Bible about Christians
and secular authority, but it certainly doesn’t seem to have been the attitude of
the apostles. These chapters point out that the apostles were regularly arrested,
imprisoned and hauled before the Sanhedrin on account of their engagement
in God’s mission.
The third misconception is that in so far as our engagement in God’s
mission does involve helping people, it is about charity11. Saint Peter was clear
that the apostles did not have “silver or gold” but they did have the power of
God. This power was a power for “standing up” rather than begging. This is a
very important issue because we often hide behind our ability to give money
when there is a problem rather than being involved in the compassion that
God requires, which is a compassion that demands something from us. Here
lies the failure of the split we have created between the physical and the mate-
rial. Saint Peter does not use material means to heal but healing is very mate-
rial. In its engagement with God’s mission in the world, the Church has this
power of Christ to share12.
10
Christine Lienemann, “Impact of Religious Plurality on my Life, my Work and
Thinking”, CURRENT DIALOGUE, World Council of Churches, 34 (2/1999) 16, quoted
in: Namsoon Kang, op.cit., pp.280-281
11
We must not forget that the word charity comes from the latin caritas (in Greek
language, agape) which means compassionate love (1Cor. 13)
12
Steve de Gruchy, „Mission in Act 1-11: An Experiment in Bible Study”, in IRM, 94
(373, April 2005), p.231

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Revd. Assoc. Prof. Nicolae Moșoiu

a. The mission is God’s rather than the Church’s – missio Dei


Triunius
The Church has now recovered the biblical insight that the mission is God’s
rather than the Church’s. This was not done without great theological and mis-
siological conflict. We have moved from an ecclesiocentric to a theocentric gener-
ated mission13. David Bosch says that :
“During the past half a century or so, there has been a subtle but
nevertheless decisive shift towards understanding mission as God’s
mission. During preceding centuries mission was understood in a
variety of ways. Sometimes it was interpreted primarily in soterio-
logical terms: as saving individuals from eternal damnation. Or it
was understood in cultural terms: as introducing people from the
East and South to the blessing and privileges of Christian West.
Often it was perceived in ecclesiastical categories: as expansion of
the church (or of specific denomination). Sometimes it was defined
salvation-historically: as the process by which the world – evolution-
ary or by means of a cataclysmic event- would be transformed into
the kingdom of God”14.
Dealing with the origin and content of the concept missio Dei, professor
Tormod Engelsviken wrote that the term missio Dei has a long history that
goes back to Augustin and relates to the doctrine of the Trinity15. The theo-
centric perspective was not new in the 20th century. It can be found in Martin
Luther’s thinking about mission. For him, “mission is always pre-eminently
the work of the triune God – missio Dei- and its goal and outcome is the
coming of the kingdom of God. Luther sees the church, along with God’s
word and every baptized believer, as crucial divine instruments for mission.
Yet nowhere does the reformer make the church the starting point or the final
goal of mission, as the 19th –century missiology tended to do”16.
Although one of the main reasons for the fame of the Willingen confer-
ence (1952) is the introduction of the concept of missio Dei it can not be
13
Namson Kang, op.cit. p.281
14
David Bosch, Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission, Maryk-
noll, N.Y., Orbis Press, 1991, p.389
15
„Missio Dei: The Understanding and Misunderstanding of a Theological Concept in
European Churches and Missiology”, in IRM, XCII ( 367, October 2003), 482
16
James A.Scherer, ed., Gospel, Church, & Kingdom: Comparative Studies in World Mis-
sion Theology, Minneapolis, Augsburg Publishing House, 1987, p.55.

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Missio Dei Triunius – some considerations on the Christian mission

found in the documents of the conference itself as professor Tormod Engels-


viken noticed17, and he adds that it seems that it was Karl Hartenstein who,
in his report from Willingen, coined the phrase when he spoke of mission as
participation in the sending of the Son, in the missio Dei, with an inclusive
aim of establishing the lordship of Christ over the whole redeemed creation18.
The emphasis in Willingen on a trinitarian basis of mission is even more
important than the somewhat ambiguos phrase missio Dei. It is this trinitar-
ian basis of mission that should form the foundation of any understanding of
missio Dei19. This idea is also shared by an Indian theologian: “Christian mis-
sion should be understood as Christian participation in the mision of God.
Missio Dei puts God at the centre and as the source and author of mission,
it suggests that mission should be understood as being derived from the very
nature of the triune God, that is, God the Father sends the Son, and God
the Father and the Son send the Spirit, and the triune God sends the church
into the world”20.
Wilhelm Richebacher also points out that the expresion missio Dei was
not used during the Willinger conference, but in the report: “The sending of
the Son to reconcile the universe through the power of the Spirit is the foun-
dation and purpose of mission. The missio ecclesiae comes from the missio Dei
alone. Thus, misson is placed within the broadest imaginable framework of
salvation history and God’s plan for salvation”21, and he continues by saying
that we have to speak about the missio Dei Triunius, because “the mission of
the triune God is an invitation to life in all its fullness in the redeeming pres-
ence of the risen One”22.
In the text on mission adopted as a study document by the Commission
on World Mission and Evangelism we read:
“The mission of God ( missio Dei) has no limits or barriers; it has
been addressed to and has been at work within the entire human
race and the whole of creation throughout history. (…) the Logos (
Word), God’s co-eternal and consubstantial Son, was and is present

17
Op. cit., p. 482
18
Ibidem.
19
Ibidem.
20
Lalsangkima Pachuau, „Missiology in a Pluralistic World. The Place of Mission study
in Theological Education”, in IRM, LXXXIX,(355,October 2000 ) p.543
21
„ Missio Dei: The Basis of Mission Theology or a Wrong Path?”, in IRM, XCII
(367,October 2003), pp.589, 590
22
Ibid. p.596

155
Revd. Assoc. Prof. Nicolae Moșoiu

with the Father and the Holy Spirit in all God’s acts (…). A trinitar-
ian approach to the missio Dei is therefore important. On the one
hand, this promotes a more inclusive understanding of God’s pres-
ence and work in the whole world and among people, implying that
signs of God’s presence can and should be identified, affirmed and
worked with even in the most unexpected places. On the other hand,
by clearly affirming that the Father and the Spirit are always and in
all circumstances present and at work together with the Word, the
temptation to separate the presence of God or the Spirit from the
Son of God, Jesus Christ, will be avoided”23. There is no place for
christomonism or for pneumatomonism.
However the concept of missio Dei is not free from difficulties. In Will-
ingen and in the period following, two major and somewhat competing ap-
proaches to missio Dei emerged. The first one, a dominant view at the Will-
ingen meeting, understood mission as God’s evangelizing action through the
Church. The second, which raised serious opposition to the dominant Will-
ingen view conceived missio Dei as God’s activity in the secular world over and
above the Church, saying, “The world provides the agenda”24. The missio Dei
concept, which is often presumed to be exclusively a missiology “from above”,
is also conceived to be a missiology “from below”, God’s work is discernible
in secular history25.
The document on mission quoted above offers an inspired holistic de-
scription of mission:
“Mission” carries a holistic understanding: the proclamation and
sharing of the good news of the gospel by word ( kerygma), deed (
diakonia), prayer and worship (leiturgia) and the everyday witness of
the Christian life ( martyria); teaching as building up and strength-
ening people in their relationship with God and each other; and
healing as wholeness and reconciliation into koinonia- communion
with God, communion with people, and communion with creation
as a whole”.
23
„Mission and Evangelism in Unity Today”, in the vol.: „You are the Light of the
World”. Statements on Mission by the World Council of Churches 1980-2005, WCC Publicati-
ons, Geneva 2005, p. 65.
24
The Church for Others and the Church for the World: A Quest for Structures for Missio-
nary Congregations, Geneva, WCC,1968, p.20, quoted in L.Pachuau, op.cit., p. 544.
25
L.Pachuau, op.cit., p. 544.

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Missio Dei Triunius – some considerations on the Christian mission

However as David Bosch pointed out:


“We may never arrogate it to ourselves to delineate mission too
sharply and too self-confidently. Ultimately, mission remains un-
definable; it should never be incarcerated in the narrow confines of
our own predilections. The most we can hope is to formulate some
approximations of what mission is all about”26.

b. Theological foundations for mission


The late Romanian theologian, professor Ion Bria identified eight theo-
logical foundations for mission.27 I think it is important to present them briefly:
1. The importance of Trinitarian Theology
Christ’s sending of the apostles is rooted in the fact that Christ himself
is sent by the Father in the Holly Spirit ( John 20,21-33). Trinitarian theol-
ogy points to the fact that God is in God’s own self a life of communion and
that God’s involvement in history aims at drawing humanity and creation in
general into this communion. The salvation of the world should be seen as a
“programme” of the Holy Trinity for the whole of creation. True life is life in
the Holy Trinity, in Christ by the Spirit coming from and oriented towards
the Father. We talk about katabasis: from the Father through the Son in the
Holy Spirit and about anabasis: having the intimacy with the Holy Spirit,
through the Son we are adopted by the Father.
2. Centrality of Christ
As human beings we are eikon eikonos, the image of the image of the Fa-
ther. Christ is our centre in a double sense: as divine Logos, source and model
of our reason, and as initiating partner of our dialogue with Him. The Son of
God has assumed the fullness of our humanity into himself . He became the
Person of the humanity he assumed, but also of our own humanity. He is our
superior person (subject) our intimate partner of dialog. In this process, He
afirms, He heals and restores humanity by placing it in himself, and therefore
in the Holy Trinity, the great mystery of the perfect divine-human unity that
becomes the source-spring of the new life of the world.
3. The Incarnation
The Logos was present in the world from the beginning through the
logoi of creation. He, through the Holy Spirit, inspired the ancient wisdom

26
Op.cit., p. 9.
27
Go forth in peace. Orthodox Perspectives on Misssion, WCC Mission Series No.7, pp. 3-9.

157
Revd. Assoc. Prof. Nicolae Moșoiu

of mankind. He is also the word of the prophets. The Logos became fully hu-
man, while remaining fully divine. He became sarxs, in latin caro , flesh, not
simply soma ( John, 1,14). He took our human qualities so we may benefit
from his divine attributes. He became sarkoforos, so that we are enabled to
become pneumatophoroi. He took our form in order to make us worthy to
take his form ( Philip. 2).
In spite of the humanization of the Logos, we are still free to refuse com-
munion with God. Hence also the presence of sin and evil which are opposed
to the regenerative work of the Logos. Evil is at the root of the divisions and the
passions that have separated us. But the incarnate Logos, who effectively unites
us, establishes in the Holy Spirit the communion in the Church that is the body
of Christ. The Church realizes the unifying message of the divine Logos, for the
Logos is its centre and therefore the unifying basis for all humanity.
4. The Cross
Christ is sent into the world not only as teacher, example, etc., but also
as a bearer of the divine life, not as a separate individual. His mission aims
to draw the world into the way of existence that is to be found in the Holy
Trinity. Christ’s mission is essentially the self-giving of the Holy Trinity so
that the world may become a participant in the divine life. Christ’s mission
takes place in a “fallen” world and is met by the resistance of the “powers and
principalities” of evil and sin. This has made the cross the inevitable passage
of Christ’s mission. Mission, therefore, takes place in the context of struggle
and implies a conversion, a paschal and baptismal passage of the world into
a “new creation”.This is not a fight that manifests itself simply in the souls of
individuals; it permeates all social life through injustice, oppression,etc., and
even the whole of natural existence through sickness and death.
5. The Resurrection
While the reality of the cross represents the inevitable context of mission
as a clash between the trinitarian way of existence and the “powers and prin-
cipalities” of sin, the resurrection of Christ , said professor Ion Bria, throws
light on mission in two fundamental ways. In the first place it points to the
fact that the outcome of mission is beyond any doubt the defeat of the powers
of sin in both its social and natural implications ( the overcoming of death).
Christ’s ascension and constant intercession at the right hand of God sustain
this assurance. The resurrection also points to the fact that the outcome of
mission is not controlled by historical forces but is eschatological in nature. It
would be misleading to contrast a “theology of glory” and a “theology of the
Cross”, the cross is were Christ was glorified.

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Missio Dei Triunius – some considerations on the Christian mission

6. The Work of the Holy Spirit


The Holy Spirit was present in creation from the beginning, brooding
upon it, giving life to it, bringing form and perfection to all things. The whole
saving activity of Christ is inseparable from the work of the Holy Spirit. He
confers us the form , the beauty of Christ. He is the Spirit of community,
the Spirit who perfects and completes all the sacramental mysteries of the
Church, the Spirit of the new creation.
7. Synergia
Synergia means that God has chosen to work through us. God calls us
to surrender ourselves to Christ in order that God may unite us to God’s self
and work through us, enhancing our freedom and in no way abolishing our
personal subjectivity.
8. The Call to Repentence and to Obedience to the Will of God
Throughout history Christians have failed to be faithful and often ob-
structed the work of God in the world, especially in mission. We are called to
repentence, which is a second baptism, to real metanoia , the changing of the
way we think, we live. Our aim , as Saint Paul says, is to have“ the mind- nous
of Christ” (I Cor. 2,16).

B. The unity of the Church and the unity of churches28


All the christians are aware that the division between us is a scandal and
an impediment to the united witness of the Church. We confess the faith in
the oneness of the Church. There can be no churches ( in the plural) except
as manifestations of the one true Church. The unity of the Church does not
mean creating a worldwide organization, often called structural unity. The
one Church cannot be created by putting all the local churches and individual
denominations into one worldwide structure.
The unity of the Church is the unity in Christ, by the Holy Spirit, with
the Holy Trinity. The Church is Christ’s body, and there is only one body, as
there is one Christ and one Spirit. The Church then is that great mystery in
which Christ unites to himself all those whom God has chosen, by the Holy
Spirit. This includes all those from Adam and Eve till our day, and we the
Christians living today form but a segment of that whole reality that spans the
ages and unites heaven and earth.29
One of the notae ecclesiae is katholike; kath’holon means according to the
whole, the Church is in accordance with the fullness of apostolic teaching
28
Ion Bria, op. cit., p. 69.
29
Ibidem

159
Revd. Assoc. Prof. Nicolae Moșoiu

and its organic development throughout the centuries. Orthodox ecclesiology


tends to distinguish between local and universal dimensions of catholicity.
According to the former, a local church, gathered in the name of the Lord
Jesus Christ, the church which celebrates the eucharist and is headed by a
bishop, is the “catholic church”, Christ’s body in all its fullness. “Wherever
Christ Jesus is, there is the catholic Church”, according to St.Ignatius of An-
tioch’s well-known definition. The Church is catholic due to Christ and not
to its members. It is very important that the local dimension of catholicity
informs a conception of the local Christian community not as a part of the
body but as the body itself. This understanding is most vividly expressed in
the Proskomede of the Divine Liturgy, when th epriest prepares the gifts , cut-
ting portions of bread commemorating Christ himself, his mother, all the
saints, all the living and all the departed. The local dimension of catholicity
naturally implies the possibility of cultural, liturgical and theological diversity
in the one Church of Christ.30
Vladimir Lossky wrote: “The Church is the centre of the Universe,
the sphere in which its destines are determined. All are called to enter into
the Church, for if man is a microcosm, the Church is a macro-anthropos, as
St.Maximus says. It increases and is compounded in history, bringing the
elect into its bosom and uniting them to God”31.
The Romanian theologian Dumitru Staniloae ( 1903-1993) who was
imprisoned for five years, and suffered greatly in harsh conditions, understood
the way towards the unity of the Church as an “open sobornicity (conciliar-
ity)”. This expression was proposed in the early 1970s when the churches,
which were involved in the ecumenical movement, and especially in the bilat-
eral theological dialog, were centred on their own models of unity proposed
for the defence of their confessional identity. This defensive “contraction” led
to confessionalism, proselytism, anti-ecumenism. Although he is very severe
with the dogmatic integrity of the Orthodox Church in the ecumenical di-
alog, he has never denied or disparaged the positive confessional traditions,
the apostolic institutions and structures which exist outside the Orthodox
communion. He encouraged wholeheartedly not only the ecumenical prayer
for unity but also the Orthodox priests’ and believers’ ecumenical education.

30
Archbishop Ioann, „Ecclesiological and Canonical Foundations of Orthodox Missi-
on”, in IRM, XC (358, July 2001), p. 275.
31
The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church, Crestwood, NY, St.Vladimir’s Seminary
Press, 1976, p. 178.

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Missio Dei Triunius – some considerations on the Christian mission

In the Slavic translation of the Creed the word sobornuiu was used instead
of t katholike due to the opposition to the universal, geographical meaning
given to the original Greek word in the West. The word sobornuiu suggests the
conciliar way of preserving the doctrine of the Church at the episcopal level
and the general communal way in which the same doctrine has been experi-
enced. The entire Church is a standing council, a communion, a convergence
and a permanent collaboration of all its members.32
Father Stăniloae’s “open sobornicity” would mean: knowledge, under-
standing, experiencing, witnessing , valuing, realising the faith of Apostles in
its integrity, to which all people are called - all of the same human nature but
of different personal, family, national and traditional backgrounds - , gathered
in a web of dialogue amongst themselves and with God, within a fellowship –
koinonia of increasing importance according to their desire to live “conform-
ing to the whole – kat’holon” in all respects.
In Acts 2,42 we read that those who followed Christ: “devoted themselves
to the apostles’ teaching – te didahe ton apostolon, and fellowship – koinonia,
to the breaking of bread – te klasei tou artou and the prayers – tais proseuhais”.
We have here the biblical foundations for the ecclesial live in community. The
order is very important. This was used also in Charta ecumenica, the European
document on churches’ collaboration. The unity of the Church in the New
Testament is a symphony of local churches with specific local elements, how-
ever they are in fellowship of faith, sacraments and love.
It is difficult to envisage a real unity of the Church without unity in
faith, followed by authentic koinonia and sharing of holy communion - com-
munio in sacris. In present times we must study together and publish conver-
gence texts, pray together for the unity and serve together the liturgy after
the Liturgy33, which means service to the world in spite of differences. While
praying and serving together it is very possible, by God’ grace to discover our
oneness in Christ.
“In the context of a growing common Christian intercession, wit-
ness, service and theological convergence, and in the face of a revival
of ancient denominationalism, Christians must remember that the
eucharist is the cornerstone of their life together as members of one

32
Preot Prof. Dr. Dumitru Staniloae, Teologia Dogmatică Ortodoxă (TDO),vol. 2, Edi-
tura Institutului Biblic şi de Misiune al Bisericii Ortodoxe Române, Bucureşti, 1997, p.186
33
Ion Bria, Liturgy after the Liturgy. Mission and Witness from an Orthodox Perspective,
WCC publications, Geneva, 1996

161
Revd. Assoc. Prof. Nicolae Moșoiu

universal church. One test of ecumenical life is to renew the effort


to overcome the obstacles to full concelebrated eucharist. This is an
essential condition for the credibility of our ecumenical movement;
while it is not there, the whole building of ecumenical witness is
unsure”.34

C. “Theology, rightly understood, has no reason to exist other


than critically to accompany the missio Dei”.35
It is worth to quote Dr. Nyambura J.Njoroge, former programme execu-
tive for Ecumenical Theological Education at the World Council of Church-
es, who in her article entitled: “An ecumenical commitment. Transforming
Theological Education in Mission“36 noted that in 1938, at the Tambaram
(Madras, South India) conference of the International Missionary Council
(IMC), the participants confessed that, “The weakest element in the entire
enterprise of Christian Missions is theological education”.37 However, it took
twenty more years for the IMC to correct this major oversight in the mis-
sionary enterprise, and did so by launching the Theological Education Fund
(TEF) in early 1958.38
The World Council of Churches in its present form and its earlier mani-
festations, has contributed in transforming theological education. Three sig-
nificant expressions of theological education activities are:
• Theological Education Fund (TEF) 1958-1977;
• Programme of Theological Education ( PTE), 1978-1991;
• Ecumenical Theological Education (ETE), 1992- present.
In July 1977 the WCC central committee decided to make the TEF an
integral part of its Geneva programmes by creating the Programme of Theo-
34
Ibidem p. 40.
35
David Bosch, op. cit., p. 494.
36
International Review of Mission ( IRM, 94 (373, April 2005),248-263
37
International Missionary Council, The World Mission of the Church, Tambaram, Lon-
don, March 1939, p. 85.
38
The decision to launch the TEF took place in Accra, Ghana at the IMC assemblz
held in December 1967. Several mission boards in the USA sponsored the fund, and the TEF
office was based in Bromley, Kent, England from 1958 to 1977. To the credit of the leaders of
the day, the fund was launched after a survey of ministry in Madagascar and different regions
of continental Africa from 1950 to 1956, wich provided a glimpse of what was happening
in ministry and mission in the so-called “ younger churches”; see Dr. Nyambura J.Njoroge,
op.cit., p.251

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Missio Dei Triunius – some considerations on the Christian mission

logical Education (PTE) to carry on and broaden the concerns of strength-


ening the renewal of theological education in all six continents. The TEF in
London was closed and the PTE staff took their place in Geneva in 1981.
Underlying this decision was the conviction that, theological education is
vital for the life and mission of the Church. In order to make the programme
widely known and to invite more partners to participate in the liberation of
theological education from any bonds that hinder the fulfilment of its original
calling, the PTE introduced in January 1978 the newsletter/journal Ministe-
rial Formation. Through the TEF/PTE the ecumenical movement has chal-
lenged churches and theological institutions to take seriously the need for the
whole people of God to be deeply grounded in their Christian faith and to
participate fully in ministry and mission.
When we say theological education we are tempted to think exclusively of
the “production” of “professional” theologians. But “one of the critical needs of
our time and every era is to encourage, enable, equip and empower the people
of God to participate meaningfully in the life and mission of the Church. One
of the tragic ironies is that the very institutions, structures and resources that
were created to facilitate people’s participation have so often failed to do so or
even become obstacles…. We are called to mould and adapt our institutions
and structures to be channels and not obstacles for God’s Spirit”39.
It is not easy to keep the balance between the general priesthood ( cf. 2
Pt.1,4) together with its specific responsabilities and the ordained priesthood
(cf.2 Pt.1,5 sq.) or “profesional theologians”. We have to avoid clericalism, in
order to avoid anti-clericalism. In this respect the local church has an indis-
pensible role:
“The teaching congregation defines the conscious commitment to
fashion a climate of learning which gives concrete expression to
the doctrine of the priesthood of all believers. In this climate, every
member, regardless of educational standing, role or status, is deemed
a lerner. Every member is therefore a candidate for empowerment
and is affirmed as a giver as well as a receiver”.40
The theological education must serve missio Dei Triunius and His willing-
ness “to unite all things in Christ (anakephalaiosasthai ta panta en to Christo),

39
Samuel and John S.Pobee, eds., Theology by the People: reflections on Doing Theology
in Community, Geneva, WCC Publications, 1986, p. 91.
40
M.Evans, Teaching Congregations: Theological Paradigm for Ministerial Formation,
ITLD,2003, p. 19.

163
Revd. Assoc. Prof. Nicolae Moșoiu

things in heaven and things on earth”(Eph.1,10). Unfortunately the two sub-


jects of great importance: mission and unity have not become the underlying
principles of the educational process itself. None of the four models identified
by Andrew Williams is explicitly missiological in intent or focused on unity:
1. The “life wisdom” or “habitus” model, seen especially in the monas-
tic movement.
2. The “scientific” model, where theology is perceived as a “science”,
i.e., a discipline of systematic enquiry and exposition.
3. The “university” model ( the most common today), where theology
becomes the work of theological faculties, with chairs in different
specialized branches.
4. The “professional” model specifically concerned with the “inner ec-
clesial” needs of the Christian community.41
We even have problems in finding the place of Missiology in the curricula.
Should it be included in the practical, historical or systematical theology?
Missiology is still confused in some places, with the so called “sectology”,
while ecumenical studies are not part of the doctrine, which still has to be
orientated towards other confessions.
We need ecumenical formation because mission and evangelism should
be promoted in unity today42. During a special consultation on “ecumenism
in the 21st century” a group reflected, on the definition, dimension and meth-
ods of ecumenical formation, realising that there is no agreed ecumenical
description of what ecumenical formation is. However, all agreed that ecu-
menical formation is about the renewal of a person. It is a change of heart that
makes us share in Christ’s desire for the Church to be one. They also noted
that not only persons but also structures should be formed ecumenically.43
It is very important to be aware of all the changes and challenges present
in our world, the new global village; to be aware of the need to renew the un-
derstandings of education theories, to reach an authentic culture of dialog in
teaching - as expressed in the New Testament, where Christ engaged in dialog
with different people and the salvation started from their own great problems;
to be aware that it is wrong to separate theology from spirituality, the witness
in the world from martyria, from martyrdom; to be aware of the holistic char-
acter of theological education and ministerial formation:
41
IRM, 94 (373,April 2005), Editorial, p.201
42
See the document „Mission and Evangelism in Unity Today”, op.cit.
43
Ecumenism in the 21st century, op.cit., p.28

164
Missio Dei Triunius – some considerations on the Christian mission

“… which is grounded in worship, and combines and inter-relates


spirituality, academic excellence, mission and evangelism, justice
and peace, pastoral sensitivity and competence and the formation of
character. For it brings together education of:
the ear to hear God’s word and cry of God’s people;
the heart to heed and respond to the suffering;
the tongue to speak to both the weary and the arrogant;
the hands to work with the lowly;
the mind to reflect on the good news of the gospel;
the will to respond to God’s call;
the spirit to wait on God in prayer, to struggle and wrestle with
God, to be silent in penitence and humility and to intercede for the
church and the world;
the body to be the temple of the Holy Spirit”.44

44
John S.Pobee, ed., Towards Viable Theological Education: Ecumenical Imperative, Ca-
talyst of Renewal, Geneva, WCC Publications, 1997, p.1

165
Augustine and the legitimisation
of violence in Christian mission

PhD Dragoş Boicu

St. Augustine’s personality dominates the Western theology of the late


fourth century regarding the Christian conception about relationship between
Church and State, as well as his definition of the limits of Christian mission
with the support of political authority. Sustaining the need for Christian em-
perors to support the true faith, and relying on the text of the Scripture “Go
out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in, that my
house may be filled” (Lk 14:23) Augustine earned the reputation as the first
theorist of Inquisition1. However, such a conclusion is proving very superfi-
cial because it separates the Augustinian vision of the link between church
and state from the historical context in which he developed this theory and
it ignores the mainstream imposed by the African councils convened within
395-411 on the Donatist crisis.

The beginning of the Donatist schism


When he became bishop of Hippo Regius in 395 AD, Augustine was
forced to engage in North Africa Church’s problems, that was facing a schism
for more than eight decades, namely the hostilities between the Donatists and
the so-called Catholic / Orthodox, although the two factions professed and
practiced the same dogmatic truths and same liturgical ordinances. When
the Emperor Diocletian tried during the great persecution (303-305 AD) to
eliminate Christianity by destroying its books used in worship and the Scrip-
ture, the Church members in Africa and in particular the clergy were faced
with a difficult moral decision because all options were tragic: either they gave

1
R.A. Markus, Saeculum: History and Society in the Theology of St Augustine, Cambridge
University Press, 1988, p. 134.

166
Augustine and the legitimisation of violence in Christian mission

them and indirectly they were destroying the Scripture or they gave other
books deceiving the investigators or suffered martyrdom defending the sacred
books2. Those who were guilty of giving up the Scriptures were considered
traitors to the faith (traditores) as some who have failed to resist the Roman
persecution. Even Mensurius, the Bishop of Carthage during this persecu-
tion, resorted to deception and handed to the representatives of proconsul
Anulius more heretical writings which were presented as books used in wor-
ship. The synod of bishops of the province of Numidia (Cirta, 5 March 305
AD) found that other African bishops acted in a similar way3.
However a rigorist faction of the Donatists, named after Bishop of Casae
Nigra, Donatus Magnus, expanded the name of traditores also for those who
didn’t assumed martyrdom and have just surrendered to the authorities vari-
ous papers in place of Scripture. The actual schism broke out in 311 AD,
when, after the death of Mensurius, at the head of the Church of Carthage
was ordained Archdeacon Caecilian and at his consecration participated Bish-
op Felix Aptunga considered himself a traditor. This has caused a general dis-
content in Numidia and therefore more than 70 bishops gathered in Carthage
and invalidated the election of Caecilian under the pretext that he had been
ordained by a traditor, electing in his place Maiorinus, known as “Lucillae
domesticus” – an aristocrat, who was said that she had paid these bishops 400
folles (bronze coins) to replace the legal successor of Mensurius4. Apart from
this last detail, the reaction of African clergy must be seen in a close relation-
ship with the ecclesiology of St. Cyprian of Carthage († 258) that the bishop
guilty of a grave sin and apostasy was excluded from the Church and he could
not transmit the Holy Spirit to another person5.
The fact is that there were created two separate Christian communities in
Carthage: one led by Caecilian and the other by Maiorinus († 313 AD), and
after the latter’s death led by Donatus Magnus.

2
John Chapman, “Donatists”, in The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 5. New York: Robert
Appleton Company, 1909. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05121a.htm (6.02.2013).
3
Gordon R. Lewis, “Violence in the name of Christ: The significance of Augustine’s
Donastist Controversy for Today”, p. 105. http://www.etsjets.org/files/JETS-PDFs/14/14-
2/14-2-pp103-110_JETS.pdf (4.04.2013)
4
Geoffrey G. Willis, Saint Augustine and the Donatist Controversy, SPCK, London,
1950, p. 4-6.
5
William C. Weinrich, “Cyprian, Donatism, Augustine, and Augustana VIII:
Remarks on the Church and the Validity of Sacraments”, in Concordia Theological Quarterly,
nr. 4/1991, p. 278.

167
PhD Dragoş Boicu

Although Felix of Aptunga and therefore Caecilian were examined by


four councils (Rome – 313 AD, one in Africa the same year, Arelate – 314
AD, Milan – 316 AD) and were found innocent of the charges brought by the
Donatists, the rigorist faction was increasing in north Africa, gaining many
followers, who broke communion with the caeciliens and isolated themselves
from all those suspected of being traditores or in a relationship with those.
It seems that it was not just an ecclesiastical separation, but a social one to,
where the contacts between the two sides were limited only to personal at-
tacks and sometimes street violence. The extremist character of this group
predisposed it to a successive fragmentation resulting six factions: Rogatists
– most moderate, Urbanists, Claudians, Primians, Maximians and the cruel
Circumcellions6.
The popular unrest put Emperor Constantine the Great in a position to
waive any form of arbitration and pacify by force the African Church based
on the decisions of Rome, Milan and Arelate councils. Thus, since the spring
of 317 AD the Donatist churches were seized and handed to caeciliens. The
rigoristic persistence amplified further violences leading to bloodshed and,
paradoxically, led to a stronger core curdling Donatist which becomes a sepa-
rate Church, of “the pure ones”, the only Church who commits valid mys-
teries7. In the absence of positive results, after just a few years Constantine
granted them freedom through a tolerance edict on 5th May 321 AD, which
will facilitate the spread of Donatism across the entire North Africa. It seems
that in this context the schismatic actions have become increasingly bold and
peaked with the revolt led by Axido and Fasir, nicknamed “Captains of the
saints” who terrorized rural areas and threatened public order until they were
repressed by Comes Taurinus8. We should mention that this is the first case
in which some form of Christianity is identified with a national movement;
religious opposition to Rome has a strong political correspondent.
The imperial reaction was quick and sensing the creation of a centrifugal
motion focused on the Donatist dissidence, at the end of his reign Emperor
6
See John Joseph A’Becket, “Agonistici”, in The Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. 1,
New York, Robert Appleton Company, 1907, 3 Sept. 2013 http://www.newadvent.org/
cathen/01223a.htm. and Claude Lepelley, “Iuvenes et circconcellions: les derniers sacrifices
humains de l’Afrique antique”, in Antiquités africaines, vol. 15 (1980), p. 261-271.
7
Pr. Prof. Dr. Nicolae Chifăr, “Mişcarea donatistă şi politica religioasă constantiniană”,
in Revista Teologica, nr. 4/2012, p. 136.
8
Optatus de Mileve (Afrus), De Schismate Donatistarum Adversus Parmenianum, III,
4, PL 11, col. 1007-1008.

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Augustine and the legitimisation of violence in Christian mission

Constans (337-350 AD) attempted again to end the schism, and had renewed
in 347 AD the edict issued in 317 AD in order to bring the Donatists under
the authority of the Caecilian bishop of Carthage, Gratus, and the opponents
were threatened with harsh reprisals, while the rigoristic bishops were sub-
jected to exile (like Donatus Magnus), or even to public execution (the case
of Marculus and 9 other bishops). But the delicate balance was destroyed by
the provision of Julian the Apostate, who reactivated the Donatist communi-
ties during his short reign, recalling all the bishops sent in exile and handing
back the goods they previously held9. With the help of political authority the
schismatics have triggered a veritable reconquista, already applying the usual
violence, to which was added the rebaptism of the clergy who embraced Do-
natism and the blinding of caecilian clergy by pouring in their eyes a solution
of lime and vinegar.
During this period of maximum expansion of the Donatist movement
Augustine is practically forced to engage in a battle whose stake was the very
survival of the orthodox clergy and of Catholic / Orthodox Church in North
Africa. Although initially campaigned against any form of Donatists’ coercion
in order to return to the Church Augustine’s attitude has evolved significant-
ly10, which is relevant to understand how he imagined the Christian mission.

Augustine and the Donatists


Returned in Italy in 388 and ordained priest in Hippo Regius in 391, Au-
gustine faced excesses of rigoristic Africans, the more that near this town the
Circumcellions’ activity was very intense. Up to 393 Augustine already had
written the first antidonatist tractate, Psalmus contra partem Donati, which
summarized the history of the faction and urges extremists to unite with the
Catholic Church. As the name suggests it is a psalm that was to be sung by
his flock and thus become aware of the schismatics’ dogmatic mistakes while
promoting the orthodox teaching and Church’s answers to their errors11. Au-
gustine also disclosed the Donatist specific aggression and their tendency to
judge so harshly those who only God could judge12. In the same year he wrote

9
Pr. Prof. Dr. Nicolae Chifăr, art. cit., p. 138.
10
Robert Joly, “Saint Augustin et l’intolerance religieuse”, in Revue belge de philologie
et d’histoire, vol. 33:2 (1955), p. 263-294.
11
Adrian Podaru, Autoritate ecleziastică şi putere imperială în antichitatea târzie:
Sfântul Ioan Gură de Aur şi Fericitul Augustin, teză de doctorat, Cluj-Napoca, 2010, p. 303.
12
Matthew Alan Gaumer, Anthony Dupont, K.U. Leuven, “Understanding
Augustine’s changing justification for statesponsored religious coercion and its context within

169
PhD Dragoş Boicu

a tractate, today lost, entitled Contra Epistula haeretici Donati, attacking the
problem of Donatists’ practiced rebaptism. Thus, until his consecration as
bishop of Hippo, Augustine established a number of items on which he built
the case for the Catholic Church in general and caeciliens in particular. First
of all he challenged the historicity of this “pure” Church13.
Adrian Podaru distinguishes three distinct phases in Augustine’s position
to Donatism, starting with the refusal of any repression coming from the po-
litical or ecclesiastical authorities and rising to support coercion in the name
of saving the souls of those schismatics14. These phases are defined as follows:
a) 391-398 AD – the categorical rejection of the idea of cohercitio. Dur-
ing this period Augustine has maintained an intense correspondence
with Donatist bishops trying to persuade through a frank and open
dialogue that the reconciliation and reunification of the Church in
Africa is possible15. This period coincides with the administration
of Gildo, Comes Africae and Magister utriusque militiae per Africam
in 386, who after the death of Theodosius the Great showed an in-
creasing autonomy, culminating with the transfer of the African ter-
ritories from the jurisdiction of Honorius under Arcadius in 398
AD. Only the forceful intervention of Stilicho’s troops sent to Africa
under the command of Mascezel – brother of Gildo – ended the
autonomist tendencies and thus the tacit support for the Donatists.
The year 398 AD can be considered as the key moment in which
Augustine’s position could and should adapt to the new political
realities of Numidia and Mauretania.
b) 399-405 AD – the acceptance of state’s intervention as a mission-
ary mean to bring pagans to Christ, as Emperor Honorius gave an
increased attention to African problems and sustained the Catholic
Church, because the Church was clearly seen as the most effective
mean of restoring the imperial authority in these territories, but also
as a bridge between the Berber nationalist element and the Latin
civilization. Between 399 and 401 AD, under the supervision of the
imperial court of Ravenna, were taken drastic measures to suppress
the pagan cults in North Africa, on which occasion a series of riots

Donatist North Africa”, p. 6. https://lirias.kuleuven.be/bitstream/123456789/220345/1/


Augustinus+Article+PDF.pdf (12.12.2012).
13
Ibidem.
14
Adrian Podaru, op. cit., p. 303
15
Ibidem, p. 304

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Augustine and the legitimisation of violence in Christian mission

broke out that resulted in dozens of deaths. It is no wonder that


Augustine begins to take a clear stance regarding the measures of
coercion which force the embracing of a distinct form of faith16. But
Augustine “nor accepted nor rejected the idea that the Church has
the right to appeal to the authorities for this sort of help”17.
c) after the year 405 AD – Augustine supported the punitive measures
imposed by brachium seculare against heretics and schismatics in or-
der to save the unity of the Church.
Peter Brown says, however, that the moderation of Augustine vis-à-vis
the coercive measures applied by the imperial power must be seen in a socio-
political framework much broader, likening the situation in North Africa at
the end of the fourth century with the Cold War of the twentieth century. In
addition he identifies a fixed form of all contacts and diplomatic initiatives,
made between 392 and 402 by Augustine: he expects first to be challenged
by an incident that violates his community, and then proposes a meeting and
irenical negotiations with the responsible Donatist bishop, setting out his po-
sition on the use of force by the political authorities, gaining the confidence
of his partners of dialogue18.
After this first period Augustine finds the dialogue a priority, as he writes
another 4 letters to the Donatist bishops. Thus, in 399 and 400 he sends to
Calama Crispinus the Epistle 51, respectively Epistle 66, through which he
invites him to a public debate on the schism in the Church and forced the
rebaptism of 80 slaves of Crispinus. Around 404 AD Augustine writes Epistle
76 sent to all the Donatists in which he denounces the Church’s divisions.
Before the “Edict of union” of the year 405 AD and Augustine wrote Epistle
87 to Emeritus, bishop of Mauretania Caesarea, accusing him of denying the
existence of a Church of Christ outside Africa and cites the Pauline text (Rm
13:1-3), showing him that their antisocial behavior is exposed to persecution
by the State19.
In the context of the anti-pagan campaign we can understand why the
tractate Contra Epistulam Parmeniani (about 400 AD) already contains clues
16
Peter Brown, “St. Augustine’s attitude to religious coercion”, in The Journal of
Roman Studies, Vol. 54, Parts 1 and 2 (1964), p. 109
17
Adrian Podaru, op. cit., p. 306.
18
Peter Brown, “St. Augustine s attitude to religious coercion”, in The Journal of
Roman Studies, Vol. 54, Parts 1 and 2 (1964), p. 109
19
Edward L. Smither, „Persuasion or Cercion: Augustine on the State’s Role in
Dealing with Other Religions and Heresies” în Faculty Publications and Presaetations, nr.
4-8/2006, p. 8-9, http://digitalcom­mons.liberty.edu/lts_fac_pubs/14/ (20.02.2013).

171
PhD Dragoş Boicu

that Augustine would approve the “principle of state intervention. He notes


that the political power punishes pagans for their harmful and false religion
and that this action is generally approved of ”20. Augustine’s attitude concurs
to the general trend that animates the entire African episcopate at the begin-
ning of the fifth century arguing the intensification of constraints against
Gentiles until “the removing [lit. – amputation] of the remaining idols (left)
in the whole Africa”21. R.A. Markus believes that Augustine had no reserva-
tions to support a “Theodosian establishment” and the dynamic repressive
measures because, according to the Augustinian vision, the Empire achieved
its peak as an agent of Providence in history and thus God fulfilled through
the Roman Emperor his old promises:
„Here indeed we have a wonderful fact, which is not remarked by
those few pagans who have remained such, — namely, that this God
of the Hebrews who was offended by the conquered, and who was
also denied acceptance by the conquerors, is now preached and wor-
shipped among all nations. […] the God of Israel Himself is every-
where destroying the idols of the nations. […] And by Christ the
King He has brought into subjection to His own name that Roman
empire by which the said nation was overcome; and by the strength
and devotion of Christian faith, He has converted it so as to effect
a subversion of those idols, the honour ascribed to which precluded
His worship from obtaining entrance”22.
In other words the emperor became a tool of divinity for removing the
idols and brought the peoples of the Empire to Christ’s worship.
In his Contra Litteras Petiliani (400-405 AD) Augustine takes this idea
further by stating that Donatists’ violence imposed the Church’s call to Em-
20
Adrian Podaru, op. cit., p. 307
21
Codex Canonum Ecclesiae Africae, XCI, în SacrorumConciliorum nova et amplissima
collectio, edit. J.D. Mansi, III, col. 766 (Cartagina 15/16 iunie 401, can. 2): “Instant eniam aliae
necessitates religiosis imperatoribus postulandae, ut reliquias idolorum per omnem Africam
jubeant penitus amputari: nam plerique in locis maritimis, atque possessionibus diversis, adhuc
erroris istius iniquitas viget: ut praecipiantur et ipsas deleri, et templa eorum, que in agris, vel in
locis abditis constituta nulla ornamento sunt, jubeantur omnimodo destrui”.
22
Augustin, De Consensu Evangelistarum (cca 400 d.Hr.), I, 14, 21, PL 34, col. 1051-
1052: “Rem sane mirabilem non advertunt pauci Pagani qui remanserunt. […] nunc ipse
Deus Israel ubique dolet idola gentium; […] et Romanum imperium, a quo gens illa victa
est, per Christum regem suo nomini subjugavit, atque ad evertenda idola, propter quorum
honorem sacra ejus recepta non erant, christianae fidei robore ac devotione convertit”.

172
Augustine and the legitimisation of violence in Christian mission

peror Theodosius the Great in order to punish the faction leaders by imposing
a fine of 10 pounds of gold23 (probably a reference to CTh. 16.5.21 of 15 June
392) and therefore at this stage of Augustinian thinking “coercion has only a
preventive role, to prevent the perpetration of evil”24. It worths mentioning
the specification made by Peter Brown who thinks that the Augustine does
not use the term coercion or “cohercitio” (punishment, repression), but “cor-
reptio” (reprimand, rebook) or “correctio” (straightening). The pair correptio-
correctio has a very deep meaning for Augustine’s vocabulary, being used to
give a positive aspect of the process of attracting Donatists, leaving aside the
punitive aspect of the measures against schismatics25.
Naturally, the evolution of Augustine’s attitude must be seen in the par-
ticular context of the African councils organized by Catholic clergy during
this period. The councils of Carthage in 401 and 404 AD decided that Do-
natist bishops and priests who are returning to the Church could exercise
further their priestly mission in order to compensate for the lack of clergy in
North Africa26. The Donatists should to be treated with care, but at the same
time the magistrates must be asked to take legal action regarding the violence
committed by Maximian extremists, a radical wing of Donatism. It was also
decided the beginning of an intensive dialogue with all Donatist communities
in order to eliminate the schism27.
The first canon established the recourse to civil authority, which is by no
means a first in the western part of the Empire, nor in North Africa, because
as early as the council of 28 August 397 AD, gathered under the chairman-
ship of Aurelius, Bishop of Carthage, the participants agreed to request the
intervention of political authorities in order to depose Cresconius bishop of
Villa Regis. The call for brachium seculare was recommended in other similar
cases for the bishops separated from episcopal college in order to depose and
remove them from the dioceses they held28. Lamirande Emilien shows that

23
Augustin, Contra Litteras Petiliani, II, 83, apud. Adrian Podaru, op. cit., p. 308
24
Adrian Podaru, op. cit., p. 308.
25
Peter Brown, art. cit., p. 114.
26
Emilien Lamirande, art. cit., p. 8; Serge Lancel, “Introduction general” in Actes de
la conférence de Carthage en 411, vol. 1, in col. Souces Chrétiennes (SC), vol. 194, Les Éditions
de Cerf, 1972, p. 199.
27
Karl Joseph von Hefele, A history of the councils of the church: from the original
documents, (1872), vol. II, translated by Henrz Nutcombe Oxenham, T & T Clark,
Edinburgh, 1896, p. 423-424
28
Ibidem, p. 408-409.

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PhD Dragoş Boicu

the contrast between the canons 1 and 3 proves the unscrupulousness of the
Caecilian clergy, who on the one hand, declared irenic intentions, and on
the other, sought the support of civil authority, which would have taken the
Catholics’ side29.
At a council gathered in Cartagena on 25 August 403, it was decided
that each bishop, either alone or together with another neighboring bishop,
to begin the dialogue with the Donatists leaders of their cities and with the
support of civil magistrates, to force them to send representatives to a re-
ligious dialogue (can. 1)30. The other canon kept a document approved by
Archbishop Aurelius that had to be transmitted to Catholics and Donatists
alike, which brought to their attention the need to start the dialogue and to
delegate representatives in order to discuss the points of concern and, if pos-
sible, to reach an agreement (can. 2)31.
It seems that these efforts have failed causing a sharp reaction from the
Donatists headed by Primian, the schismatic bishop of Carthage32, which
would have said to Catholics that “it is unworthy for the sons of the mar-
tyrs to come together with the descendants of apostates (Indignum est ut in
unum conveniant filii martyrum et progenies traditorum)”33. Instigated by
their bishop’s attitude the Circumcellions manifested with the same brutal
fanaticism, endangering trough the violence that followed the very life of
Augustine.
29
Emilien Lamirande, art. cit., p. 8.
30
Codex Canonum Ecclesiae Africae, XCI, col. 791: “Aurelius episcopus dixit: Quod
in tractatum venit caritatis vestrae, puto hoc ecclesiasticis gestis esse firmandum. Professio
vestra omniu hoc depromsit, debere unumquemque nostrum in civitate sua per se convenire
Donatistarum praepositos, aut adjungere sibi vicinum collegam, ut pariter eos in singulis
quibusque civitatibus vel locis, per magistratus vel seniores locorum conveniant: hoc si omnibuz
placet, edicatur. Ab universis episcopis dictum est: omnibuz placet, et omnes hoc subscriptione
nostra firmavimus. Petimus etiam, ut epistolis ad judices de concilio mittendis proomnibus
dixit: Si videtur caritati vestrae, forma prosecutionis omnes, si placuerit, teneamus”.
31
Codex Canonum Ecclesiae Africae, XCII, col. 794: “[…]Convenimus vos ex concilii
nostri catholici auctoritate missi; de vestra correctione gaudere cupientes, considerantes
domini caritatem, qui dixit: Beati pacifici, quia ipsi filii Dei vocantur; et admonuit per
prophetam etiam his qui dicunt se fratres nostros non esse, dicere nos debere fratres nostri
estis. Hanc ergo pacificam ex caritate venientem commonitionem nostram contemnere non
debetis, ut si quid veritatis habere nos arbitramini, non dubitetis affere: id est, ut congregato
vestro concilio deligatis ex vobis, quibus causam assertionis vestrae commitatis […]”
32
Bernhard Kriegbaum, “Primian of Carthage”, in Religion Past and Present, Brill
Online, 2013. http://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/religion-past-and-present/
primian-of-carthage-SIM_024685 (22 februarie 2013).
33
Augustin, Breviculus collationis cum donatistas, III, 4, PL 43, col. 625.

174
Augustine and the legitimisation of violence in Christian mission

The Council of Carthage held in June 404 could not only established
failure and propose the sending of a delegation to Emperor Honorius to pre-
sent the situation and the ineffectiveness of diplomatic means, requesting to
apply the measures provided already by Theodosius the Great34.
But before the African delegation led by bishops Theasius of Memblone
and Evodius of Uzalis35, come to plead their case before the emperor, at the
beginning of 405 Honorius issued in his name, of Arcadius and Theodosius
II a series of edicts against the Donatists36.
The compilers of Theodosian Code collected 5 imperial provisions pub-
lished on this subject in February 405 only. However, according to the French
publishers of the Codex, some of them are extracted from a larger document,
known as the “Edict of Union”, adressed to the praetorian prefect of Italy and
Africa, Rufus Synesius Hadrianus, on 12 February 40537, a document which
was kept in Section VI (called Ne sanctum baptisma iteretur - As Baptism is
not to be repeated) of the last book of the Codex:
“The same Augustuses to Hadrianus, Praetorian Prefect. We Pro-
vide, by the authority of this decree, that adversaries of the Catholic
faith shall be extirpated. By this new constitution, therefore, We
especially decree the destruction of that sect which, in order not to
be called a herey, prefers the appellation of schism. For those who are
called Donatists are said to have progressed so far in wickedness that
with criminal lawlessness they repeat the sacrosanct baptism, thus
trampling under feet the mysteries, and they have infected with the
contagion of a profane repetition men who have been cleansed once
for all by the gift of divinity, in accordance with religious tradition.
Thus it happened that a herey was born from a schism. Thence, a
seductive false doctrine entices overcredulous minds to the hope of
a second forgiveness, for it is easy to persuade sinners that remis-
sion once granted can be granted again. But if such remission can
be granted a second time in the same way, We do not understand
why it should be denied a third time. The aforesaid persons, in-
deed, pollute with the sacrilege of a second baptism slaves and men
subject to their power. Wherefore, We sanction by this law that if

Karl Joseph von Hefele, op. cit., p. 440.


34

Serge Lancel, “Introduction general”, p. 17-18.


35

36
William John Sparrow-Simpson, St. Augustine and African church divisions,
Longmans, Green & Co, London / New York / Bombay / Calcutta, 1910, p. 97.
37
Cf. Code Théodosien, Livre XVI, R. Delmaire, F. Richard, J. Rougé (edit.), p. 282.

175
PhD Dragoş Boicu

any person should hereafter be discovered to rebaptize, he shall be


brought before the judge who presides over the province. Thus the
offenders shall be punished by the confiscation of all their property,
and they shall be afflicted forever. But if their children dissent from
the depravity of the paternal association, they shall not forfeit the
paternal inheritance. Likewise, if perchance they have been involved
in the perversity of the paternal depravity and prefer to return to the
Catholic religion, the right to acquire possession of such property
shall not be denied them” 38.
On the same day was also published a document directed explicitly
against the Manichaeans and Donatists:
“No one shall recall to memory a Manichaean, no one a Donatist,
who especially, as We have learned, do not cease their madness.
There shall be one Catholic worship, one salvation; equal sanctity
within the Trinity, harmonious within itself, shall be sought. But if
any person should dare to participate in practices that are interdicted
and unlawful, he shall note scape the toils of innumerable previous
constitutions and of the law that was recently issued by Our Clem-
ency (probably CTh. 16.6.4). If perchance seditious mobs should
assemble, he shall not doubt that the sharp goads of a more severe
punishment will be applied to him” 39.
38
CTh. 16.6.4pr.: “Idem aaa. Hadriano praefecto praetorio. Adversarios catholicae
fidei exstirpare huius decreti auctoritate prospeximus. Ideoque intercidendam specialiter eam
sectam nova constitutione censuimus, quae, ne haeresis vocaretur, appellationem schismatis
praeferebat. In tantum enim sceleris progressi dicuntur hi, quos donatistas vocant, ut baptisma
sacrosanctum mysteriis recalcatis temeritate noxia iterarint et homines semel, ut traditum
est, munere divinitatis ablutos contagione profanae repetitionis infecerint. Ita contigit, ut
haeresis ex schismate nasceretur. Inde male credulas mentes ad spem secundae indulgentiae
blandus error invitat; facile est enim persuadere peccantibus veniam prius praestitam denuo
posse praestari, quae, si concedi iterum eodem modo potest, non intellegimus, cur tertio
denegetur. Hi vero et servos vel homines iuri proprio subditos iterati baptismatis polluunt
sacrilegio. Quare hac lege sancimus, ut quisquis post haec fuerit rebaptizasse detectus, iudici
qui provinciae praesidet offeratur, ut facultatum omnium publicatione multatus inopiae
poenam, qua in perpetuum afficiatur, expendat, ita ut filiis eorum, si a paternae societatis
pravitate dissentiunt, ea quae fuerint paterna non pereant, ut, si ipsos forsitan scaevitas
paternae depravationis implicuit ac reverti ad catholicam religionem malunt, adipiscendorum
his bonorum copia non negetur”.
39
CTh. 16.5.38: “Idem aa. et Theodosius a. edictum. Nemo manichaeum, nemo
donatistam, qui praecipue, ut comperimus, furere non desistunt, in memoriam revocet.

176
Augustine and the legitimisation of violence in Christian mission

More than any of other laws in concern, this document emphasizes the
coercive measures to which Donatists militants are particularly exposed, be-
cause they were known for ample street protests and violent behavior against
Catholic clergy.
The restrictive measures were complemented by a new decree issued on 5
March 405, whose recipient was Flavius Pionius Diotimus, proconsul of Africa:
“It isOur will that the edict regarding unity which Our Clem-
ency dispatched throughout the districts of Africa shall be posted
throughout various regions, in order that all men may know that the
one and true Catholic faith in Almighty God, as confessed by right
belief, shall be preserved” 40.
According to the Donatist chronicles dating from the fifth century, the
implementation of “unionist” measures across North Africa began on 26th
June 405 AD, and the government action is classified as persecutio Christianis,
the seventh persecution faced by African Church since Nero41.
Although he belonged to the Catholic minority Augustine tried to dis-
tance himself from the policy of a religious unity achieved by force, fighting
continually for dialogue and peaceful negotiations with the Donatists’ repre-
sentatives.
Faced with the unexpectedly fruitful results of the “Edict”, in a letter
written in the year 406 AD, Augustine seems to already accept the principle
of “coercion” when he says to Festus that:
“Is it reasonable and right for those who maintain the truth of Chris-
tian peace and unity, – truth which commends itself even to those
who profess to deny it or attempt to resist it – to labour constantly

Una sit catholica veneratio, una salus sit, trinitatis par sibique congruens sanctitas expetatur.
Quod si quis audeat interdictis sese illicitisque miscere, et praeteritorum innumerabilium
constitutorum et legis nuper a mansuetudine nostra prolatae laqueos non evadat et si turbae
forte convenerint seditionis, concitatos aculeos acrioris conmotionis non dubitet exserendos.
Dat. prid. id. feb. Ravennae Stilichone II et Anthemio conss.” (405 febr. 12).
40
CTh. 16.11.2: “Imppp. Arcadius, Honorius et Theodosius aaa. Diotimo proconsuli
Africae. Edictum, quod de unitate per Africanas regiones clementia nostra direxit, per diversa
proponi volumus, ut omnibus innotescat dei omnipotentis unam et veram fidem catholicam,
quam recta credulitas confitetur, esse retinendam. Dat. III non. mart. Ravennae Stilichone II
et Anthemio conss.” (405 mart. 5).
41
Liber Genealogus, 627, apud Federico-Mario Beltrán Torreira, “Historia y profecía
en el donatismo tardío: el «Liber Genealogus»” in Cristianismo y aculturación en tiempos del
Imperio Romano, Antig. Crist. (Murcia), VII, 1990, p. 347.

177
PhD Dragoş Boicu

and with energy, not only in the defence of those who are already
Catholics, but also for the correction of those who are not yet within
the Church!” 42.
The mass conversions of moderate Donatists of Hippo Regius, where
“Edict of union” recorded a tremendous success increasingly convinced Au-
gustine that crowds needed only one external impulse to abandon the error in
which they persisted more out of habit than from conviction. Consequently
he came to support the idea of using coercive means, while the possibility of
bilateral negotiations and theological discussions was going on background.
Even so the appeal to the imperial support was not due to ineffective dialogue,
but especially due to the brutal Circumcellions’ fanaticism who have com-
mitted unimaginable violence, as reported in a letter to the Donatist Bishop
Januarius, written in 406 AD:
“You have therefore no ground for complaint against us: nay more,
the clemency of the Catholic Church would have led us to desist
from even enforcing these decrees of the emperors, had not your
clergy and Circumcelliones, disturbing our peace, and destroying
us by their most monstrous crimes and furious deeds of violence,
compelled us to have these decrees revived and put in force again”43.
However Augustine exhorts Ianuarius to engage in the theological dia-
logue to resolve the conflict before the intervention of the political authorities:
“Accordingly our desire, which we lay before you, venerable sir, by
this letter and by the brethren whom we have sent, is as follows. In
the first place, if it be possible, let a peaceable conference be held
with our bishops, so that an end may be put to the error itself, not
to the men who embrace it, and men corrected rather than punished;
and as you formerly despised their proposals for agreement, let them
now proceed from your side. How much better for you to have such
42
Augustin, Epistola 89, 1, PL 33, col. 309: “aequum est et oportet eos, qui pacis
et unitatis Christianae adserunt veritatem omnibus etiam dissimulantibus et cohibentibus
manifestam, satagere instanter atque impigre non solum pro eorum munimine, qui iam
catholici sunt, verum etiam pro eorum correctione, qui nondum sunt” (trad. Adrian Podaru,
op. cit., p. 310)
43
Idem, Epistola 88, 6, col. 306: “De nobis ergo quod queramini non habetis; et
tamen Ecclesiae catholicae mansuetudo, etiam ab his imperatorum iussionibus omnino
conquieverat, nisi vestri clerici et Circumcelliones, per suas immanissimas improbitates
furiosasque violentias quietem nostram perturbantes atque vastantes”.

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Augustine and the legitimisation of violence in Christian mission

a conference between your bishops and ours, the proceedings of


which may be written down and sent with signature of the parties
to the Emperor, than to confer with the civil magistrates, who can-
not do otherwise than administer the laws which have been passed
against you!” (s.m.)44
After the Synod of Carthage of 13 June 407 Augustine wrote between
407 and 408 a letter to the Donatist bishop of Carthage, Vincentius, a mem-
ber of the rogarists, a moderate faction, the document which sanctioned be-
yond doubt the violent repression of heretics in the name of saving their souls.
The long letter reaches, among others, two issues of major interest to the
present study, namely: the “coercion’s” defense and the relationship between
the Church’s missionary action and pressure from the state. Therefore, there
are required more extensive passages:
“But we are precluded from this rest by the Donatists, the repres-
sion and correction of whom, by the powers which are ordained
of God, appears to me to be labour not in vain. For we already re-
joice in the correction of many who hold and defend the Catholic
unity with such sincerity, and are so glad to have been delivered
from their former error, that we admire them with great thankful-
ness and pleasure. Yet these same persons, under some indescribable
bondage of custom, would in no way have thought of being changed
to a better condition, had they not, under the shock of this alarm,
directed their minds earnestly to the study of the truth; fearing lest,
if without profit, and in vain, they suffered hard things at the hands
of men, for the sake not of righteousness, but of their own obsti-
nacy and presumption, they should afterwards receive nothing else
at the hand of God than the punishment due to wicked men who
despised the admonition which He so gently gave and His paternal
correction”45.
44
Ibidem, 10, col. 308: “Hoc est ergo desiderium nostrum, quod tuae Gravitati
per has litteras, et per fratres, quos misimus, allegamus. Primum si fieri potest, ut cum
episcopis nostris pacifice conferatis, ut in quibus fuerit inventus, non homines, sed error ipse
tollatur; ut homines non puniantur, sed corrigantur; ut vos modo conveniatis, quia eorum
conventionem antea contempsistis. Quanto melius enim hoc inter vos facitis, ut quod egeritis
conscriptum et subscriptum Imperatori mittatis, quam ut hoc apud terrenas potestates fiat,
quae non possunt nisi iam datis contra vos legibus inservire?”.
45
Idem, Epistola 93, 1.1, col. 321-322: “Sed Donatistae nimium inquieti sunt, quos
per ordinatas a Deo potestates cohiberi atque corrigi mihi non videtur inutile. Nam de

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Once stated this result of the state intervention through the “Edict of
union”, Augustine tries to show to Vincentius the practical application of
external pressure:
“Why should not such persons be shaken up in a beneficial way
by a law bringing upon them inconvenience in worldly things, in
order that they might rise from their lethargic sleep, and awake to
the salvation which is to be found in the unity of the Church? How
many of them, now rejoicing with us, speak bitterly of the weight
with which their ruinous course formerly oppressed them, and con-
fess that it was our duty to inflict annoyance upon them, in order to
prevent them from perishing under the disease of lethargic habit, as
under a fatal sleep!”46.
However the “coercive” approach is insufficient unless it is woven with
the instruction of the former Donatists, in order to make them aware of their
mistakes and to avoid precisely those cases of ficti catholici on which Augus-
tine feared so much:
“But you ought to consider also the very large number over whose
salvation we rejoice. For if they were only made afraid, and not
instructed, this might appear to be a kind of inexcusable tyranny.
Again, if they were instructed only, and not made afraid, they would
be with more difficulty persuaded to embrace the way of salvation,
having become hardened through the inveteracy of custom: whereas
many whom we know well, when arguments had been brought be-
fore them, and the truth made apparent by testimonies from the

multorum iam correctione gaudemus, qui tam veraciter unitatem catholicam tenent atque
defendunt, et a pristino errore se liberatos esse laetantur, ut eos cum magna gratulatione
miremur. Qui tamen nescio qua vi consuetudinis, nullo modo mutari in melius cogitarent,
nisi hoc terrore perculsi, sollicitam mentem ad considerationem veritatis intenderent; ne
forte si non pro iustitia, sed pro perversitate et praesumptione hominum ipsas temporales
molestias, infructuosa et vana tolerantia paterentur, apud Deum postea non invenirent
nisi debitas poenas impiorum, qui eius tam lenem admonitionem, et paterna flagella
contempserint”.
46
Ibidem, 1.2: “Nonne salubriter regula temporalium molestiarum excutiendi erant,
ut tamquam de somno lethargico emergerent, et in salutem unitatis evigilarent? Quam
multi ex ipsis nunc nobiscum gaudentes, pristinum pondus perniciosi sui operis accusant, et
fatentur nos sibi molestos esse debuisse, ne tamquam mortifero somno, ita morbo veternosae
consuetudinis interirent.”

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Augustine and the legitimisation of violence in Christian mission

word of God, answered us that they desired to pass into the com-
munion of the Catholic Church”47.
In light of Old Testament examples Augustin validates the violence of po-
litical authorities considered, as seen above, an instrument of Divine Providence:
“You are also of opinion that no coercion is to be used with any man
in order to his deliverance from the fatal consequences of error; and
yet you see that, in examples which cannot be disputed, this is done
by God, who loves us with more real regard for our profit than any
other can”48.
Augustine cannot but point out the hypocrisy of the Donatists who de-
nounce the Catholics appeal to the emperor and magistrates after they repeat-
edly had done themselves such gestures since the beginning of the schism:
“Do you reply that it is lawful to petition the Emperor in order to
recover what is one’s own, but not lawful to accuse another in order
that he may be coerced by the Emperor? […] But apart from this,
when your predecessors brought before the Emperor Constantine,
by means of the proconsul Anulinus, their accusations against Cæ-
cilianus, who was then bishop of Carthage, with whom as a guilty
person they refused to have communion […] But we have no hesi-
tation in finding fault with you, who think that we are criminal
in bringing any complaint before a Christian emperor against the
enemies of our communion, seeing that a document given by your
predecessors to Anulinus the proconsul, to be forwarded by him to
the Emperor Constantine, bore this superscription: Libellus Ecclesiæ
Catholicæ, criminum Cæciliani, traditus a parte Majorini”49.

47
Ibidem, 1.3, col. 322: “Tu non attendis nisi eos qui ita duri sunt, ut nec istam
recipiant disciplinam. […] Puto tamen quia dilectione, non odio flagellati sunt Sed debes etiam
tam multos attendere, de quorum salute gaudemus. Si enim terrerentur, et non docerentur,
improba quasi dominatio videretur. Rursus si docerentur et non terrerentur, vetustate
consuetudinis obdurati ad capessendam viam salutis pigrius moverentur; quandoquidem
multi, quod bene novimus, reddita sibi ratione et manifestata divinis testimoniis veritate,
respondebant nobis, cupere se in Ecclesiae catholicae communionem transire”
48
Ibidem, 2.5, col. 324: “Et putas nullam vim adhibendam esse homini, ut ab erroris
pernicie liberetur; cum ipsum Deum, quo nemo nos utilius diligit, certissimis exemplis hoc
facere videas”.
49
Ibidem, 4.13, col. 328: “An hoc petendum est, ut sua quisque recuperet, non ut
aliquem, quo ab imperatore coerceatur, accuset? […] Sed tamen cum maiores vestri ipsum

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The results of the “coercive” method convince Augustine of the con-


straint’s efficiency and the few Donatists who are suffering for their stubborn-
ness cannot overshadow the obviously success of the imperial laws that favor
the schism’s ending:
“You now see therefore, I suppose, that the thing to be considered
when any one is coerced, is not the mere fact of the coercion, but the
nature of that to which he is coerced, whether it be good or bad: not
that any one can be good in spite of his own will, but that, through
fear of suffering what he does not desire, he either renounces his
hostile prejudices, or is compelled to examine truth of which he
had been contentedly ignorant; and under the influence of this fear
repudiates the error which he was wont to defend, or seeks the truth
of which he formerly knew nothing, and now willingly holds what
he formerly rejected. […] We see not a few men here and there, but
many cities, once Donatist, now Catholic, vehemently detesting the
diabolical schism, and ardently loving the unity of the Church; and
these became Catholic under the influence of that fear which is to
you so offensive by the laws of emperors, from Constantine, before
whom your party of their own accord impeached Cæcilianus, down
to the emperors of our own time, who most justly decree that the
decision of the judge whom your own party chose, and whom they
preferred to a tribunal of bishops, should be maintained in force
against you”50.

Caecilianum tunc Ecclesiae Carthaginensis episcopum, cui tamquam criminoso communicare


noluerunt, apud principem Constantinum per Anulinum proconsulem accusaverunt; […]
Vos autem indubitanter arguimus, quibus crimen videtur de inimicis communionis nostrae
christiano imperatori aliquid conqueri, cum libellus a maioribus vestris Anulino proconsuli
datus, et Constantino imperatori mittendus, ita suprascriptus sit: Libellus Ecclesiae catholicae,
criminum Caeciliani, traditus a parte Maiorini”.
50
Ibidem, 5.16, col. 329: “Vides itaque iam, ut opinor, non esse considerandum
quod quisque cogitur, sed quale sit illud quo cogitur, utrum bonum an malum: non quo
quisque bonus possit esse invitus; sed timendo quod non vult pati, vel relinquit impedientem
animositatem, vel ignoratam compellitur cognoscere veritatem, ut timens vel respuat falsum
de quo contendebat, vel quaerat verum quod nesciebat, et volens teneat iam quod nolebat.
[…] Non illos aut illos homines, sed multas civitates videmus fuisse donatistas, nunc esse
catholicas, detestari vehementer diabolicam separationem, diligere ardenter unitatem:
quae tamen timoris huius qui tibi displicet occasionibus, catholicae factae sunt per leges
imperatorum, a Constantino apud quem primum vestri ultro Caecilianum accusaverunt,
usque ad praesentes imperatores, qui iudicium illius quem vestri elegerunt, quem iudicibus
episcopis praetulerunt, iustissime contra vos custodiendum esse decernunt.”

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“For originally my opinion was, that no one should be coerced into


the unity of Christ, that we must act only by words, fight only by
arguments, and prevail by force of reason, lest we should have those
whom we knew as avowed heretics feigning themselves to be Catho-
lics. But this opinion of mine was overcome not by the words of
those who controverted it, but by the conclusive instances to which
they could point. For, in the first place, there was set over against my
opinion my own town, which, although it was once wholly on the
side of Donatus, was brought over to the Catholic unity by fear of
the imperial edicts, but which we now see filled with such detesta-
tion of your ruinous perversity, that it would scarcely be believed
that it had ever been involved in your error”51.
The effectiveness of legislation is illustrated particularly by the gratitude
to the former Donatists, which once catechized and incorporated into the
Universal Church, now are saying:
“thanks be to the Lord, who has by the stimulus of fear startled us
from our negligence, […] thanks be to the Lord, who by His scourge
took away our timid hesitation […] thanks to the Lord, who has
gathered us in from a state of schism, and has taught us that it is fit-
ting that the one God be worshipped in unity”52.
Facing this missionary-pastoral support provided by imperial authorities
Augustine can only say:
“let the kings of the earth serve Christ by making laws for Him and
for His cause. Your predecessors exposed Cæcilianus and his com-
panions to be punished by the kings of the earth for crimes with
which they were falsely charged: let the lions now be turned to break
in pieces the bones of the calumniators, and let no intercession for
51
Ibidem, 5.17, col. 330: “Nam mea primitus sententia non erat, nisi neminem ad
unitatem Christi esse cogendum; verbo esse agendum, disputatione pugnandum, ratione
vincendum, ne fictos catholicos haberemus, quos apertos haereticos noveramus. Sed haec
opinio mea, non contradicentium verbis, sed demonstrantium superabatur exemplis. Nam
primo mihi opponebatur civitas mea, quae cum tota esset in parte Donati, ad unitatem
catholicam timore legum imperialium conversa est; quam nunc videmus ita huius vestrae
animositatis perniciem detestari, ut in ea numquam fuisse credatur.”
52
Ibidem, 5.18, col. 331: “gratias Domino, qui neglegentiam nostram stimulo terroris
excussit […] gratias Domino, qui trepidationem nostram flagello abstulit […] gratias Domino,
qui nos a divisione collegit, et hoc uni Deo congruere, ut in unitate colatur, ostendit”.

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PhD Dragoş Boicu

them be made by Daniel when he has been proved innocent, and set
free from the den in which they meet their doom (Daniel 6:23-24)
for he that prepares a pit for his neighbour shall himself most justly
fall into it (Proverbs 26:27)”53.

“When it assists the proclamation of the truth, it is the means of


profitable admonition to the wise, and of unprofitable vexation to
the foolish among those who have gone astray. For there is no power
but of God: whosoever therefore resists the power, resists the ordi-
nance of God; for rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the
evil. Will you then not be afraid of the power? Do that which is
good, and you shall have praise of the same. (Romans 13:1-3)” 54.
Adrian Podaru manages to capture in his research the essence of Augus-
tine’s design as it emerges from the above passages, which is why this synthesis
deserves quoted in full:
“Though force cannot directly change the evil or misguided wills of
men, the overt acts of those wills are punishable criminal and sac-
rilegious actions; and in some cases, the sustained punishment can
induce those who go astray in error the desire to listen to the reason
and the voice of God in the Scriptures and thus to discover the truth
for which they have been blind. However, secular authorities have
not only the right but also a duty to act with severity and with love
for those guilty of heresy and schism. When acting in this way, they
serve as agents and as servants of God who, through them, correct
and amend the behavior of those who went astray and he punishes
those who refuse to turn from their wickedness. Coercion and pun-
ishment serve as a warning and as something that makes possible an
53
Ibidem, 5.19, col. 331: “ero serviant reges terrae Christo, etiam leges ferendo pro
Christo. Maiores vestri Caecilianum et socios eius regibus terrae puniendos falsis criminibus
obiecerunt; convertantur leones ad comminuenda ossa calumniantium, nec Daniel ipse
intercedat, innocens comprobatus, et de lacu quo illi pereunt liberatus: qui enim parat
proximo suo foveam, ipse iustius cadet in eam.”.
54
Ibidem, 6.20, col. 332: “Terror temporalium potestatum, quando veritatem
oppugnat, iustis fortibus gloriosa probatio est, infirmis periculosa tentatio: quando autem
veritatem praedicat, errantibus cordatis utilis admonitio est, et insensatis inutilis afflictio.
Non est tamen potestas nisi a Deo; qui autem resistit potestati, Dei ordinationi resistit: principes
enim non sunt timori bono operi, sed malo. Vis autem non timere potestatem? Bonum fac, et
habebis laudem ex illa”.

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Augustine and the legitimisation of violence in Christian mission

instruction and a belief to go further once the violence’s obstacles,


and kept long habit of lazy indifference were destroyed”55.
After Augustine defended the state’s interference he stops in the second
part of the Epistle 93 on the teaching about the true nature of the universal
Church, from the conception of St. Cyprian and Tychonius, a Donatist bish-
op, who understood that schism cannot deny the existence of other churches,
as parts of the same Body of Christ, and in the end urges Vincentius to give
up the schism and to return within the Catholic Church.
In 408 AD Augustine wrote another extremely important document,
a letter to all the Donatists (Epistle 105). The emphasis is again on the di-
dactic nature of the punishment: “But the Lord punishes if [people] did not
straighten - and it happened to you [already] –, and returns the sheep from
the error back to the fold”56.
Following the same logic of the argument of the letter to Vincentius, the
Bishop of Hippo Regius asks rhetorically:
„And yet, what is better? To bring forth the true orders of the em-
perors on behalf of unity or the false concessions on behalf of per-
versity? You did this latter, and you immediately filled the whole of
Africa with your lie”57.
Louis Leschi interprets those falsas indulgentias as some fictitious edicts
of tolerance put under imperial authority and, therefore, propose a translation
somehow forced of this passage to show that the Donatists also used coun-
terfeit laws. Thus, instead of translating quod vos fecistis by a final sentence he
introduces an attributive circumstantial explanation: “the false concessions on
behalf of perversity, that you did” 58.
Although it seems to support the harmonious relationship between
Church and State, Augustine recognizes that the imperial support is a double-
edged weapon because:
55
Adrian Podaru, op. cit., p. 318.
56
Augustin, Epistola 105, 1, col. 396: “Sed Dominus et fieres punit, si non se
correxerint, et oves ab errore revocat ad gregem”.
57
Ibidem, 6, col. 398: “Et tamen quid est melius, proferre veras Imperatorum
iussiones pro unitate, an falsas indulgentias pro perversitate: quod vos fecistis, et mendacio
vestro subito totam Africam implestis?”
58
Louis Leschi, “Le dernier proconsul paien de la province d’Afrique (410 apr. J.-
C.)”, in II-e Congres national des Sciences historique, Alger, 1930, p. 253-260 apud Albert C.
De Veer, “Une mesure de tolérance de l’empereur Honorius”, in Revue des études byzantines,
tome 24/1966, p. 190.

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PhD Dragoş Boicu

“For, if the emperors were in error – God forbid – they would issue
laws in favor of their error against the truth, and by those laws the
good would be tested and receive crowns as their reward for not do-
ing what the emperors commanded, because God forbade it. […]
But when the emperors hold the truth, they give orders on behalf of
the truth against error, and whoever disregards these orders brings
punishment upon himself ”59.
Towards the end of the letter, Augustine addressed a call to peace and
unity, whose guarantors are the emperors, as Christ works through them:
“But let us now set all these arguments aside; let us love peace, which
everyone, both learned and unlearned, understands should be pre-
ferred to discord. Let us love and hold onto unity. The emperors
command what Christ also commands, because, when they com-
mand something good, Christ alone commands through them […]
The emperors say this because they are Catholic Christians, not wor-
shipers of idols, as your Julian was, and not heretics, as certain of
them were who persecuted the Catholic Church. For true Christians
have not, like you, borne most just penalties for heretical error but
have endured most glorious martyrdom for the Catholic truth”60.
Although he initially supported that the internal mission of the Church
should have been carried exclusively by the ecclesial institutions, faced with
the particular religious and political situation of North Africa Augustine fi-
nally accepted and subsequently supported the need of the state’s intervention
in carrying out the missionary work at all levels. The effectiveness of state
coercion on pagans to embrace Christianity, persuaded the Western Father
that state’s support should be sought also in order to “determine” heterodox
to leave their heresy and return to the Catholic Church.
59
Augustin, Epistola 105, 7, col. 398: “Imperatores enim si in errore essent, quod absit,
pro errore suo contra veritatem leges darent, per quas iusti et probarentur et coronarentur,
non faciendo quod illi iuberent, quia Deus prohiberet. Quando autem Imperatores veritatem
tenent, pro ipsa veritate contra errorem iubent, quod quisquis contempserit, ipse sibi
iudicium acquirit”.
60
Ibidem, 11, col. 400: “amemus pacem, quam omnis doctus et indoctus intellegit
praeponendam esse discordiae, diligamus et teneamus unitatem. Hoc iubent imperatores,
quod iubet et Christus; quia cum bonum iubent, per illos non iubet nisi Christus. […]
Hoc dicunt et Imperatores, quia christiani catholici sunt, non idolorum servi, sicut vester
Iulianus; non haeretici, sicut quidam fuerunt et Ecclesiam catholicam persecuti sunt, quando
veri christiani non pro haeretico errore poenas iustissimas sicut vos, sed pro catholica veritate
passiones gloriosissimas pertulerunt.”

186
New understandings of the Notions
of internal and external Mission

Revd. Assist. Prof. PhD Daniel Buda

Introduction
In general Orthodox missiology operates with the notions of internal
and external mission. Under internal mission one understands the entire pas-
toral-missionary efforts of the Orthodox Church for the salvation of the peo-
ple of God i. e. of the members of the Orthodox Church who are baptized in
the name of the Holy Trinity and therefore members of the mysterious body
of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. External mission comprises the strug-
gle for the restoration of unity through a systematic and sincere theological
dialogue with those ecclesial bodies and their members which are not in com-
munion with the Orthodox Church. In other words, external mission reflects
efforts for the restoration of Church unity as a fulfilment of the prayer of our
Lord that all may be one (John 17:21). The purpose of this short paper is to
reflect on the notions of internal and external mission, as they are generally
understood today in Orthodox missiology and to outline possible new under-
standings of these notions in relationship with the realities of the world we
are living in today.
The notion of internal mission and its challenges today
We have to acknowledge that the notion of “internal mission” is chal-
lenged today in several ways. On the one hand, the differentiation between
internal and external mission seems to be theologically clear, as internal mis-
sion has as object the baptized members of the Orthodox Church and the
external mission deals with Christians of other confessions and the dialogue
with their respective ecclesial bodies. However, in practical terms the notion
of internal mission is challenged in many ways in this cosmopolitan and glo-

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Revd. Assist. Prof. PhD Daniel Buda

balized world in which the Orthodox Church and its believers live. I intend
to discuss here only three of them.
The first challenge, generally speaking, is that the borders of different
institutions and structures have become more fluid than they were in the past.
Churches and their institutions are no exception. While the classical notion
of internal mission has as object the baptized members of the church, internal
mission is conducted through different institutions of the Orthodox Church:
a local (mostly national) Church and its further institutions: arch- and dio-
ceses, deaneries and parishes. The borders of these institutions which were
clearer in the past are challenged by the new realities. The physical borders of
a parish can be fixed quite easily, being limited in rural areas at a village and
in an urban area possibly decided by the deanery and or diocese according to
different criteria. However, modern ways of transport and communication
challenge these borders in new ways. Believers living in one part of a city may
decide to participate in liturgical services of a parish which is based on the
other side of the city and eventually may have as a spiritual father another
priest than the one to whom they are attributed territorially. Rapid ways of
public or private transport contribute to this. Space has become less impor-
tant in terms of interaction and communication. A good website or an ap-
propriate use of social media done in a parish or by a missionary institution in
one corner of the world can inspire a larger constituency than a parish or the
immediate recipients. A bad example or an unfortunate case of a parish priest
will negatively affect not only his parish, but a much larger public and the
general image of the Church if his case is picked up by the press. Much more
attention and pastoral sensitivity is needed today. Local habits or mentalities
which are innocuous in some parts of the world can create serious damages in
other parts. For instance, a picture posted on Facebook by a large monk with
himself grilling an appetizing piece of meat might be fine for a believer living
in a country like the USA, but can create a lot of damages among believers liv-
ing in Eastern Europe. The increasing awareness that mission today cannot be
done in isolation, but that it requires increasing collaboration and more sensi-
tivity is a postulate that should dominate our Orthodox missiology approach.
The second challenge that I would like to discuss here is the reality
that the profile of those who made the object of our internal mission has changed
significantly in the last period of time. As mentioned before, all those who are
members of the Orthodox Church being baptized in the name of the Holy
Trinity are the object of internal mission. In a classical sense they can be de-

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New understandings of the Notions of internal and external Mission

scribed with the word “believers.” This would include those baptized members
of the Orthodox Church that participate regularly in Sunday Holy Liturgies
and struggle daily to improve their spiritual life by having a vivid and perma-
nent conscience that the scope of this earthy life is the salvation. It includes
also those members that come sporadically to church and do not have a very
moral life, but intend to make penitence and regret their sins. Finally, under
the category “believers” could also be included those who would go to church
only for special occasions, like the baptism of a child of a friend or the mar-
riage of somebody from the family or circle of friends or for the great feasts
like Christmas or Easter. These believers will potentially baptise their children
and get married in the Church, having a vague consciousness of their ecclesial
belonging. The world in which we live today has created, due to seculariza-
tion and many other factors that are not to be discussed here, other categories
of Church members that can hardly be described as “believers.” I would like
to refer to three categories of such “believers.” One of these categories can be
described as “cultural Christians.” They might have a certain awareness that
they received infant baptism and also a certain but rather vague conscience
of belonging to the Orthodox Church, but will very rarely or never attend a
liturgical service. However, due to their Christian cultural background, they
will observe and appreciate certain Christian values. A second category of
baptized agnostics can also be the objective of internal mission since they
have received the Holy Sacrament of Baptism and were included as members
of the Church. It can be argued that a third category of atheists – of those
who systematically deny the existence of God and try to convince also other
people have chosen to exclude themselves from Church community could
and perhaps should also be the objective of the (internal) mission. The point I
am making here is that the profile of those people who are objects of internal
mission has changed radically in the last decades and is going to affect larger
groups of baptized members of the Church. Consequently, the way in which
internal mission is conducted should be radically rephrased, according to the
new complex realities and our secular and ecclesial landscape.
The third challenge that I would like to address here in relationship with
internal mission is the reality of Orthodox diaspora where internal missions of
several Orthodox Churches co-exist, collaborating and/or competing with each
other. It is a reality that a large number of Orthodox believers live in a diaspora
situation. Their numbers increase daily and there are good reasons to believe
that this process will continue in the next decades, having in mind the tragic

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situation in the Middle East and the economic instability in Eastern Europe.
Many Orthodox Churches have created ecclesial structures for their believers
in this diaspora, practically following their believers in places where they have
decided to spend their earthy life. A good example in this sense is reflected
in the Romanian Orthodox Church, which has created in the last twenty
five years more than one thousand parishes in diaspora, especially in Western
Europe and North America. This is a process without precedent in the history
of Orthodoxy. No other Orthodox Church has managed to create so many
parishes in such a short period of time. On the one hand, the diaspora situa-
tion has radically changed the concept of internal mission. Before the increase
of Orthodox diaspora, internal missions meant for an Orthodox Church do-
ing mission among its own people inside the so called “canonical territory,”
nowadays the concept is less related with a space and more related with people
who are the object of internal mission. The problem of “canonical territories”
and the reality that they are intersecting remains a delicate problem of world
Orthodoxy. At least equally delicate and ardent is the reality of parallel ec-
clesial jurisdictions and eventually parallel internal missions which exist in
Orthodox diaspora. Parallel ecclesial jurisdictions and their internal missions
co-exist partly in concurrence, partly in a situation of collaboration. It is the
hope of all of us, for the sake of our Orthodoxy and its reputation that those
situations of concurrence will decrease in the future and therefore those situa-
tions of collaboration and mutual support and trust will increase. Personally I
am convinced that more collaboration between different Orthodox missions
in diaspora is possible, as believers of different background continue to inte-
grate linguistically in the contexts they are living in.
The notion of external mission and its challenges today
According to the definition presented at the beginning of this paper ex-
ternal mission in Orthodox missiology comprises the struggle for the restora-
tion of unity through a systematic and sincere theological dialogue with those
ecclesial bodies and their members which are not in communion with the
Orthodox Church. The first question related with this definition is: does the
Orthodox understanding of external mission comprise only the struggle for
the restoration of unity through dialogue with other ecclesial bodies? Is there
no space for mission among those people that never had the chance to hear
the Good News of the Gospel?
Let us firstly deal with the content of the definition as it was pre-
sented above. If external mission addresses only people of other Christian

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New understandings of the Notions of internal and external Mission

confessions and the dialogue with them for the sake of Church unity, then
external mission is equivalent with the ecumenical or inter-church efforts
for Christian unity. We have to acknowledge that the content of this defi-
nition has an indubitable value. On the one hand it serves the command-
ment of our Lord that all His disciples should be one (John 17:21). The
way to achieve unity is not mainly individual conversion to Orthodoxy,
but genuine dialogue that would help both partners to discover the Truth.
Proselytism is hated by Orthodox, especially when it is practised by other
ecclesial bodies among them. Metropolitan Hilarion Alfeyev, presently the
head of the External Department of the Russian Orthodox Church and a
prominent figure of world Orthodoxy, declared to the periodical Christian-
ity Today that : “We distinguish between mission and proselytism. Mission,
for example, is when you go to a foreign country where Christianity was
not preached and you preach Christ. But when you come to a country
where there is an established church that has existed for centuries, then you
have to respect it.”1 Kallistos Ware, another prominent figure of Orthodoxy
speaks also clear text against proselytism: “We Orthodox would certainly be
against proselytism, by which I mean negative propaganda aimed at practic-
ing members of other churches, criticizing what they already believe. That
is not the way of Christ.”2 The Orthodox believers are concentrated more
on witnessing their values within the ecumenical movement to other eccle-
sial bodies, so that they stay faithful to genuine Christian values. This Or-
thodox witness to Christian values is nowadays more important than ever.
The Orthodox believers state with deep sadness that several ecclesial bodies
belonging to the protestant tradition are departing from genuine Christian
values, being confiscated by the spirit of this world. While witnessing their
values to other Christians, generally the Orthodox try to slow down the
enthusiasm of some people that would like to become Orthodox without
any preparation and proper introduction to our tradition. I believe that it
belongs to a general Orthodox ethos to avoid rapid conversions. Those who
enthusiastically want to convert are asked by our priests to reflect more and
discern their wish to become Orthodox, to visit regularly liturgical services
1
Hilarion Alfeyev, From Russia with love: Orthodox Metropolitan Hilarion Alfeyev offers
evangelicals more than an olive branch in Christianity today 55:5, 2011, p. 40.
2
The fullness and the Center: Bishop Kallistos Ware on evangelism, evangelicals and the
Orthodox Church in Christianity Today 55:7, 2011, p. 40. For the phenomenon of proselytism
related with Romania see Ion Bria, Evangelism, Proselytism, and Religious Freedom in Romania:
An Orthodox Point of View in Journal of Ecumenical Studies 36:1/2, p. 163-184.

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Revd. Assist. Prof. PhD Daniel Buda

and only after appropriate spiritual and intellectual preparation they might
be received in the Orthodox Church. We have to acknowledge however that
we are glad of conversions to Orthodoxy, especially of prominent figures.
On the other hand, however, a limitation of external mission only to
witnessing genuine values of Orthodoxy to other Christians means at the
same time its amputation. Archbishop Anastasios Yannoulatos, actually
Archbishop of the Autonomous Orthodox Church in Albania, former pro-
fessor at the Orthodox Theological Faculty in Athena and an authority for
Orthodox missiology preached the following moving, or rather dramatic
words on the liturgical call “Let the faithful pray for the Catechumens!”:
“It’s true, we have no <catechumens>. What is more, we simply do not care
to have any. And the litany of this evening is not a tuning in of our souls to
the ancient Church; it has degenerated into a spiritless memory … Can a
church that for centuries now has had no catechumens, but jealously guards
the treasure of faith for itself, totally indifferent to whether other people are
being born, breathe, live or die, within the Lie – which therefore is alien to
the feelings of world love and justice – be really <Orthodox>? All are busy
talking and writing nowadays about the depth of Orthodox spirituality. It
is, however, all that difficult to realize that a <spirituality> that is devoid of
the element of universality, of the struggle and agony for the salvation of
<all the world>, is a crippled spirituality? … But how do we imagine, my
brethren, that Christ sees? Is His glance limited to Athens, Greece, Europe,
to Christian alone? Do the millions of people in Africa, Asia and America,
who have not heard at all of His name, his redemptory work, leave Him
unmoved? <For some have not the knowledge of God>, would St Paul cry
out to us, <I speak this to your shame> (I. Corinthians 15:34). If therefore
Christ does not remain unmoved in front of this drama, how can we remain
passive, if we really <live in Christ>?”3 I choose to emphasize with these
words of a holy man who dedicated a good part of his life to mission among
people in Africa and who restored the institution of the catechumens in
Albania, practically reviving the Orthodox Church in this country after the
terrible communist persecution, the sad reality that we as Orthodox forgot
throughout centuries to extend our mission to people who never had the
chance to listen the Gospel. After the enthusiasm of the early church and a
genuine and successful mission among peoples that never heard about Jesus
3
Anastasios Yannoulatos, Orthodox Spirituality and external Mission in International
Review of Mission, 52: 207, 1963, p. 300-301.

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New understandings of the Notions of internal and external Mission

Christ in the Byzantine period,4 for reasons that are not to be discussed here,
the Orthodox Church lost its enthusiasm for genuine external mission, re-
placing or rather confusing the world with the Byzantine Empire (or other
empires or states) and the people of God with certain ethnic groups. We
could excuse ourselves saying that the Islamic domination and the commu-
nist persecution prevented us from making external mission. We could also
argue that historical circumstances made us loose the start of a systematic
Orthodox mission in the New World that was discovered at the beginning
of the14th Century, while the other Christian confessions have been there
from the very beginning, or to adopt a minimalistic approach saying that
actually Orthodoxy was not completely absent from the picture of world
mission and that, for example, the Russian Orthodox Church successfully
spread the Gospel in Siberia, among the indigenous people of Alaska or
in Japan and China. But what prevents us as Orthodox to be really active
today in world mission? Dark demons of the past and a counter-productive
phobia related with the notion of “canonical territory” make some Ortho-
dox Churches today to continue to fight awkwardly for “canonical control”
upon huge parts of the world like territories of China or India, while the
number of Orthodox believers there is very small and Churches that pre-
tend to have canonical control upon these territories do not possess the
structures or the capacity to make real and effective mission. Nationalism,
ethnicism and philetism are just some of the chronic illnesses that make
Orthodoxy mission unsuccessful in those part of the world where Orthodox
diaspora could be really a genuine sower of the seeds of the Gospel.
Concluding remarks
After this brief presentation, may I dare to propose a few possible guide-
lines for Orthodox missiology. They apply equally for the so-called internal as
well for external mission:
• An objective reading of the realities of the world is needed in order
to plant meaningfully the seeds of the Gospel in the world today;
• Many of the challenges the Orthodox mission is facing today were
experienced by other churches earlier. We have the chance to learn
from their experience and eventually to avoid their mistakes of the
past,
4
See for instance Ion Bria, Orthodox mission in the ninth century: the witness of St.
Methodius in International Review of Mission 74, no 294, 1985, p. 217-218.

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Revd. Assist. Prof. PhD Daniel Buda

• Orthodox missiology must extend its mission amongst those who


did not hear yet the message of the Gospel. In other words, external
mission shall not be limited only to the efforts for Christian unity of
for bearing witness among other Christians. The commandment of
Mathew 28:19 is still actual!
• Orthodoxy has become a global confession due to migration. This
opens a unique chance to make mission among peoples that were
inaccessible in the past. It depends on us if we as Orthodox shall find
the way to turn this challenge into a possibility and opportunity.

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Christ is the mission

Assoc. Prof. PhD Sebastian Moldovan

ἐγὼ μεθ’ ὑμῶν εἰμι


Christ was there. He went forward and I followed Him.
(Mother Gavrilia)

The mission hidden in a parable


A parable of the Savior can tell us the whole story of the existence and
mission of the Church:
“The kingdom of heaven is like leaven, which a woman took and
hid in three measures of meal till it was all leavened.” (Mt 13.33; Lk
13.21; cf. Gal 5.9)
What the parable does not tell us explicitly, since it was obvious to all
listeners, is the fact that in order to make all the flour leaven, the initial dough
cannot simply be put and left in it. For a full leavening, the initial dough
should be mixed with the whole amount of flour. Any part of the flour which
is not mixed with the dough remains unchanged.
Despite any hermeneutical difficulties caused by the Paschal interpreta-
tion of Christ and of the Church as “unleavened” (1 Co 5.7), we understand
here that the dough/leaven is Christ who, hidden in the flour which represents
us, humans, transforms us into his own way of life. Our whole life should be
mixed with Christ as a sine-qua-non condition. Christ is alive and has the fer-
ments of life. Like flour, we are inert, we are dead.1 Only the flour which is
mixed with leaven receives the dough of leavening. Any part of us or of our
lives which does not mix with Christ abides in death.2 For those who listened
1
In the sense of a mortal life, for sure.
2
In the same way, using another analogy- in John 15.5. The systematic reference of our
Saviour to examples from the organic life is not only an example of inculturation, but also the

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Assoc. Prof. PhD Sebastian Moldovan

to the parable the need for kneading was obvious; for us it is obvoius that the
mixing/kneading is the current activity of the Church. The Sacraments and
the worship, the ministries, the canonical norms, the teaching of faith, the
pastoral guidance, the relations with one’s neighbors, the ascetic struggles, the
purification, the illumination, the perfection gives us - in different ways and
measures appropriate to each concrete situations - precisely this mixing/union
with Christ or in terms of the Chalcedon, the theandric communication of
the idioms. Christ takes upon himself our sins and modalities of dying, and
heals us, justifies us and gives us His life/resurrection.3
However, it is not clear what this mixing means when we consider not
the internal leavening of the Church, but its growth over time, history and
world. In other words, what happens at the interface between the Church -
the Body of Christ - and what is yet outside it, so that what is already its self
and what is still non-self meet, adhere and finally the non-self turns into the
self? Simply put, it refers to the process of conversion, the main issue of any
discussion about the mission of the Church.
The series of verbs that define the mission according to God’s command-
ment (“Go, make disciples, baptizing, teaching” (Mt 28.19-20) describes this
process in a generic, universal and objective way, apparently paying no atten-
tion to the personal micro-universe of conversion and to the transformation
of the subjectivity that occurs in the process. Of course, the sensitivity, even
the obsession for subjectivity, is a characteristic of modernity,4 but one cannot
deny its Christian origins (e.g. “inward man”, Rm 7.22; 2 Co 4.16; Eph 4.16;
Lk 11.41; 17.21). Our modernity itself makes us examine more closely the
way (lat. modus, the manner, extent) in which, in particular circumstances,
“here and now”, a non-Christian embraces Christianity or a heterodox em-
braces Orthodoxy. I will follow for such an examination a simple argument
starting from the plausible hypothesis that such a conversion implies that the
person in question recognizes a desirable property, which they now find and
give up on other goods which are now considered less important.5 Therefore,
the recognition of a certain kind of superiority animates the act of conversion.

expression of the central message of the Gospel: “I am the life” (John 11.25; 14.6)
3
See “What shall we render to the Lord…”, Stichera at the Praises, tone 7; cf. St Basil
the Great, Homily on Julitta , PG 31, 253BC.
4
A must see, Charles Taylor, Sources of the self: The making of the modern identity, Har-
vard University Press, 1989.
5
“Again, the kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found
and hid; and for joy over it he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.” (Mt 13.44)

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On the superiority of Christianity


“How can non-Christians receive our faith if they do not see that we are
better than they are?” This is the question that concluded Father Dumitru
Stăniloae’s short and dense text about the Christian mission entitled “Witness
through ‘Holiness’ of Life”.6 Father Stăniloae starts by noticing the fact that
many people are alienated from the Church and raises a question related to
the reasons why, unlike in the first millennium, in the second one the Church
has not succeeded in “winning their hearts”. Father Stăniloae highlights the
dominant role that technology has in their lives, in the context of an almost
exclusive concern for material needs and pleasures and notices two categories
of alienated people: those who, dissatisfied with the lack of sense of their ac-
tivities start to search for a sense in spirituality and in the religious feeling and
those who resort to various surrogates (substance or sexual abuses) in order to
find some comfort.7 From both categories, some people turn to apparently re-
ligious means (magic, astrology, Eastern religions/spirituality). Of course, Fa-
ther Stăniloae considers that the authentic fulfillment of these searches is else-
where. He considers that the cause for not reaching there is the defective way
in which the Christian mission is made. He actually identifies two defective
ways: the institutional-type mission based on the authoritarian power of the
Church (alluding to Roman Catholicism), and the individualistic-type one,
based on the pride of originality (alluding to neo-Protestantism). Although
seemingly opposed, they would be animated by the same spirit of strife, to
which Father Stăniloae opposes, as a principle of a genuine mission, St. Paul’s
assertion, „I know nothing except Christ and Him crucified” (1Co 2.2).
The authenticity and the effectiveness of the mission - the fact that it
has a lasting effect - is given by the kenosis (self-emptying) of the missionary,
following Christ’s example, which is possible only through the power of the
Holy Spirit, which is the only way which makes it possible for the Spirit to
shine through missionary work; a shining which is addressed, of course, to
those called to conversion (alluding to Mt 5.16). Asserting that at the root
6
D. Stăniloae, “Witness Through ‘Holiness’ of Life”, in Ion Bria (ed.), Martyria-Mis-
sion: The Witness of the Orthodox Churches Today, Geneva, WCC, 1980, pp. 45-52. The ques-
tion was inspired by St. Peter’s assertion: „But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy
nation, God’d own people...” (1Pt 2.9). The text invokes twice St. Paul as the author of the
assertion, which is, of course, a typing error.
7
Father Stăniloae actually talks about “palliatives”, a term that emphasizes more the
pathological nature of these failed searches.

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Assoc. Prof. PhD Sebastian Moldovan

of all churches or ecclesial communities there is one or more saints, martyrs


possibly, Father Stăniloae gave St. Paul as an ideal example for the mission but
continued the discussion in the terms of the Palamite theology, justifying this
historical and theological accolade by what he considered to be the essential
and perennial value of Orthodoxy, namely the experience of the uncreated
divine power, common to the saints of all ages. The experience of holiness,
accessible to all the people through the uncreated power of the Spirit, the giv-
ing of the self through love and the communion within the Church is what
gives the Church the power to win souls. In their absence, the Church will
continue to lose what it has.8 For Father Stăniloae, the essence of the mission
is given by the experience of holiness; thus, to resume the quote that ends his
argument, the Christian holiness gives that superiority which will make the
people convert.

How can we recognize holiness?


The superiority of Christianity to non-Christianity is, obviously,
the premise of Christian mission. As obvious, this premise is indisputable
only for those who have already embraced Christianity. It is not difficult
to understand that it is disputable for all the others, at the best. In Father
Stăniloae’s opinion, this superiority is given by holiness as understood by
Christians. Is holiness accepted however by the others as something “bet-
ter”? St. Peter gives us reasons to doubt: „they are surprised when you do
not join them in the same flood of debauchery, and they insult yo” (1 Pt
4.4); and St. Paul says it even more bluntly: „a stumbling block to Jews
and folly to Gentiles” (1 Co 1.23). The question that arises here is not
to know what holiness is but how it can be recognized in the context of
8
A vibrant call to holiness addressed to the Church St. Justin Popovich as the essence
of its mission: “The mission of the Church, given by Christ and put into practice by the Holy
Fathers, is this: that in the soul of our people be planted and cultivated a sense and awareness
that every member of the Orthodox Church is a Catholic Person, a person who is for ever and
ever, and is God-human; that each person is Christ’s, and is therefore a brother to every hu-
man being, a ministering servant to all men and all created things. [...] And yet what are the
means of accomplishing this God-human objective? Once again, the means are themselves
God-human because a God-human objective can only be brought about exclusively by God-
human means, never by human ones or by any others.[...] These means are none other than
the God-human ascetic exertions and virtues. And these can be successfully practiced only
by God-human, Christ-bearing ascetics.” Blessed Father Justin Popovich, The Inward Mission
of Our Church - Bringing About Orthodoxy, accessible at http://orthodoxinfo.com/general/
inwardmission.aspx.

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Christ is the mission

the mission by the outsiders and generally by those who do not have it.9
The Church has clearly established a number of criteria it uses to officially
recognize the sanctity of a person and to propose them for the veneration of
all.10 Although having such criteria, at a closer look, things are not as simple
in the missionary context since the criteria usually designate the deceased. Of
course, saints are spiritually more alive than us and their post-mortem activity
is itself a mission.11 When St. Peter (1 Pt 2.9) and Father Stăniloae formulate
the exigency of the Christian mission using the plural “you”/ “us”, they do not
refer only to these saints and this holiness. They do not refer only to this side
of holiness, which is so obvious that the ecclesiastical authority is “forced” to
take note of and to officially proclaim it.12
We do not find in our tradition too many arguments for the “total holy
(perfect)/ total sinner” dichotomy with the two exceptions widely recognized.
“No man lives without sin” we remind to “Him who alone is without sin”, not
only in the burial and memorial services dedicated to ordinary Christians,
but also in the “last memorial service”, a prayer for the remission of the sins
of the “future” saint who in just one day will be publicly recognized among
those we ask to pray for forgiveness of our sins. On the contrary, our entire
tradition admits holiness as a process, as a way like an uphill, longer or shorter
which has a number of stages, usually three: purification, illumination and
perfection.
In this case of holiness as a process, its recognition is also affected by
some uncertainty. The question is: at what level of spiritual achievements can
one talk about the elevation of holiness? Let us not forget that the original

9
Since holiness is par excellence an attribute of God and the holiness of people is a
sharing in God’s holiness, the problem of knowing or recognizing holiness can be reformu-
lated in terms of knowledge of God or of Truth. How is Truth recognizable to those who still
do not know it or do not know it completely, especially when one has to apply the principle
of similarity (“only the like knows the like”) in order to know the Truth? See below.
10
These include: Orthodox baptism, Orthodox mindset, virtuous life, miracles, rel-
ics. See, M.G. McDowell, “Communion of Saints”, in John Anthony McGuckin (ed.), The
Encyclopedia of Eastern Orthodox Christianity. Vol. 2, Wiley-Blackwell, 2011, pp. 132-134.
11
For the Byzantine discussion of the work of the saints, see Nicholas Constas, “An
Apology for the Cult of Saints in Late Antiquity: Eustratius Presbyter of Constantinople, On
the State of Souls after Death (CPG 7522)”, Journal of Early Christian Studies ,10.2 (2002),
pp. 267-285.
12
See the thorough discussion of this aspect and a critique of “heroic holiness” in Mi-
chael Plekon, Hidden Holiness, University of Notre Dame Press, 2009; for the Roman-cath-
olic context, see Victoria S. Harrison, The apologetic value of human holiness: von Balthasar’s
christocentric philosophical anthropology, Springer Science & Business Media, 2000.

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Assoc. Prof. PhD Sebastian Moldovan

meaning of the concept of holiness is precisely the “separation”, the clear


distinction between sacred and profane, between virtue and sin, clean and
unclean (e.g., Ex 19, Lv 11; 18; 19 passim). Or the path, the climbing or the
ladder of holiness involves precisely the crossing of the “grey” zone of mixture
of virtue and sin.13
Some analogies of the Christian living, having similar ideas, can help
one understand this issue. Both the analogy of pregnancy14 asserted by St.
Paul – “My little children, for whom I labor in birth again until Christ is
formed in you” (Gal 4.19) -, and those of the portrait or of the coin found
in the Macarian writings15 see holiness as God’s likeness, namely like Christ-
likeness. According to them, the Christian enters the boundaries of holiness
when Christ-likeness becomes visible in someone’s life.16
13
Of course, there is a clear separator difference between climbing and descending,
regardless of where we are. About the idealization of saints as a “departure from the mind of
the Church” and the spiritual risks of the exaggerated concern for miracles (not as signs of the
Kingdom but as seeking of self-justification, see Fr. Vasileios Thermos, Perasmata stin apen-
anti ochthi, Athenai, 2008 (Romanian transl., Despre problemele vieții creștine contemporane,
Ed. Sophia, 2012). The author, priest and psychotherapist stresses that the patristic tradition
unanimously considers agape love as superior to miracles.
14
The analogy of pregnancy helps us see that one can identify distinct phases even
though one cannot establish precise boundaries between them. It involves a correlation be-
tween body and soul, between the corporeal and the spiritual dimension of man. As physi-
cally birth means the development of the body through several stages, starting with the em-
bryonic stage and organogenesis, during which one can identify the shaping of the human
form of the fetus, so one can speak of the spiritual development of the “inner man” by
forming some corresponding organs and spiritual senses. See, for example, Paul L. Gavrilyuk,
Sarah Coakley (eds.), The spiritual senses: perceiving God in Western Christianity. Cambridge
University Press, 2011.
15
„The good portrait painter, Christ, for those who believe in him and gaze continually
toward him, at once paints according to his own image a heavenly man. [...] Just as in the case
of the golden coin, if it does not receive the imprint of the king’s image, it does not reach the
marketplace nor is it stored up in the royal treasuries, but it is discarded, so also the soul, if it
does not have the image of the heavenly Spirit in the ineffable light, namely, Christ, stamped
on it, it is not useful for the treasuries above and is cast out by the merchants of the kingdom,
the Apostles.” (Homilies, 30,4-5, in Pseudo-Macarius, The Fifty Spiritual Homilies and the
Great Letter, George A. Maloney (ed.), Paulist Press, 1992, pp. 191-192.
16
Quite remarkable is the use of this analogy by St Nicholas Cabasilas in his famous
work „The Life in Christ” in which he shows the Christian life starting with this life like in
a womb and developing like a child to be born with the organs and the functions which are
not only spiritual but also psychosomatic and are implied by the eternal life. St Nicholas
designates this process of rebirth through union with Christ through the Sacraments and
the fulfillment of the commandments as Christification (christoeideia), Christ being both the

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Christ is the mission

The issue raised reoccurs as soon as we wonder how the spiritual devel-
opment can be known as such.17 A likeness which should become visible to
whom? A first answer would be that only someone who has already achieved
a certain degree of development, of spiritual maturity is able to identify it, as
they know it from their own experience, according to the antique, later Chris-
tened principle of knowledge through likeness (“only the like knows the like”;
cf. 1 Co 2.13 and 1 Jn 3.2).18 Strictly, only a saint can recognize holiness. But
this means that practically holiness is never recognized if no saint recognizes
himself first.19 The second answer is that the same Holy Spirit who guides to

model and the modeler of this new life, whose content is precisely love: „What, then, may life
be more fittingly called than love?” (PG 150,725CD). Faithfully to St. Paul (Gal 2.20), he
emphasizes that Christ becomes no more and no less than „another self ” (allos autos¸ PG 150,
665A) of the Christian. English trans. in Nicholas Cabasilas, The Life in Christ, Crestwood,
NY: Saint Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1974. See the excellent study of Panayiotis Nellas,
Deification in Christ: Orthodox Perspectives on the Nature of the Human Person, St. Vladimir’s
Seminary Press, 1987. Similarly, St. Maximus the Confessor asks a bishop to imitate the
compassion and gentleness of Christ saying that this will make “Another One” (allos ekeinos,
PG 91,624-625).
17
Another use of the analogy of pregnancy can be found in the remarkable text of
the quasi-anonymous author Jerome the Greek (Commentarius de effectu baptismi et notis
christianis, PG 40, 859-865) who states that just as a woman knows she is pregnant, not
through words or explanations but through the very movements of the baby, the Christian
really knows that he is baptized through the direct experience of the joy that comes from the
presence of the Spirit received in Baptism, especially during the liturgical celebrations. See,
P. Batiffol, «Jérôme de Jérusalem d’après un document inédit », Revue des questions historiques
39 (1896), pp. 242-255. A Romanian translation, with introduction due to deacon Ioan
I. Ică jr., in Ieronim Grecul, „Despre efectele botezului şi semnul distinctiv al creştinului”,
Mitropolia Ardealului, 4, 1989, pp. 59-63.
18
See, for example, Andrew Louth, “Being human-being in the image of God”, in his
recent work, Introducing Eastern Orthodox Theology, InterVarsity Press, 2013.
19
In his characteristically powerful style, Fr. John Romanides states that “all those who
are in state of illumination understand each other’s deification. For those who are in state
of illumination know when someone reaches deification, since they also have a reflection of
this experience”; Metropolitan of Nafpaktos Hierotheos, Empirical Dogmatics of the Orthodox
Catholic Church according to the Spoken Teaching of Father John Romanides, Volume 1 (Dogma
– Ethics – Revelation); Birth of the Theotokos Monastery, 2012 (here, after the Romanian
trans., Ierótheos, Mitropolitul Nafpaktosului, Dogmatica empirică după învățăturile prin viu
grai ale Părintelui Ioannis Romanidis, Vol. I, Ed. Doxologia, 2014, p. 201). In Fr Romanides’
therapeutic model of theology, deification, and by that way holiness, means the restoration
and activation of the noetical energies of the human soul. On the other hand, referring to a
Dutch missionary in India, mother Gavrilia said: “She was like a saint, who never thought
to settle herself, but only to obey God and gain His light through loving. Because of this,
she was not aware of her holiness, even as no saint is ever conscious.” Nun Gavrilia, Mother

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holiness through synergy is the one who reveals Himself to the Church or to
its council formed by legitimate bishops who has actually acquired the qual-
ity of holiness. Of course, this response solves the problem of recognition of
the holiness within the ecclesial body at most. Its missionary valence claims
however the opportunity of an extra-ecclesial recognition!

Superiority overturned
Obviously, the principle of authority which determines the kind of rec-
ognition of holiness mentioned here, does not work outside the Church.20
The expression of caution expressed above suggested not so much the exist-
ence of some cases of difficult reception of the proclamation of holiness but
rather the fact that the argument of authority never works alone. Neither the
recognition as proclamation, nor the one as reception are actions inspired
only from Above. Both synods and the people firstly recognize precisely what
we seek to discern here, namely a spiritual superiority of those concerned,
but this recognition is not based on likeness but under the impact of its rever-
sion. In other words, it does so not by raising knowledge through likeness
to the level of the holiness of the saints, but by recognizing their descent to
the humiliation of each of us, at any level of our lives. If the superiority and
consequently the holiness of God as the transcendent origin of any being is
universally recognized through manifestations of His mysterious overwhelm-
ing (mysterium tremendum) and ultimately arbitrary power (Rm 11.33), the
superiority of Jesus Christ and through likeness that of Theotokos and of
other saints manifested by making itself known mostly through what we call
kenosis, i,e. assuming the condition, likeness and the embrace of the inferior

Gavrilia: The Ascetic of Love, Tertios; 3rd edition, 1999 (here, after the Romanian trans.,
Maica Gavrilia. Asceta iubirii, Ed. Episcopiei Giurgiului, 2014, p. 310). It is also instuctive
to see Jean-Luc Marion, « Le Saint invisible », in his volume, Le croire pour le voir : Réflexions
diverses sur la rationalité de la révélation et l’irrationalité de quelques croyants, Parole et Silence,
2010, first published as “The Invisibility of the Saint”, Critical Inquiry 35.3 (2009), pp. 703-
710. Marion recalls Pascal’s three orders (reminiscent of St. Paul’s 1 Co 2.13-16), the order
of the body, the order of minds, and the order of the hearts, in which each order knows the
lower ones but remain hidden from those. Holiness remains hidden to those who do not
belong to holiness, since holiness means actually hiding by death (cf. “For you died, and your
life is now hidden with Christ in God”, Col 3.3).
20
The argument of inspiration can also be applied relating to the way people receives
the councils’ recognition of holiness. Moreover, it can be extended outside the Church, rec-
ognizing the assistance of the Spirit at the origin of any conversion. We will refer here to a
Christological version of this argument.

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Christ is the mission

ones. What has caused His recognition as Messiah was the therapeutic re-
storative, metanoetic experience of those who trusted Him (e.g., Mt 11.5; Jn
10.38, 14.11) and not a doctrinal or ideological superiority. It should be the
same when meeting and recognizing the holiness of saints. It is precisely this
recognition of the superiority of those who embrace us which is sine-qua-non
in the Church it is no less valid and enforceable beyond it. If there is some-
thing “better” on the spiritual scale that we can all recognize, regardless of its
(lack of ) holiness, this reflects the benefits, in whatever form, that we receive
from those who show us their love in this way.21
It is relevant to invoke here another study of Father Dumitru Stăniloae in
which he discusses the relationship between “spirituality” and “responsibility”
with direct implications upon the role of the Church in society and politics,
but also upon the mission of the Church, although the author himself does
not mention this aspect.22 Applying the logic of descending love practiced and
preached by Christ, Father Stăniloae criticizes the idea of a distinction and
thus of a tension between vertical and horizontal, between the love of God
and our fellowmen. The union with God is possible only in Christ, therefore
the union with Him means uniting with the people Christ unites Himself
with. Otherwise, the love of Christ means sharing the love with which Christ
Himself loves everyone. Father Stăniloae argues here through the sacramental
actualization of the Eucharistic sacrifice expressed by verbs “which is broken”,
“which is shed” as well as through a series of passages from Saints Isaac the
Syrian, Cyril of Alexandria, Gregory of Nyssa and Silouan the Athonite.23 It
is important to notice that not only was Christ once among us “as one who
serves’ (Lk 22.27),24 but He also remains permanently like this even if He
resurrected and ascended to heaven. This is due to the fact that his passions
21
See the outstanding passage in which St. Nicholas Cabasilas talks about how Christ
reigns as sovereign of the Kingdom and how He conquers the hearts of those it subjugates, De
vita in Christo, PG 150, 620B-D. The only superiority in Christ is inferiority freely assumed.
22
“Pour un nouveau style de vie: Contre la séparation entre la spiritualité et la respon-
sabilité dans le monde”, Revista Teologică, 95, 4(2013):205-215, first published in Le soupir de
la création. Les chrétiens d’Europe à la recherche de leur responsabilité aujourd’hui, Conférence
des Eglises européennes, Genève, 1982, pp. 50-60.
23
For example, St Isaac: „The man who has found love eats and drinks Christ every
day and hour ... Blessed is he who eats the bread of love, which is Jesus!”, ibidem, p. 208
(Homilies, I.46, in Ascetical Homilies of St Isaac the Syrian, revised 2nd ed., Holy Transfigura-
tion Monastery, 2011, pp. 357-358).
24
Father Stăniloae does not directly use this verse, but the parallel text from Mt 20.26-
28; ibidem, p. 206-207.

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are ongoing or will continue until the end of time. Father Stăniloae cites here
the impressive words of Pascal „Jésus sera en agonie jusqu’à la fin du monde”
but St. Maximus the Confessor had stated this long before him, saying that
Christ: “takes upon himself by his own suffering the sufferings of each one and
until the end of time, always suffering mystically out of goodness in proportion to
each one’s suffering.”25 By virtue of this sympathetic presence and of the other
mysterious presence of Christ, the one which is hidden in every person who is
suffering (Mt 25.32-46), Father Stăniloae develops the idea of a perichoretic
intercommunion through what ​​ we might call diachoresis, the overstepping of
the bounds of one’s own individuality, expressed through suffering, towards
the complete human communion in Christ, of those who suffer and of those
who share the suffering of others. In his words:
„Le Christ s’identifie avec chacun sans le supprimer, comme per-
sonne, mais en mettant dans une lumière plus puissante l’importance
unique de sa personne, parce qu’en même temps le Christ est aussi
celui qui sert cette personne et attend seulement d’être servi en elle.
Le Christ est dans l’autre non seulement celui qui sollicite le secours,
mais II est aussi Celui qui se dirige avec nous vers lui pour le servir,
étant envoyé comme le frère aîné vers le frère cadet par le Père de
tous les deux.”26
It’s the same Christ, in two kenotic instances - one of passion, the other
one of sympathy - Who unites the two persons - a person He unites with
and another person who unites with Him-, in a theandric knot of love.27 P.
Stăniloae gives us here a theological response to the question of conversion, of
transformation of subjectivity from alienation to what is specific to it (“com-
ing to himself ”, Lk 15.17), without which the mission cannot achieve its pur-
pose. Only the recognition of Christ hidden in the heart of the other, Who
is awaiting our compassion makes the other heart open acknowledging the
Christ who embraces it in His suffering. Only this way are we empowered to
be truly compassionate. Alluding to Psalm 41(42): „Nous trouvons Dieu dans
25
Mystagogy, in G.C. Berthold (trans.), Maximus Confessor, Selected Writings, Paulist,
1985, p. 212. The same idea: “If the Word of God was crucified for us out of weakness and
was raised up by the power of God, (2 Cor 13.4) it is evident that he is always doing and
suffering this for us in a spiritual way; because he became all things to all men in order to
save all (1Co 9.22)”, Chapters on knowledge, II.27, ibidem, p. 153.
26
Op. cit. supra, note 22, p. 210, my emphasis.
27
To borrow the phrase of Antoine de Saint-Éxupery, le noeud divine, from La Cita-
delle, transposed here in Christological terms.

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Christ is the mission

la profondeur du cœur de l’autre qui s’ouvre par notre compassion. Et alors Dieu
nous envoie de cette profondeur avec son pouvoir d’aider cet autre, car la profon-
deur de l’autre ouvre notre profondeur et Dieu apparaît de ces deux profondeurs
unies sans confusion.”28 The recognition and activation through unconditional
love of the latent holiness in every man seems to be the mission of the Chris-
tian mission.
The interweaving of the two kenotic hypostases in the act of love is an
ancient patristic theme which was somewhat neglected, which is surprising
given St Maximus the Confessor’s statement that this weaving provides us
the most appropriate way to holiness or, more specifically, to deification. It is
worth reproducing in full the passage which contains the text about the mys-
tical passion which was cited above:
“Nothing is either so fitting for justification or so apt for diviniza-
tion, if I can speak thus, and nearness to God as mercy offered with
pleasure and joy from the soul to those who stand in need. For if the
Word has shown that the one who is in need of having good done to
him is God ­for as long, he tells us, as you did it for one of these least
ones, you did It for me - on God’s very word, then, he will much
more show that the one who can do good and who does it is truly
God by grace and participation because he has taken on in happy
imitation the energy and characteristic of his own doing good. And
if the poor man is God, it is because of God’s condescension in be-
coming poor for us and in taking upon himself by his own suffering
the sufferings of each one and until the end of time, always suffering
mystically out of goodness in proportion to each one’s suffering.
All the more reason, then, will that one be God who by loving men
in imitation of God heals by himself in divine fashion the hurts of
those who suffer and who shows that he has in his disposition, safe-
guarding all proportion, the same power of saving Providence that
God has.”29
28
Ibidem, p. 213.
29
Mystagogy, op. cit., p. 211-212. Before St. Maximus, the unknown author of the
Epistle to Diognetus: “He who takes upon himself the burden of his neighbour; he who, in
whatsoever respect he may be superior, is ready to benefit another who is deficient; he who,
whatsoever things he has received from God, by distributing these to the needy, becomes a
god to those who receive [his benefits]: he is an imitator of God.” in Alexander Roberts (ed.),
The Ante-Nicene Fathers: The Writings of the Fathers Down to AD 325 Volume I-the Apostolic
Fathers with Justin Martyr and Irenaeus, Cosimo Inc., 2007, p. See also the Cappadocian

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If the perspective outlined here can be accepted, then one can under-
stand the mission of the Church as an assuming and transformation of the
agonic body of Christ embraced by His agapic body. In this regard, that “I am
with you all the days’ (Mt 28.20) not only promises assistance from Above in
missionary work, not only certifies the sacramental realism in the Church (Mt
26.29) but also shows His presence deep within each person, at the encounter
between persons. The mission is not simply to bring Christ where He was
never before, but to discover Him in the places where He is already hidden in
the flour of each person, culture or civilization.30

treaties peri philoptochias, and in St John Crysostom at least the final of his 15th homily on
Romans.
30
Mother Gavrilia: “In India, when I was asked: - Are you a missionary, I answered:
no. - Well, who sent you, then?, they wondered. - Christ. - What did he say? - “India” and
“follow Me”. [Another person:] - In a way, you are one of the pioneers of Christianity in
contemporary India. - No, because Christ was there. He went forward and I followed Him.”
From the Romanian transl., op. cit. supra, note 19, p. 338.

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Intergenerational Catechesis
Present Time and the Perspective
of a Pastoral Catechumenal Alternative

Revd. Assoc. Prof. PhD Constantin Necula

The Romanian post-Decembrist pastoral missionary context seemed to


have been favorable for a broader pastoral missionary intervention. The ten-
sion of the months after the Revolution proposed a reorganization including
the field of catechesis as well. We felt free in expression but both the expres-
sion and the interpreting of the contents of faith was fluctuating according to
the age of the culture of each of us. We do not speak about those who were
qualified to face the challenge of communication, as seminarians, theologians
or priests, but of those categories of people who were hoping for the bet-
ter. We notice that Romania achieved in 1990 about 30 % of its population
actively involved in the field of ecclesiastical life, in supporting the liturgical
program of the reconstruction of the parish, and very few of that had had
little to do with a fluent catechetical education1. The generation born between
1935 and 1940 was the last who had received a proper religious education.
But they were the generation who fully received the communist ideology too.
Part of young people of the years 1950-1960, who had not been killed or ex-
iled, were disconnected from the Christian culture. The testimonies recorded
by us from previous generations between 1996 and 1999 were marked by a
great thirst for spiritual „re-alphabetization”. The parents of the children, who
had received Christian teaching through the Religion classes, were outside of
the Christian culture. The academic teaching experience between 1992 and

1
The most relevant expression of this aspect can be found in the volume of talks made
by Sorin Dumitrescu under the title Șapte dimineți cu Părintele Stăniloae (Seven mornings
with Stăniloae Father, Anastasia Publishing House, 1992, 265 p.), a compendium which
outlined the directions of catechesis settled between the theology of cares and the theology
of responses.

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1994 and then since 1995 until today, revealed us a possible hierarchy, if not
imperfect but real.
The generation born before the years 1930 and 1940, which had received
a full cycle of Christian education, was bearing in its culture the dynamic
artifacts of some distinct catechumenal structures. Unfortunately at this level
and at the next one as well it was noticed repeated „brain washings” with the
ideological soap bubbles of PCR (Romanian Communist Party). However,
the generation carried a bag of Christian culture knowledge, could propose
by heart a curriculum and was even able to sustain a catechetical discourse
above average. They are unlike today the „witness generation”, which proves
the qualitative fluctuation of education today2.
The 1940-1948 generation kept in memory not only the continuous cy-
cle of catechetical education but the pressure they had been subjected to in or-
der to abandon Orthodoxy. This is no longer actually the testimonies of some
of the former political prisoners although it is the generation that gives us the
last iconology of survival under communism. We are dealing with the genera-
tion from which was selected the faithful staff of PCR, the excited builders be-
longing to Bumbeşti-Livezeni construction site or to other construction sites
for youth. Their religious education allowed them to practice their Religion at
home; in communities the practice was limited depending on the others reac-
tion. Their catechumenal culture reached the average through the prayers, the
divine commandments or the short elements of content which were retained
and carefully reproduced. The socialist Ethics promoted through meetings or
functional newspapers could not abolish the Christian reflex of intuition of
God in the entire creation, including the moral one.
Generations since 1948 to 1989 maintained reduced the form of reli-
gious information. Preserving the cult in dwellings, sometimes at heavy costs,
meant the catechumenal saving of the nation. It is quite clear that only where
there was risky but living initiave of collaboration between priest and parents,
could children receive the required education to preserve Christianity. The
second strength of catechesis was grandmothers / grandparents who could not
be reformed aligning themselves with the party and who recovered the litur-
gical and cultural information memory, though relatively qualitative. At that
time the enclaves of Christian culture imposed themselves. Concentrated ei-
ther around monasteries (Sâmbăta, Prislop, Cheia) with their notable abbots
2
Their catechumenal memory, for example, suggested the Father Dumitru Călugăr
workable formula, in Șapte cărți de religie (Seven Books of Religion), a wonderful book of
“stories” and “classical catechesis” which had influenced their childhood.

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Intergenerational Catechesis

or in charismatically pastored parishes (they should be identified as soon as


possible in order to reconstruct the catechetical memory of Romanian Ortho-
dox Church) or simply in communist prisons, by far the most largest provider
of Christian culture and conversion to Christ3, the catechetical movements of
the Romanian Orthodoxy in spite of not having the echo of those from Czech
Republic or Poland or Hungary – echo due to their affiliation with Vatican –
they constituted islands of resistance in front of a pathetic ideology.
It should be noted that the period did not lack for catechumenal ef-
fervescence. There were written books, remarkable works, articles or stud-
ies4. There were published new editions of the synodical Bible or Bibles were
purchased from abroad as a sign of rejection of the communist consciousness.
People were visiting monasteries, exploring the holy places and the confes-
sors were suffering persecution. Of course after 1969 we speak especially not
only about prosecutions and whispers of threat but also about abuses of the
political party machinery against clergy or the missionaries of the Church. At
that time most of the young people chose to attend the assembly of other de-
nominations, where the Word of God was preached and the people catechized
without any limitation. Of course even there were boundaries and threats,
but the external support or the unilateral catechetical structure of the cult
proposed a different „class of catechesis”. The cult continued to be the main
way of spreading the doctrine of faith. It should be noted the exceptional in-
tuition of teachers of History or Romanian Language who guided the culture
of youth towards Romanian language and literature sources or the remarkable
intuition of the organizers of „school trips”, who included religious objec-
tives, such as monasteries, churches, moving spirit places of the Nation. The
natural connection influenced the Romanian child of that time and turned
him into a „part time” participant in the catechumenal life of the Church.
The lack of Religion class in school, the lack of information concerning cer-
tain points of Christian culture was felt especially at the level of humanistic
culture. It was hard to say something about Luceafărul5 without a minimum

3
One of catechetical monuments of anticommunist resistance is the volume of Father
Nicolae Grebenea, Amintiri din întuneric (Memories from Darkness, Scale Publishing House,
Bucharest, 1997) which preserves implicitly texts of some catechesis.
4
They are easily detectable in Father Mircea Păcurariu’s work: Dicționarul Teologilor
Români (Dictionary of Romanian Theologians), Univers Enciclopedic Publishing House, Bu-
charest, 1996 (in a new edition in 2014).
5
Luceafărul is one of the most remarkable poems written by the Romanian national
poet Mihai Eminescu.

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Revd. Assoc. Prof. PhD Constantin Necula

culture of Christian Genesis (Eminescu did not say that Luceafărul was ad-
dressed to any successor of monkey...) or to interpret Arghezi’s Psalms without
knowing exactly to what literary genre they belonged to. As it was very hard to
speak about Vasile Voiculescu or Mateiu Caragiale6 without the force lines of
knowledge gained through Christian culture. I am convinced that no subject
was free of such „black holes” that could not be covered only by the effort of
the materialist dialectical culture7.
These generations with their multiform cultures were relocated to the
Church after 1989. The core mistake of the Church in taking the wave of
sympathy and cultural needs of redrafting its Christian message caused its
failure in building a generational message in the first 15 years and another
intergenerational one, which could conjugate in the same effort both physical
and spiritual ages that were constituting the parishes. The simple dislocation
of the geography of a parish by establishing units of cult and new worship
places substituted the need of sacred space but not of the cultural Areopagus.
Only where the charisma of the priest of a parish was activated in the cat-
echetical and homiletic discourse, the communities could receive a favorable
cultural profile. An analysis carried out in Brasov, in 1997, pointed some fun-
damental pastoral emergencies. Some of them concerned the catechumenal
reconstruction of speech of the Church: the Christian alphabetization of the
believers, catechetical training centers, editing support materials for the cat-
echetical education, the development of information system and media, asso-
ciating the positive experiences in the pastoral-catechumenal field, developing
a continue training for priests in new identified contexts (post-communism
and post-modernism), developing the catechetical training of the adults. Li-
turgical and canonical discipline was the strengths of the resistance facing the
earthquake of social values that had followed the fall of communist structures.
In the document were estimated the emergence of moral fractures caused by
crypto-communism or communism with human face preached by contem-
porary policy, the necessity of maintaining the Church in the arc resistance
in order to protect the national values, but also the plundering of the Church
to abominable campaigns of nationalism and filetism. One of the great dan-
6
Tudor Arghezi, Vasile Voiculescu, Mateiu Caragiale are famous Romanian writers.
7
For me, personally, a spiritual rescue work was the first form of the collection of
poems that my distinguished Romanian language teacher, Mr. Florin Şindrilaru published
in 1993 with the title Antologia poeziei românești culte de la Dosoftei până în 1993 (Anthology
of cult Romanian poetry from Dosoftei to 1993), Theora Publishing House, Bucharest, 1998,
p. 804.

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Intergenerational Catechesis

gers identified at that time was the culture of pastoral demagogy without an
achievement in concrete educational and social assistance projects. The analy-
sis proposed in 1999 by URM (a subunit of the WCC Urban Rural Mission)
reloaded at the level of urban mission of the Church in Bucharest revealed the
same reasons of concern and blockage of renewal the pastoral and catechume-
nal projects in parishes8.
A major aspect that I think we should bear in mind is the tension between
the conscience of rural Christian and the freedom of townsman/citizen created
at the level of the conscience of believers. It is not appropriate to make here
an analysis of urban anthropology but it should be noted that the entire body
of traditions related to Easter or Christmas, for example, is linked to specific
notions of popular theology, containing „tales and superstitions”, which are
in the foreground of the gestures, liturgical life and even moral of the first
generation townsman/citizen. Or Romania is especially constituted of urban
communities at the first or second generation, created in the process of forced
industrialization of the years 1950-1965 or so-called „municipalization” pro-
cess, product of administrative laws after 1992 meant bringing funds to the
budget according to the scale of urbanism of the place. The europeanisation
of values related to the social life caused a new intergenerational gap. Some of
the generations were old, retired and pending social support, others were in the
median age, characterized by money-hunger and professional performance-
hunger, others young and confused by the choir of labeling the values. It was
difficult even for the sociological analysis to identify the madness of those days,
8
Conferences were called: The regeneration of the Mission in urban context, Braşov (Bra-
sov district), 11 to 13 October 1996; organizers: WCC and Metropolis of Transylvania and
The regeneration of the Mission in urban context II, Bucharest; organizers: Romanian Patriarch-
ate and WCC 3 - May 6, 1998. The text of the first analysis was published under the title
The regeneration of the Mission in urban context in Romania, in the international symposium
volume WCC, Braşov, 11 to 13 October 1996, 100 pp. Petros Vassiliadis refers in his article
“Reconciliation as a pneumatological mission paradigm: some preliminary reflection by an
Orthodox” in International Review of Mission, volume 94, no. 372, January 2005, pp. 33-
34 and pp. 36 to the text “The regeneration of Christian Mission in the Urban Context
of Romania” (Romanian language text editor) quoting the inter-text Eucharist and Witness.
Orthodox Unity and Mission Pespectives on the of the Church, Geneva / Boston, WCC Press -
Holy Cross, Press, 1998, p. 29 ff. Ample references to the same ecumenical text edited by us
are elaborated by translating both the entire Sum of ideas (pp. 86-89) and the basic text of the
message (from 29 to 31 October 1996) in the International Review of Mission, vol. 86, No.
296, 1997 pp. 111-121, where it is mentioned the publication of the text in Romanian lan-
guage. Anişoara Carol makes remarks for the same text, edited by us in Renaissance Magazine
no. 11 / November 1996.

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Revd. Assoc. Prof. PhD Constantin Necula

the deviating confusion of values which were either destroyed or promoted


without support in social reality9. The diversified pastoral missionary context
did however not create, at first, a diversification of catechetical methods. Re-
ligion class became a sort of relief of catechumenal solutions, the difficulty of
training the Christian culture moved from the Shrine to the chair10.
Tensions appeared immediately. On the one hand those with the civil
society, with intense campaigns of chasing the religious values, on the other
hand just inside the dynamic bodies of the Church: clergy and Religion teach-
ers. For 5 years (1997-2002) it was emotionally discussed an aspect of eccle-
siastical life, otherwise simple: the relationship between clergy and school,
clergy and educators. A false problem was created just because of the differ-
ence of age between the members of the two bodies. On one hand, the clergy
were to adulthood. There is no „zero and start over” point in training the
Romanian clergy, except for Greek-Catholic clergy that at the time was reacti-
vating priests trained in the inter-war period and Orthodox priests converted
to Greek-Catholic Church. Teachers were however young. Their professional
corps had less than 10 years of existence and appeared as an alternative to the
presence of a priest in the school. Some of the archbishops (in Sibiu – the
Metropolitan Antonie Plămădeală) in order to organize an independent pro-
fessional body of the teachers dismissed the priests and authorized the newly
licentiates in Theology to teach religious education. And about 60% of the
posts in education were occupied by licentiate female. That tension seen in
the relationship among priests – school - teacher of Religion did not allow the
transfer of teaching experience to catechumenal experience and the extension
of teaching department towards the parochial catechesis. Mutual critics, the
teacher’s absence from the church – many of them being commuters – poor
correlation between the curriculum and liturgical rhythm of the Church led
to the disjunctions of educational purpose. It took a lot of pastoral effort, ped-
agogical sense and especially much humility to recover the relationship, which
could have been fundamental for the development of an active catechetical
action. It was the period of imposing standard textbooks and of developing
9
The largest and synthetic overview of the phenomenon was also realized by Andrei
Pleşu / Gabriel Liiceanu / Horia-Roman Patapievici in the volume O idee care ne sucește
mințile (An idea that distorts our minds), Humanitas Publishing House, 2014, 151 p.
10
For a long time the only book that opened horizons of a spiritual knowledge of
teaching Religion was the one created by Mama Sica (Anastasia Popescu), Cum să-i învățăm
pe copii religia (How to teach the children Religion), Anastasia Publishing House, Bucharest,
1995.

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Intergenerational Catechesis

a mimetic pedagogy that followed exactly the structures, the vocabulary and
the pedagogical and methodical culture of the other humanistic subjects. The
circumstantial assumptions were considered to be inalterable and perennial
values, which caused a series of blockage of method and catechetical interven-
tion. The pedagogy of apprenticeship was destroyed from the very beginning
in favor of the modern pedagogy structures, with small trimming in favor of
a circumstantial Christianity and the importance of the Catechetic as a dy-
namic theological science, fundamental to communicating the revealed truth
was totally diminished.
Another approach involving problems encountered in the recent years
consists in the increasing number of Training Institutes for priests and teach-
ers of Religion. These were, however required by the needs of years 1990-
1994. And as the period experienced an unequal acceptance of Religion in
schools, the problems redoubled. We are referring here to the fact that in the
first years especially teachers of school could tenured. Teaching Religion in
high schools influenced for a long time by occasional orders in a continuous
downward / upward flux led to subsequent tenure of teachers with a medium
level, whose uncertain employment made them to look for tenure in the el-
ementary school. It has been about five years since the employed teachers of
school succeeded to tenure and the stability of teachers employed in high-
school increased. The quality of teaching increased, bringing the Religion de-
partment in the culture of youth. There were noticed a number of spiritual
excesses lacking in educational and pedagogical base as astray addressed top-
ics, dictations in an absurd ascetic rhythm at early ages at school, incoher-
ent reactions in matters of morals. The punishment was granted not only by
pupils and teachers but also by family, where the intergenerational structure
functioned as an ad hoc council on issues of faith. An intergenerational island
that deserves an analysis is teachers’ room. Reluctant at first and sometimes
for many years, teachers’ room was not the easiest place to be inhabited by
the teacher of Religion. The normality of cordial relationships was difficult to
enforce in urban schools, where a politicized system of a hierarchy of ideo-
logical values was maintained for years, where the Religion teacher had to
convince the others about his professionalism and scientific culture. It was
noted that the high school graduates imposed the Religion class much easier,
because of their scientific basis they had in common with their colleagues
or the ex-seminarians who focused on a free thinking teaching and a cordial
relationship between teacher and student. Preoccupied to generate competent
teachers, the academic theology field developed an unidirectional pedagogical

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scholastic line, eliminating the concern for catechumenal pastoral. The basic
articulation of catechesis to the pastoral regained the attention of research-
ers in the field, only when they were asked to give principles to the projects
“Christ shared to the children” and “Choose school”. They reintroduced the
concept of pedagogy of faith started from the cell of the parish toward scho-
lastic family. The best results are obtained in those parishes where the teachers
of the community are part of catechetical group, which support the catecheti-
cal action of the priest. There were the years when the priest proposed to work
in catechumenal team, in concentric circles, based on the needs of children.
School remained a place of carrying out the curricula and the parish becomes
a place of filling the concepts with the Holy Spirit and of applying the knowl-
edge. Or at this point of collaboration between the priest of the parish and
teacher, things were clarified only in the years 2005-2007 when the Church
hierarchy sent clear tasks in order to multiple collaboration between the Altar
and the School Department.
What we as servants and experts forgot then was to reestablish the cat-
echesis for adults. The statement ‘you come to evangelized us while we were born
Christians in history?’ was almost a leitmotiv of dissociation from sectarian ac-
tions. The confusion of the plans still persists. For the recognition of infirmities
pride does not fit. We should not have been re-evangelized by the others, but
rightly alphabetized in our own Church. The fact that there is a huge thirst for
Christ is proved by the still very large editions of spiritual books. The Intellec-
tuals need to approach the Philokalia, for example, was not often supported
by biblical or patristic History courses for laity. There were not developed „ca-
thedral schools” but only occasionally where there were famous preachers or
confessors were created projects of notoriety until today. The School of Father
Galeriu is such a monument of synergy between the people need of Christ
and the ability of the priest to respond to this thirsty at different levels. It is
interesting to see how universities adopted the configuration of a parish with
priest and confessor, with Christian organizations and specific media. The
risks of a fundamentalist culture could not be avoided but high movement of
the fellows as well as the youthful spirit of freedom prevailed most of the time.
It would be interesting to trace in the last 25 years, which were the themes of
the dialogue between the priest and students during the Philokalia meetings
(organized by Romanian Orthodox Christian Students Association), how did
they contribute to the development of a balanced Christian culture. Opened
to other generations, these actions succeeded very rarely to catch the academ-

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ics and sometimes even the local priests. Was it a kind of a secession of val-
ues, intolerance to alternative? While many of the actions were disseminated
through YouTube or through Facebook, they demonstrated to have audience
but they also caused criticism of some anonymous but dynamic bloggers. A
sort of witch hunting, the Christian message often degenerated into its op-
posite: criticism, suspicion and de-contextualization. The most encouraging
improvement happened during the meetings of priests with young students in
high schools, colleges and universities or in the meetings at protopresbyterate.
There are lots of parishes which developed in partnership with local councils
spiritual festivals in homes of culture or training centers. A significant contri-
bution to the reconfiguration of the intergenerational catechesis profile had
the phenomenon of summer schools or spiritual camps.
A particular aspect in the tendency of incorporating generations in
the same informal circuit was constituted by the emergence of the complex
Church media. From the diocesan papers, (whose usefulness in the commu-
nist period nobody can deny but it is required a proper analysis in order to
prove its mission), to the existing magazines of Theology, a media explosion
is reached today. The years 1990-1995 were marked by simple tests but after
this period there were recorded remarkable progress. Of course that not all the
broadcasted contents were and are quite quality but there was already an audi-
ence. First it consisted of teams of diocesan radios, and then Radio Trinitas
earned an perfect preference in the national audience. It should be noted that
all radios did their duty and the experience of the local pastoral has shown us
the desire of the radio stations to develop their own segment of catechumenal
culture. Since it is reported an offer it is obvious that there is also a demand.
A voice that became famous in radio, was easily transferred from one radio
station to another and information increase the audience and force to qual-
ity. The 1997-2005 were years of maximum development of the relationships
with local non-denominational stations, the cooperation developed then, of-
ten surviving until today. The communication effort seems to be easier in TV,
imaging coming to help, but just the correlation of the catechetical content
to the media of listeners’ culture was the greatest challenge, realized and as-
sumed by Trinitas TV, and by the entire activity of Basilica, the press trust of
the Romanian Patriarchate. At the level of the catechetical audiences I would
point out the alternatives offered by radios and TVs of other denominations
that caused the development of culture of compared catechesis, however not
always for the benefit of the mission of Orthodoxy. Simplicity, quality and

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communicative cordiality are the characteristics of the „character” of a Chris-


tian media still fragile but remarkable in the intergenerational culture11.
At the opposite end there was the syndrome „Young and the Restless”,
the slipping into the culture of a hyper fluvial media with grounds from all
subcultures of communication. We must notice here an important phenom-
enon for intergenerational catechetical education. Grandparents once prole-
tarians influenced by the soap opera culture and closed into the selfishness of
a program of a human being living in a block do not anymore propose to their
grandchildren the same pastoral cordiality with the Church. On the one hand
we are dealing with a soap opera culture and consuming ordinary emotional
and cultural issues. On the other hand we are handling a culture of leisure in
which grandson or child no longer fits. Hundreds of signals received from the
dialogue with children, from the direct observation and the sociological in-
terpreting of the signs of educational anthropology leads to a sad conclusion.
It is the pitfall of having increasingly younger grandparents, pensioners with
free time and no activity. However, they are rarely willing to be motors of edu-
cation for the little ones. An embarrassment of human nature – „This is not
my business, I do not want to complicate the situation” – was developed as a
policy which oppresses the intra-family dialogue. The classic example, easily
detectable, is both the low rate of the presence of family in the Church and
more worrying, the reduced rate of its conviviality at Sunday lunch. Hardly
have we Sunday lunch and when it occurs, it is under the influence of political
news, the cultural interferences or with the background noise of TV12.
A research done by CADCO (Archidiocesan Center for Diagnosis and
Research in Catechetisc, Homiletics and in Pedagogy and Methodology of
Religion C.A.D.C.O. - „Metropolit Andrei Saguna”) between 2013 and 2014
concerning the quality of the preaching of priests, showes that approx. 150
seventh grade class interviewed children focuse on three major directions: the
11
We proposed an analysis of this point of view in our study “Biserica şi mass-media,
dinamica unei provocări pastorale” (“Church and media, dynamics of a pastoral challenge”) in
the volume Teologie ortodoxă în destin românesc. Omagiu Părintelui Profesor Ilie Moldovan la
80 de ani (Orthodox Theology in Romanian destiny. Homage to Father Professor Ilie Moldovan at
the age of 80 years), Andreiana Publishing House, 2008, pp. 633-640.
12
See a possible analysis in our study “Priorități catehumenale în Pastorația familiei
românești. Tradiție și contextualizare” (“Catechumenal Priorities in the Pastoral of Romanian
family. Tradition and contextualization”) in Ortodoxia (Orthodoxy Magazine) No. 4 / 2011,
pp. 46-60 (15 p.) and in the volume Familia, o binecuvântare pentru Biserică (The family, a
blessing for the Church), Basilica Publishing House of the Romanian Patriarchate, Bucharest,
2012, pp. 46-66.

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Intergenerational Catechesis

sermon should be short, understandable by the listeners and sincere. Nobody


stops us to should redefine the entire catechumenal communication of the
Church around these goals. Short means concise with respect to the time of
the neighbor, with respect for the time of the family. And it is obvious af-
terwards to understand the listeners, to listen to them and to find about the
issues concerning their life. Short means realistic, adapted and wise. Among
the responses we have noticed that the children need not to be disregarded in
the sermon, but to be respected as speakers. I would like to call a particular
attention to the response of the nineth grade class students: no more mali-
cious preaching against the members of other denominations. It is important
to underline that the same requirements are recorded both at the level of high
schools and of students (Faculty of Economics, Accounting and Computer /
Law) as well as of the female students in Theology who had responded to the
question: „How do I want to be the priest of my generation?” Such challenges
have forced us into the effort of crystallizing a new dimension of modern
catechesis: intergenerational dimension. To the same demands, whatever the
age of interlocutors, we need a coherent response, properly constructed from
the catechumenal point of view, fructified around the Liturgy and Sacraments
and around the development of a new consciousness of man linked to the
culture of the Spirit. Careful about himself and about the needs of the com-
munity, the Orthodox priest has to understand these catechetical needs of the
community. He should not assume alone Christian education nor idly pass it
to the Religion teacher. The latter should fully understand that it is only a syn-
thesizer/ an engineer of training, while the priest is part of the spiritual source
of the knowledge proposed by him in school. The family cannot fully assist in
a restless rest at the whole struggle of the School or of the Church concerning
child or adolescent’s education. We must admit that in Christian education
field, Romanian family is much more active than in many other directions of
education. Priority has the catechetical project which can challenge the child
and the young to responsibility and spiritual growth, in agreement with / or
in disagreement with the previous generations and those who succeed him.
We need to understand that education is not a matter of genetically accident
concerning the ideological gap and that we cannot change repeatedly the edu-
cational plan only in line with the patterns of the time or the requirements
of infirmities which usually characterize the generations. The hallmark of in-
tergenerational catechetical education is provided by the wonderful picture
of how the Romanian children have catechized their parents or grandparents,
how they taught them how to pray before eating and how they bring them to

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Revd. Assoc. Prof. PhD Constantin Necula

the church. Accompanied by grandparents, children come into the church as


teachers of a generation emotionally exhausted, which look at them embar-
rassed how they find the meaning of the crossword of the Christian virtues
with the easiness given by the calling of the Holy Spirit.

218

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