Athanasios N.

Papathanasiou

Future, the Background of History

An Introduction to the Theory, Praxis and Predicaments of Mission

from an Orthodox Perspective

Essays on Church mission in an age of Globalization

Alexander Press
 2

Contents

Preface. Recovering the precious thing 3

Mission, the self of the Church 6

The Language of the Church and the Language of the World.

An Adventure of Communication or Conflict? 12

Mission:
A Consequence or, perhaps, a presupposition of Catholicity? 20

The Flight as Fight.

The Flight into the Desert as a Paradigm for the Mission
of the Church in History and Society 29

Evangelization and Social Justice. An outlook into history 47

Between the Devil of Imperialism and the deep blue sea of Marketing.
Aspects of the Distortion of Mission 54

Sisoes and Alexander.

Dilemmas for Church Mission in an age of Globalization 66

First Publications 79
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Preface

Recovering the precious thing

It is all too clear that, before dying, human beings are surviving. However, it may
be quite uncertain whether they are really living!
By bringing survival and life into opposition here – say, by placing them on the
opposite poles of a spectrum – I am trying to express something which I judge to be
an issue of major priority. A living human being is really both these things, this is to
say, both alive and human as well, not only when he exists in sheer biological terms
(this is already perfectly achieved in the case of numerous creatures), but more
particularly when he (or she) manages to pose questions on the meaning, the limits
and the perspectives of the world, and then to risk giving answers. As a matter of fact,
this struggle over the question of truth is an existential upheaval which not only
implies rationalistic elaboration, but also surpasses it. Let us, for example, remember
how Mircea Eliade acknowledged the importance of the religious symbols and myths
of so-called primitive man, and ascribed their genesis to the basic psychic structure of
humans1.
Within the ongoing process of globalization the spirit of consumerism appears as
the passport to the realm of an easy way of life. The banner of this way of life, that is,
the promise of meeting current needs and fulfilling desires, isolates human beings
from their historical and social context. Making individual satisfaction its maxim, it
passes the evil on earth by. It is ready to close its eyes before the fact that, despite any
pleasure provided by shopping therapy, death continues to overmaster; it considers
speculation on injustice to lie beyond the reasonable scope of its concerns. When
humans understand themselves primarily as consumers, they can only see the lust of
endless needs and care about the expiry date of the surrounding products; but they
become unable to discern the tragedy of the imposition of needs on life and the

1
See Mircea Eliade, Images and Symbols. Studies in Religious Symbolism (tr. Philip Mairet), New
York / London 1961.
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subordination of life to an expiry date. The spirit of consumerism, in other words,

combats the existential upheaval mentioned above by sidestepping the precious thing,
the question of truth.
The consumerist spirit is not the only adversary of the question of truth. As the
legacy of the 18th century Enlightenment polemics against religious despotism,
“religion is reduced in the understanding of many secularists to religious extremism
with a political edge, and therefore religion, in general, is blamed for the destructive
encounter that now seems to dominate our understanding of the struggle that is
occurring in the world”2. However, it is a pity that many people cannot discern
between an issue that is really vital for human existence, such as the question of truth,
on the one hand, and certain historical crimes on the other hand. One has to realize
that both, crusader knights no less than jihad warlords, are not the spokesmen of the
question of truth, but, quite the opposite, its rapists.
The more the world functions as a forum for the free encounter of the various truth
claims, the more it reaches its proper mode of operation. This does not imply
relativism at all. The presentation of what one has accepted as the meaningful answer,
as well as the invitation to it or even the dispute over it, enriches humanity. In that
sense, the Christian Church is a partner in this global forum, where she has to present
her vision and invite others to consider it. Especially today, when the world seems to
be passing into a post-modern era and the religious quest is returning from the private
to the public sphere again, the need for witness and dialogue is more urgent.
This book is actually an introduction to the Orthodox Christian understanding of
the Church’s mission, that is, of what the Church has to suggest to the world. Its
writer is well aware that numerous specific issues of missionary theory and praxis
currently demand attention and research. This book, however, is deliberately designed
as a threshold into basic axes and questions related to the theology and history of
Mission.

A human being cannot be divested of his historical responsibility to distinguish the

precious things among all those surrounding him. If he divests himself of it, he

2
Richard Falk, “Religion and Globalization”, The Orthodox Churches in a Pluralistic World. An
Ecumenical Conversation (Emmanuel Clapsis, ed.), WCC Publications / Holy Cross Orthodox Press,
Geneva / Brookline 2004, p. 72.
 5

actually divests himself of his very humanity. In the perspective of faith, working on
this responsibility means learning how to live in communion and become a witness of
God’s love. A proverb of the Akan people in western Africa says: “Okwasea ade to
nsuma Onyame na oyi ma no”. “When a fool drops a precious thing in the stream, it is
God who recovers it for him”3. I think that this wise saying does not in reality relieve
us from this responsibility (or from the task of our existential upheaval), as it may
appear to do at first sight, but rather comments on the drama of overlooking what has
been recovered for you.

Athanasios (Thanasis) N. Papathanasiou

October 2004

3
Kofi Appiah-Kubi, “Christology”, A Reader in African Christian Theology (John Parratt, ed.), SPCK,
London 1998, p. 68.
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Mission, the self of the Church

When speaking about Mission we usually have in mind a kind of activism, that is,
something the Church can do. This may not be wrong, but certainly is not completely
right either. Mission is not merely one of the initiatives which an ecclesiastical
community can choose to take or leave out. As we will try to show in the following
pages, Mission is something related to the nature of the Church, that is, to what the
Church is.
In the Creed, Christians declare that they believe not only in the Triune God,
but also “in one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church”. Let us scrutinize the meaning
of the term “apostolic”.
It is usual to comment that the Church is called “apostolic” because the twelve
apostles have been her foundations (cf. Eph. 2:20, Mat. 19:28). That means that her
doctrine is identical to their doctrine, and her shepherds are the apostles’ successors.
This interpretation, however, runs the risk of overlooking a basic parameter which,
notwithstanding, is nothing less than the matrix of the characteristics in question.
Apostleship coincides with God’s very work in history. The adjective “apostolic”
derives from the Greek verb “apostellein”, which means “to send out”; in Latin,
“mittere”, hence the noun “mission” (“missio” in Latin). In few words, Mission
means Sending Out. According to the Scriptures, God-the Father sent Christ into the
world4 and then Christ, the apostle (that is, he who is sent) par excellence5, sends his
disciples to the world. He himself said to his Father, “As you sent me into the world, I
have sent them into the world”6, and clarified to his disciples, “As the Father has sent
me, I am sending you”7. The Sending (that is, the Mission) of Christ into the world
coincides not only with what he did, but primarily with what he has been, that is, with
the fact that the fleshless Second Person of the Holy Trinity assumed human nature

4
Mat. 10:40, John 3:17, Gal. 4:6.
5
Heb. 3:1.
6
John 17:18. Scripture taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version, International Bible
Society 19843.
7
John 20:21.
 7

and became Christ, the God-Man. If this “being sent into the world” were subtracted
from Christ, then the remainder would not be merely a Christ-without-activity (yet
still a Christ), but – more than that – a fleshless Christ, and therefore a non-Christ.
All this entails that the Church is “apostolic” insofar as (and provided that) she is
sent and sending; sent by Christ and sending her apostles “to all creation”8. Her being
sent (that is, her mission) is not something additional to or beyond her self, but a
constituent of her self, of her own nature9. The point at issue, in other words, is not
simply “what the Church does”, but chiefly “what she is”. An example based on the
Orthodox understanding of the Holy Eucharist may help here. If a church community
decides to live absolutely by itself and closes the door of the church building to the
outer world, believing that in this way the pure ecclesiastical self will exist inside the
building, then the recluse congregation will be able to celebrate the Eucharist once or
twice, using the quantities of bread and wine already in hand, but sooner or later it
will find itself lacking these materials and, consequently, unable to celebrate the
Eucharist. Refusing to open itself to the world; refusing to visit the harvests of the
world and introduce it (in the form of bread and wine) into the Church; refusing to
assume the world as its raw material in order to build her self up, the said community
ceases being itself. It doesn’t merely become a closed-up-Church; it ceases being the
Church at all and is reduced to an ideological club. In sound theological terms the
Church cannot be conceived as a ghetto in the midst of the world, but as a laboratory
that assumes and elevates the world into Christ’s flesh.
How can one who refuses to acknowledge Mission as constituent of the Church’s
self be expected to conceive the nature of the Church? He will probably slide –
explicitly or not – into the conviction that the Church is either composed of a kind of
meteoric material that fell on earth or that she is merely the shadow of a future reality,
a shadow that is hardly touching the earth and history but does not enter into real

8
Mark 16:15.
9
Cf. Archbishop Anastasios (Yannoulatos) of Tirana and All Albania, “Rediscovering Our Apostolic
Identity in the 21st Century”, St Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly 48 (2004), p. 9: “This characteristic
of apostleship is indelibly wrought in the very nature of the Church and should be lived in every age,
under new conditions and against new challenges. Mission is part of the Church’s genetic material, a
fixed element in its DNA”. See also Elias Voulgarakis, “Orthodox Mission”, Dictionary of Mission
(Karl Müller et al., eds), American Series of Missiology Series, no 24, Orbis Books, Maryknoll, New
York 1998, pp. 332-338.
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relationship with it. The Church, however, is the world itself when it responds to
God’s invitation, gives itself to the Holy Spirit, becomes the flesh of the Second
Person of the Trinity and functions as the sign of the coming Kingdom. As history
goes on, the Church is constantly addressing the world, conveying to it the good news
of Christ’s resurrection and his promise for the fulfillment of history and the
resurrection of the entire creation. This fulfillment will be the accomplishment of the
goal which is actually the raison d’ être of creation: the transformation of the world
into the Body of Christ10, its encounter with God11 and its radical renovation. The
Church is walking towards this End not only having being incarnate, but also in the
process of becoming incarnate. Thus, apostleship is the historical mode of existence
which relates itself to every particular historical context through the ages12 and
testifies two major things: first, that the meaning is provided by the final fulfillment,
and second, that the final fulfillment has not yet been accomplished. Apostolic Church
means an eschatologically inspired and itinerant Church; neither a ghost missing
communication with the real world, nor a cadaver nailed onto a motionless present.

Mission is the application and reminder of a major doctrine: since Christ’s

incarnation was not virtual but real, it took place in the context of a concrete people
and culture. However, his incarnation was not confined within the data of this people
and culture. St Maximus the Confessor (7th c.) underlined that “God’s Word, being
God himself, that is, the Son of God, desires the mystery of his incarnation to be
activated continuously and everywhere”13. As St Paul clarified, “this mystery is that
through the gospel the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel, members together of

10
“... the mystery of his (that is, God’s) will... to be put into effect when the times will have reached
their fulfillment – to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ”
(Eph. 1:9-10), “that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the
earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord” (Phil. 2:10-11).
11
“When he has done this, then the Son himself will be made subject to him who put everything under
him, so that God may be all in all” (1 Cor. 15:28).
12
For the encounter of Christian message with postmodern world see Lesslie Newbigin, The Gospel in
a Pluralist Society, SPCK, London 1992, pp. 210-221; Lalsangkima Pachuau, “Missiology in a
Pluralistic World”, International Review of Mission 445 (2000), pp. 539-555; The Orthodox Churches
in a Pluralistic World, op.cit..
13
Maximus, Ambigua, Patrologia Graeca (hereafter: PG) 91, 1084C-D (my translation).
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one body, and sharers together in the promise in Jesus Christ”14. That’s why the
fulfillment, that is, the Kingdom, is described as the final gathering of all nations
before God15. Thus, in cases where a local church regards missionary consciousness
as unnecessary and believes that the Church’s mission has been accomplished (since
the incarnation of the Gospel in the said local church’s cultural and ethnic data has
already been achieved), then a major issue arises: no matter how hard it may sound, it
is very doubtful whether the Eucharist this local church celebrates is valid, since she
has turned her back on the perspective of the final gathering of all and has turned a
deaf ear to the explicit declaration of the Holy Liturgy that the eucharistic sacrifice is
offered not only on behalf of the present congregation, but actually “for the sake of all
humans on the entire oikoumene”16. Besides, the fact that a part of the Liturgy
concerns the catechumenate, manifests the essential truth that we are still on the way
(in statu viae); the time for the final census has not yet arrived. The Church is a
dynamic event; not a static mass.
The follow-up to these theological axes is the realization that missionary
consciousness safeguards a precious truth: that ecclesiastical identity is rooted
primarily in biological discontinuity. The human’s “yes” or “no” to God’s call has to
be a personal option and risk – not a hereditary element. Decay can be hereditary;
sainthood cannot. In strict theological terms, ecclesiastical identity is not acquired in
an automatic way through biological birth within a traditionally Christian nation,
family or community, but through personal consent which is the child of freedom and
therefore can be revoked at any time, whereas DNA cannot. All these considerations,
perhaps, are not in the foreground of the religiosity dominant today, but this is exactly
the reason why the missionary-conditioned consciousness is valuable in reminding us
of fundamental criteria of the Church event. The centrality of this consciousness is of
crucial importance for all aspects of Church life and all her members, “professional”
missionaries or not. The ways in which each member will respond to the common
missionary vocation is a matter that has to do with the variety of gifts and
commitments in the ecclesiastical body.

14
Eph. 3:6.
15
Mat. 25:32, Rev. 7:9, 21:24.
16
Nicholas Cabasilas, Liturgiae Expositio 12, PG 150, 396C.
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An Orthodox understanding of mission has to shed light on the historical role of

the human, the being that has been invited by God to be his cooperator in the work of
the renovating his creation. Mission will be unnecessary only when Christians stop
uttering the eucharistic prayer to God “Your own of your own we offer to you”, which
is said in the Orthodox Divine Liturgy just a few minutes before the consecration of
the bread and the wine. Church members are called to live in history in an active way.
Although the bread and the wine do not belong to them, but to God, and although God
could well take them by himself, it is humans that are responsible for offering them to
him. This offering is something much more than a simple transaction or retail routine;
it is creation and synthesis. St Nicholas Cabasilas (14th c.) elaborates this point. He
explains that Christians offer the bread and the wine to God as the first-fruits of their
own life, for three reasons:
First, because they are the means for the maintenance of human life.
Second, because they signify the integrity of life. Nicholas reminds us here that the
disciples ate and drank together with the resurrected Christ in order to be assured that
they were in contact with a person really alive – not a dead one or a ghost.
Third (which is most important here), these two materials are not only chemically
edible, but incorporate human creativity and human particular participation in history.
Unlike fruits and animals that become food for other animals as they are, the bread
and the wine are not to be found in nature as they are. Their raw materials (wheat and
vine respectively) are certainly products of nature, but they become what they are
(bread and wine) only through human intervention and elaboration in the framework
of a certain human culture. It is a characteristic of humans alone – says Nicholas – to
invent bread and think up the composition of wine17. The real connection of the
offered materials with the land, the nutrition and the culture of the particular offering
people are nothing less than a prerequisite for the validity of the Eucharist.
A major question is how these theological criteria can be active in postmodern
societies, and taken seriously by local churches. One has, for example, to figure out
what might be the ecclesiological implications of the practice, widespread among
certain young churches, of importing wine and wheat flour from the so-called mother
churches in order to celebrate the Eucharist. If the products of local land and

17
Nicholas Cabasilas, op.cit., 377A-C.
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indigenous human labour are rejected and replaced by products from foreign lands
and others’ endeavour, then whose life is actually offered to God? But this is an issue
that we hope to deal with in detail in the future18.

In any event, what we urgently need to keep in mind is that we are en route – not at
anchor. The “thinking up” and the “offering” are the longitude and the latitude of our
missionary course.

18
Cf. my “O paradosiakos Afrikanikos gamos” (Greek for: “The Traditional African Marriage”),
Bulletin of Biblical Studies 21-22 (2002-03), pp. 365-381.
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The language of the Church and the language of the World

An adventure of communication or conflict?

Sometimes one has the impression that to study the church tradition means to be
ready for many surprises. And this is what one may feel when coming across a text
written by St Gregory of Nazianzus the Theologian (4th c.): “Innovators is how the
unwise call the provident”19.
This is more than a simple statement. In fact it is, at one and the same time, a
riddle and a challenge, because it poses the crucial questions "What constitutes an
innovation?" and "Who is an innovator?" for the Church. Many Orthodox might today
disagree with St Gregory, since innovation is usually considered an act of audacity
and virtually synonymous with secularization. Such a danger may indeed exist;
nevertheless, we cannot overlook the fact that the Church herself promises the world a
kind of all-embracing innovation: the vision that the entire creation will finally
become new, in communion with God. This is God’s promise and the end described
in the book of Revelation (21:1-5). The consequence of this vision is that the
believer's life is not a passive expectation of the end, but rather a participation in
God's historical work. In other words, the Church in history is the anticipation and the
laboratory of this eschatological end.
A highly characteristic example of the attitude of the Church in history is
evidenced in the way she has formed her own dogmatic formulas. Very soon after her
establishment she faced the danger of heresies and misinterpretations of her faith and
experience. One truth she had to defend and clarify, was that the three Persons of the
Holy Trinity are of the same essence. She expressed this truth using the Greek term
“homoousios”. Thus, since the 4th c., every Christian recites the Creed in every Holy
Liturgy and confesses: “I believe... in one Lord Jesus Christ... of one essence
(homoousion) with the Father”20. For the believer today, this term is certainly beyond
any dispute, since it succeeds in summarizing extended chapters of doctrine.

19
Gregory, Poemata de seipso, PG 37, 1152A (my translation).
20
See the translation in An Orthodox Prayer Book (tr. Fr. John von Holzhausen – Fr. Michael
Gelsinger; Fr N. M. Vaporis, ed.), Holy Cross Orthodox Press, Brookline, Massachusetts 1985, p. 53.
 13

However, when the holy Fathers established this vital term, they could possibly have
been accused of impiety or innovation! The reason is that this dogmatic term (and
many others, like “person”, “incarnation”, “energies” etc.) does not belong to the
biblical glossary! The Fathers, in other words, seem to have refused to express the
dogma in the language of the Holy Scripture and to have adopted another language.
What had actually happened?
Already in the 4th c. the Church had long since spread beyond her Palestinian
cradle and established herself throughout the Mediterranean, inevitably coming face
to face with the dominant Greco-Roman culture of that world and time. This culture
implied a way of life, a mode of thinking and a language different from the Jewish
ones. The Church found herself before a crucial dilemma: either to remain restricted
to the Jewish data, or to open herself to the wider world21. The Church preferred the
second option, addressed herself to the nations and used their languages and way of
thinking.
In fact, far from being a routine manoeuvre, this was a historical decision, which
stemmed from the very nature of the Church. Christ’s incarnation is not an event
locked in the past, but a procedure that started in Bethlehem almost 2000 years ago
and continues through history mystically and uninterruptedly22. In order to save the
world, the Son of God assumed the human nature, lived in certain human societies,
spoke the language of his contemporaries. Ever since, Christ has been inconceivable
without His body, the Church. The Church is the continuation of the incarnation in
history: she is not a spiritualistic sect indifferent to the outer world, but a workshop
where the world is constantly transformed into flesh of Christ.
In order to understand the relationship of the Church to the world, we must keep
in mind the following theological perameters. The Church and the World are not two
ontologically (that is, by nature) different entities, as if the one was made of “holy”
material and the other of “evil” material. In the Christian perspective, the whole world
(without exception) is conceived as the Creation of God, who is the only uncreated
being. He brought the world into existence out of nothing, and invited it to become
participant in His own immortal and loving life. That means that the final goal of the

21
The first confrontation with that dilemma is mentioned in the Acts (15: 1-29).
22
Cf. St Maximus’ characteristic statement in the previous Chapter.
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entire world is to accept this invitation willingly, become the body of the Son, the
second Person of the Holy Trinity, and thus, by free will, enter the eternal Trinitarian
life. Of course, it is not easy. The invitation does not come from this world (John 15:
14, 18: 36), so it always sounds hard and the world always wonders: “Who can accept
it?” (John 6:60). The human response to the divine invitation is actually what the
Slavic term “podvig” implies: an ascetical achievement 23, an exploit: the adventure of
freedom in history.
Thus, we can say that the Church is the part of the world that has already
responded to the divine invitation. The other part still resists this invitation and has
not found its way into the Church yet; however, it is neither evil by nature, nor
necessarily alien to the Church. The opposition between the Church and the World, as
mentioned in Bible (cf. John 15:18-20, 16:33; 1 Cor. 3:19; Gal. 6:14) is not based on
nature, but on choice and orientation. This is why the Church never ceases to pray for
the life of the entire world and for the final recapitulation of everything in Christ. This
is what we can hear if we listen attentively to the Holy Liturgy. Besides, the
ecclesiastical language by itself is always an invitation. According to the very
tradition of Orthodoxy24, language signals realities that cannot be restricted or fully
described in words. Every word in the mouth of the Church is not only a declaration
of the truth, but also an invitation to a free, wholehearted, personal meeting with the
truth, since the Truth is not something, but someone: Christ Himself incarnate.
Theology is not only a treatise on God, but also an invitation to His Body.
So, until the end of history, the Church does not have the right to stop inviting the
creation of God to communion with Him. The discussion between the Church and the
World cannot be stopped and, certainly, no one can put an end before the final end.
Seen thus, the message of the Church remains always the same, but every language is
welcomed to become its flesh, so that the message of salvation be conceivable in
every society, in every nation, in every epoch. In other words, the Church's task is not
to remember Christmas, but to be Christmas and gradually prepare the creation for the
final Ressurection. A Church that rejects the incarnational view, that is, a Church that

23
For the theological use of this term, see George H. Williams, “The Neo-Patristic Synthesis of
Georges Florovsky”, Georges Florovsky. Russian Intellectual, Orthodox Churchman (Andrew Blane,
ed.), St Vladimir's Seminary Press, New York 1993, pp. 295-299.
24
The contribution of apophatic theology is of great importance. See John Zizioulas, Being as
Communion, St Vladimir's Seminary Press, New York 1985, pp. 89-92.
 15

denies to speak to the world and with the world - is not simply a silent Church; she
runs the danger of ceasing to be a Church at all! In the event that she does not
introduce the world into her life-giving Body, she abandons the world to the realm of
death.
An inherent danger in this process is that a local Church may be stuck to a
language of the past, spoken centuries ago, and consider it the language of God
Himself. In this case, this Church becomes an innovator of bad things, because she
turns its back on the incarnational tradition of Orthodoxy. The late Fr George
Florovsky, for example, mentions the words of the Russian A. Shishkov, tsarist
minister of education, who opposed those who attempted to translate the Scripture
into the vernacular: “How dare they alter words considered to come from the mouth
of God?”25. But, the answer already existed in the Orthodox tradition. For instance, St
Gregory of Nyssa, when opposing the heretic Eunomius who claimed that God
reveals certain words, argued that God reveals the meanings and man invents the
words. “God's voice”, says Gregory, “is neither Hebrew, nor expressed in any of the
ways known to the nations” 26. Indeed, while human languages can become the flesh
of the truth, they are not truth of themselves. This is what the great Russian
missionary Makarii Glukharev (1792-1847) claimed, concurring with St Gregory:
“Will the Word of God in the raiment (: dress) of Slavonic letters cease to be God's
Word if it is in Russian raiment?” 27. This was also the conviction of St Nicodemus of
the Holy Mountain (c. 1749-1809), who faced the opposition of some churchmen
when he prepared a publication of the holy canons of the Orthodox Church, together
with their translation from the “ancient” into the vernacular Greek. They claimed that
the texts of the Church should not be translated, because they should not become
accessible to the “vulgar mob”. Even this characterization alone (“vulgar mob”)
reveals the ecclesiological base of the debate. One has to answer, in the first place,
whether he considers the people of the Church active participants and real members of
Christ's Body, or something else. The then Ecumenical Patriarch Neophytos defended

25
Georges Florovsky, Ways of Russian Theology, I (tr. R.L.Nichols), Nordland (Collected Works, 5),
Belmond 1979, p. 197.
26
Contra Eunomium II, 260 (W. Jaeger, ed.), I, Leiden 1960, p. 302.
27
Florovsky, op.cit., p. 226.
 16

the initiative of St Nicodemus and claimed that if the opponents were right, then the
canons would never have been written, because their original language was the
vernacular (the languange of the simple people) of that time. Finally, St Nicodemus's
work gained the approval of the patriarchal synod 28.
Yet none of these steps is really an innovation. They are just the application of the
Church criteria at different moments in history. The Apostle Paul has said that the
members of the Church should use understandable words, so that everyone may know
what is said and the Church be constructed (1 Cor. 14:9-19). The construction of the
Church is quite different from magic ritual. Magic is supposed to function
automatically, regardless of human intentions and purposes. But Church membership
demands conscious participation. Neither worship nor other dimensions of
ecclesiastical life should be regarded as the domain of agnosticism, of unconscious
romanticism or mindless instincts. This is why the holy liturgy, baptism, and so on,
include the confession of faith. The Church demands that every single member of her
be aware of the doctrine and confess it personally: “I believe ...”.
The Orthodox tradition should be described as the tradition that is not disturbed or
alarmed by the multitude of the languages, whether among diverse nations, or among
historical periods of the same nation. The Bible says that in the beginning “the whole
world had one language and a common speech” (Gen. 11:1). When they attempted to
build the tower of Babel, their relationship with God was broken and their relationship
with one another as well. Their common language was broken into numerous different
languages and the human race was scattered over the face of the earth (Gen 1:1-9).
The linguistic multitude appears as a consequence of sin. Nevertheless, the Church
never sought a playback, that is, the imposition of one common language on the
nations or through the ages. She realistically accepts the already existing post-Babel
languages and tries to transform them into new flesh of the truth. This is what
happened, firstly - in opposition to Babel - at the Pentecost, when people from
different nations heard the apostles declaring the wonders of God in each of their own
languages (Acts 2: 4-6). This was the beginning of the opening-up of the Church to
the world, so that “every tongue confesses that Jesus Christ is Lord” (Phil. 2:11). It is
very characteristic how an important Christian text dating from the 2nd or the 3rd

28
Nicodemus of the Holy Mountain, To Pedalion (in Greek), Astir, Athens 1976, preface, pp. ix-xi.
English translation: The Rudder (tr. D. Cummings), Chicago 1957.
 17

century, the “Epistle to Diognetus”, describes the presence of the Christians in the
world. It clarifies that the Church is certainly something new to the world, but, at the
same time, she is not a marginalized sect speaking an extraterrestrial jargon: “The
difference between Christians and the rest of mankind is not a matter of nationality, or
language, or customs. Christians do not live apart in separate cities of their own,
speak any special dialect, nor practice any eccentric way of life... Nevertheless, the
organization of their community does exhibit some features that are remarkable, and
even surprising... For them, any foreign country is a motherland, and any motherland
is a foreign country”29. This is why, after all, St John Chrysostom assures us that it is
no shame if the Church adopts the so-called barbarian languages30.
31
One could go on mentioning several examples of this Church attitude [e.g. the
missionary work of St Innocent Veniaminov (1797-1879) among the tribes of Alaska,
Nikolai Ilminski among the Tartars (1822-1891), St Nikolai Kassatkin in Japan (1836-
1912), etc]. But, what is of special importance to us today is the debate between the
western clergymen and St Cyril, the apostle of the Slavs. The western clergymen
claimed that the liturgy should be performed exclusively in the three ancient
languages, Hebrew, Greek and Latin, in which Pilate ordered the composition of the
inscription of the Crucifixion, “Jesus of Nazareth, the king of the Jews” (John 19:19).
St Cyril confronted them and called them Pilate's disciples. He defended not only the
right of every people to hear and speak, but also the right of God to reveal Himself to
everyone32. If Orthodox Christians today tend to pronounce one language as “holy”
and the rest as “profane”, we are thus turning our back on the tradition of Orthodoxy
and espouse the opinion of the western clergymen just mentioned; while - it should be
recalled - the Roman Catholics adopted the vernacular, at least since the Second
Vatican Council (1962-65), as the western Protestants had long before.
All this linguistic sensibility is not merely a matter of the translation of texts from
one language to another. Beyond this, it has to do with the very construction of the

29
Early Christian Writings (tr. M.Staniforth - rev. A.Louth), Penguin Books, 1987, pp. 144-145.
30
Chrysostom, Homil. 8 habita postquam presbyter Gothus, PG 63, 501.
31
For a general survey, see Lamin Sanneh, Translating the Message. The Missionary Impact on
Culture, Orbis Books, New York 1990.
32
Francis Dvornik, Byzantine Missions among the Slavs. SS Constantine-Cyril and Methodius, Rutgers
University Press, N. Brukswick / N. Jersey 1970, pp. 115, 129.
 18

Church. It enables a local Church to be truly local and truly Church. It enables her to
express herself, to produce her own texts and produce a new transplantation of the
Truth into a new field, in a new cultural context, in a particular civilization, in a
particular society.
Yet, worldwide discussions today focus on Globalization. The world seems to be
swept up by the dominant model of modern western civilization. Some people believe
that the strengthening of the particular, local cultures is the only hope in the face of a
storm of levelling. Others think that no particular culture has any future. The fact is
that today, for several reasons, two languages prevail. On the one hand English, which
seems to have become universal. On the other hand, the Internet and Virtual Reality
seem to be emerging as a kind of new universal and powerful language. Both of these
are establishing the parameters for the global communication. This communication,
no doubt, offers the exciting opportunity of exchanging messages from one corner of
the earth to the other, but, at the same time, it promotes a questionable ideal: The ideal
of a communication without real, local community; a bodiless contact. We are going
to deal with these new phenomena later on33, but we can pose the central question
here: Will humankind use all this technology just as a useful instrument that facilitates
the meeting of human persons, or will it lapse into a sui generis “spiritualistic” way of
life that does not care for human community at all? All these are challenges for the
Church. In no event should she alienate herself from the linguistic treasures gathered
through the ages. After all, a good knowledge of the original language of the
ecclesiastical texts is of vital importance for serious theological studies. Nevertheless,
at the same time the Church must be ready to give her witness sufficiently in new and,
perhaps, unforeseen conditions. Her language should neither be reminiscent of an
exhibit in a museum, nor a fossil. Its roots lie in the distant past, but its branches must
blossom in the present and prepare the fruit for tomorrow.
Life in the world has never been easy. Especially when trying to discern the future,
the feeling that knocks at the door of our soul is often uncertainty, if not panic. One
can sympathize with this anxiety, but must not be led to predominantly hostile
feelings towards the world. The Christian task to speak to the world must not
degenerate into an aggressive verbalism that forces its way into the ears of others,

33
See the Chapter Sisoes and Alexander. Dilemmas for Church Mission in an age of Globalization.
 19

yearning to proselytize them even at the expense of their freedom. An authoritarian

act like this may be called commercial marketing or ideological imperialism, but
certainly not a Christian stance34. As I said before, the language of the Church must
remain an invitation, not an imposition. Besides, it must always contribute to a
dialogue, not to a monologue. Let us remember the discussion of Christ with
Nicodemus, with the Samaritan woman (John 3:1-21, 4:1-30) and with others. It is far
from certain that modern Christians will remain faithful to their commitment if they
refuse to listen humbly to the agony, the pain and the questions of the modern world.
For this task, it will help us greatly if we bear in mind an essential characteristic of
the ecclesiastical language: it is not a voice without a body. The Church speaks not
only through her verbal voice, but, at the same time, through her very existence. What
counts is not only what she says, but mainly what she is: a living body that gives fresh
answers to new problems. But here some crucial questions arise. Does the Body of the
Church today live indeed as a Body? Do the Orthodox churches today function really
as communities? Is their theology born and cultivated in these communities, that is,
the parishes? Does theology spring from a common experience of Holy Eucharist, or
is it mainly a matter of individual labour? Are the local Orthodox churches able to
communicate with the modern world and invite it to the Body of Christ? Is the
liturgical life in the parishes accompanied by emphasis upon catechesis, an insistence
on theological criteria and freedom in discussion? These are just some of the
questions that need to be discussed and answered.

To conclude, the inspired words of Fr Georges Florovsky perhaps give us some

indication of the direction we need to follow in order to find an answer to these
questions:
“Orthodoxy is once again revealed in patristic exegesis as a conquering power, as
the power giving rebirth and affirmation to life, not only as a way station for tired and
disillusioned souls; not only as the end but as the beginning, the beginning of a quest
and creativity, a ‘new creature’ ”35.

34
See the Chapter Between the Devil of Imperialism and the deep blue sea of Marketing. Aspects of the
Distortion of Mission in this book.
35
Florovsky, op. cit., p. xviii.
 20

Mission
A consequence or, perhaps, a presupposition of Catholicity?

Is our Lord Jesus Christ a liar?

Before hurrying to judge this question as a blasphemy, let us remember how Christ
Himself describes His second coming and the final judgment: On that day many will
say to Him, “Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive
out demons and perform many miracles?”. Then He will tell them plainly, “I never
knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!” (Mat. 7:22-23).
It is here that the above posed “blasphemous” question arises. How can Jesus
claim that He never knew them? Is it possible that the omniscient God ignores the
very existence of some creatures?
The answer lies in the understanding of the verb “to know” and the noun
“knowledge”. What Christ means here is apparently not the mere mental knowledge,
the collection of information, but something much more than that: real knowledge is
the personal relationship, the communion between persons. I really know someone
insofar as I share my life with him/her in love, as Christ has asked us36.
What the human being is being called to by God is the participation in a
community. When the disciples met Christ after his resurrection, they did not
recognize Him, until he sat at the table with them and shared the food with them
(Luke 24:30-32). What makes me a Christian is not the individualistic acceptance of
an ideology, but the trust in him who invites me to a feast, and the participation in
this feast, that is, in the eucharistic gathering of the Church. Here we can recognize
one another as concrete persons, experience the presence of God, manifest the faith
and anticipate the final gathering in the Eschata, the wedding supper of Christ and the
Church (Rev. 20:9, 21:2).
It is not by chance that the first who spoke about the catholicity of the Church,
spoke in connection with the eucharistic gathering and the construction of a local
Church. It was St Ignatius of Antioch, who, in his letter to the Smyrnaeans (ca 100

36
See John Chrysostom, In inscriptionem Actorum 2, PG 51, 81-82, and In epist. Ad Hebraeos cap.6,
homil. 24, PG 63, 170.
 21

AD), wrote: "Where Christ is, there is the catholic Church" 37. As we can see, Ignatius
uses an adjective ("catholic"), not a noun ("catholicity"). The same happens in the
Creed: “I believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church...”. This is of special
importance. Catholicity is not an abstract concept or an ideological formula, but the
mode of life of a certain community, that is, the Church, the Body of Christ 38.
The term “catholic” (hence “catholicity”) derives from the Greek expression
“kath'holou”, which denotes the totality or the integrity. Applied to the Church, it has
not got a mere geographical meaning. It certainly implies the worldwide expansion of
Christianity, but primarily it signifies the inner wholeness and integrity of the
Church's life 39. The term is used as equivalent of “Orthodox” to mark the difference
of the Church from every other Christian group or denomination, which may hold
parts of the truth, but not the whole Truth. The Church is catholic, because she accepts
and experiences the whole truth incarnate, Jesus Christ, and serves the transformation
of the whole world (with no dichotomies between the so-called “spiritual” and
“material” aspects of life) into flesh of Jesus Christ. That means that the Church is
catholic not only because she holds the truth, but also because she manifests and
offers it to the whole of humankind.
These two elements of ecclesiastical life (the experience and the manifestation of
the truth) are definitely inseparable. In case that the Church denies to proclaim her
truth (that is, rebukes her missionary task), she loses catholicity. According to St Paul,
the Church is Christ's body, “the fullness of Him who fills everything in every way”

37
Ignatius, Epist. ad Smyrnaeos 8, PG 5, 713B. It is most possible that the term was already in use in
the Churches of Asia Minor. See Ioannes Karmires, Orthodoxos Ecclesiologia (Greek for: “Orthodox
Ecclesiology”), Athens 1973, p. 297.
38
John Meyendorff, Catholicity and the Church, St Vladimir’s seminary Press., New York 1983, p.7;
John Zizioulas, Being as Communion, St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, New York 1985, pp. 143-144. It
has been noted that there are no commas between the terms “one”, “holy”, “catholic” church in the text
of the Creed, and there should be none, since all these adjectives form a unit pertaining to the essence
of the Church. See Daniel Sahas, “Catholicity and Mission to the World”, St Vladimir's Theological
Quarterly [from now on: SVTQ] 17.1-2 (1973), p. 119, n. 2.
39
Georges Florovsky, “The Catholicity of the Church”, Georges Florovsky, Bible, Church, Tradition,
Büchervertriebsanstalt, Belmond 1987, p. 39-41. Florovsky claims that “the universality of the Church
is the consequence or the manifestation, but not the cause or the foundation of its catholicity” (p. 40).
Lazar Milin, responding to Sahas' paper (see n. 3), argues that the geographical spread of the Church
definitely enters into the concept of catholicity as one of its essential elements. See SVTQ, op.cit., p.
142-143. That catholicity cannot be separated from univerality, see also Serge Verhovskoy,
“Catholocity and the Structures of the Church”, SVTQ, op.cit., p. 35, and Archbishop Anastasios
Yannoulatos, “The Global Vision of Proclaiming the Gospel”, The Greek Orthodox Theological
Review 42.3-4 (1997), p. 405.
 22

(Eph. 1:23). It is a truly daring conception. If the Church is the fulfillment, the
completion of Christ, it means that Christ is incomplete without the Church, His body,
so much the same as the Church is incomplete without Christ, her head! St John
Chrysostom comments on St Paul's words and emphasizes that, since the body
consists of all the parts, Christ needs every single member of His40. This means that,
although the incarnation was full and the Church is full, at the same time there is an
inherent abeyance: only in the Eschata will the Body of Christ be definitely completed
(Eph. 1:10, 1 Cor. 15:27-28). Thus, the missionary opening-up of the Church to the
world is not an optional activity, but, on the contrary, a fundamental condition for her
catholicity. I dare say that Christ suffers a lack, as long as His creation has not
become His body yet! As the prominent Russian bishop Theophanes put it, “He
Himself is complete and all-perfect, but not yet has He drawn mankind to Himself in
final completeness. It is only gradually that mankind enters into Communion with
Him and so gives a new fullness to His work, which thereby attains its full
41
accomplishment” . Thus, every local Orthodox Church is in essence catholic, since
she adheres to this faith and shares this missionary vision, even if she is not widely
spread in geographical terms, or if her members comprise a minority within a certain
society. But if she loses this universalistic vision, she ceases to be real Church and
degenerates into a centripetal sect, blind to God's creation.
This deep relation between catholicity and mission is stressed by St John of
Damascus (ca 675 - ca 749), who gives us the following definition of the term
“catholic”: The Church - says St John - is called catholic, because her omnipotent
head, that is, Christ, managed to save, through the apostles, the entire (“kath'holou”)
world; the Church - goes on St John - is catholic, because, by the power of the Spirit,
she unites various, strange and multilingual nations from all over the earth, into one
42
peaceful and redeeming faith and relation with God . These features (the
togetherness, the creation of a new community, the liberation from nationalism etc)
form essential characteristics which the ecclesiastical mission must have, in order to

40
John Chrysostom, In epist. ad Ephes. Cap. 1, homil. 3, PG 62, 26. St Basil the Great also argues that
Christ’s body will be complete when it stops lacking any of its members. Epist. ad Italos et Gallos, PG
32, 484A. See also Theophylact, Expositio in epist. ad Philipp. 1, PG 124, 1049 A-C.
41
Cited by Florovsky, op.cit., p. 39.
42
John of Damascus, Adversus Iconoclastas 11, PG 96, 1357 B-C.
 23

serve catholicity, stem out from catholicity and express catholicity. It is noteworthy
that St Cyril of Jerusalem (4th c.) explains the article of the Creed (about the faith “in
one... catholic Church”) in a similar way: The Church - says Cyril – “is called
‘catholic’ for being in the entire world from one end of the earth to the other and for
teaching wholly and unfailingly every tenet that must become part of man's
knowledge... and for subjecting every race of men - whether these are rulers or ruled,
43
intellectuals or simple men - to godliness” .

As I said before, the adjective "catholic" is not an abstract idea, but refers to
something more or less tangible: to the assembly of the faithful. That reminds us that
the Holy Spirit descended on the disciples when "they were all together in one place"
(Acts 2: 1). Here we can find the seeds of the ecclesiastical faith that:
a. Human being's encounter with God takes place in a community. In that case,
experiencing the presence of God is not different from being a member of the Church.
b. This encounter neither takes place in an extraterrestrial space, nor asks the
believers to escape real time. Both, the revelation of God and the construction of the
Church take place in historical time and at certain places. Locality is a basic element
of the Church. The Church is not constructed as a monolithic universal organization,
but as a “constellation” (: communion) of local Churches. It is by no accident that the
Orthodox tradition acknowledges a central role of the bishop in the local community,
but rejects the idea of one universal bishop with worldwide jurisdiction.
However, it would be a tragic mistake if we placed the locality of the Church in
opposition to her catholicity and missionary opening-up. Such a polarization may
reflect a manichaism that very often underlies our modern theology, but, in any event,
it is a distortion of the Orthodox tradition, as we will see later on.
The kontakion of the feast of Pentecost underlines the opposition between two
landmarks of human history. The tower of Babel on one hand, the descent of the Holy
Spirit, on the other:
"When the Most High came down and confused the tongues,
He divided the nations;
but when He distributed the tongues of fire,

43
Translation taken from Sahas, op.cit., p. 119. St Cyril's text is classical on our topic. See Yannulatos,
op.cit., p. 405, Florovsky, op.cit., p. 41, Karmires, op.cit., p. 292.
 24

He called all to unity.

Therefore, with one voice, we glorify the all-holy Spirit".

Pentecost marks two things at the same time:

a. The realization of a new unity conceived as God's gift. It is not just a human
coalition or association, but an ontologically new reality, the divine-human Body of
the Second Person of the Holy Trinity. This unity transcends the national divisions
and all their implications. A new kinship has ever since emerged, a brotherhood
rooted not in the blood of our forefathers, but in the blood of Christ. This unity is
actualized emphatically in the eucharistic gathering, where all barriers (ethnic, social,
biological etc.) are transcended; the assembly of the faithful is elevated to a foretaste
and sign of the Kingdom.
b. The missionary outburst of the newly-born Church. Immediately after the event
of the Pentecost, St Peter addressed himself to a multinational audience and
proclaimed the gospel of salvation, being himself a witness of the Resurrection (Acts
2:9-11,32). What is most important here is the eschatological implication. In the
person of Peter, the Church is standing face to face to the nations and invites them to
become citizens of the future Kingdom. Christ Himself assures us that “When the Son
of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne in
heavenly glory. All the nations will be gathered before him” (Mat. 25:31-32). This
image of a multinational gathering has always signified in Scripture the final response
of humankind to God's invitation and the arrival of creation to its ulimate destination
(Psalm 117:1, Isaiah 2:2-3, Mat. 28:19; 45-23, Rom. 14:11, Rev. 21:24-26 etc).
This twofold character of Pentecost, that is, on one hand the catholicity and on the
other hand the mission, is well expressed by the Byzantine icon of the Pentecost. The
icon does not depict the event of the Pentecost in a naturalistic, photographic manner,
but reveals its true meaning44.
First, it represents twelve apostles, but - strangely enough - one of them is Paul,
who did not belong to the collegium apostolorum yet (of course, Judas is missing).
The iconographer wants to capture not a moment from the past, but the Church in her

44
See the analysis by Paul Evdokimov, L' art de l' icône, théologie de la beauté, Desclée de Brouwer,
Paris 1970, pp. 287-289.
 25

fullness, in her catholicity. Thus, he preserves the number twelve, since this number
bears the meaning of fullness. It stands for the twelve tribes of Israel, which represent
not a certain nation, but the entire oikoumene. We can remember that the
eschatological city described in the last two chapters of the book of Revelation is built
on the pattern of the twelve tribes of Israel (21:12-21) and, of course, it denotes the
introduction of the universe into communion with God (see also Mat. 19:28, Rev. 7:4-
8).
Second, the twelve apostles sit so that they form a horseshoe looking down. The
top of this horseshoe is open, so that the Church remains constantly open to God's
energies. The bottom of the horseshoe is also open, but this time to a dark ark. There
stands an old man, the world (cosmos). He is imprisoned in the darkness and the
decay, but, at the same time, he stretches his hands out in order to receive what the
apostles have to give him. The whole synthesis of the icon reveals what we stressed
before: mission, the opening-up to the world, is not something separate from
catholicity, but an element of it.
One could dare say that mission is not a consequence of catholicity in the sense
that catholicity exists even without mission and mission comes afterwards. Perhaps it
is more accurate to say that catholicity cannot be achieved if mission is missing. The
critical point seems to be the fulfillment of the major promise Christ gave His
disciples before His passion: “When he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you
into all truth” (John 16:13). When the faithful act as missionaries, they not only
convey to the others the truth they “possess”, but they themselves are guided by the
Spirit into fuller participation in truth. After Pentecost, it is the Holy Spirit that
constructs the catholicity of the Church (Eph. 2:19-22), that brings about the meeting
of Philip with the Ethiopian minister (Acts 8:26-40), that prepares Peter to break his
principles and become the guest of a pagan centurion (10:1-20), that initiates the first
mission to the Gentiles (13:1-2) and guides the missionaries in their endeavours
(16:7)45.

The manifestation of this inner correspondence between catholicity and mission

has to stem from actual church life. It is at least superficial to think that there are

45
See Lesslie Newbigin, The Open Secret. An Introdustion to the Theology of Mission, SPCK,
Michigan 1995, pp. 58-59.
 26

innocent distortions of the church life and the canonical function of her institutions.
Now I will try to point out some parameters of this subject, especially important in my
opinion. I will categorize them into two main units: Catholicity in space and
Catholicity in time.

a. Catholicity in space, today

There is always a tension - very often an opposition - between locality and

universality. This tension can be met sufficiently in the light of the antinomical
mystery of Incarnation.
Real human beings live in certain places and human cultures develop in certain
places. So, Christ was incarnated in a certain nation, lived within its culture, spoke its
language, exercised one of its professions etc. All these elements can be considered
aspects of the human nature assumed by the Son. If these concrete elements of locality
are taken out, what remains can certainly be a ghost, but not incarnate God. In other
words, locality guarantees reality and concreteness.
Nevertheless, locality is ecclesiastically legitimate only when interwoven with
ecumenicity. A local Church that undermines her eucharistic and synodal communion
with the rest of local Churches, actually ends up a ghetto. In other words, the
historical flesh of Christ should not be understood as the jail of Christ. Salvation
pertains to the entire humankind because, thanks to Christ's incarnation, whenever
people of a certain nation accept the missionary message, a new incarnation of this
message takes place. The data of new cultural contexts are purified from
dehumanizing elements and are welcomed into the ecumenical Body of Christ.
That means that catholicity is negated if Christians stay indifferent to the
perspective of the participation of all nations and cultures in the event of the Church.
Strictly speaking, a palpable threat against catholicity is nationalism, a permanent
cancer in the guts of Orthodox Church. Nationally-inspired Christianity either dislikes
mission as a concept, or exercises mission as if it belonged to the realm of the Foreign
Office or the Ministry of Commerce! Perhaps the most misleading expression is the
use of the preposition "of" (when it bears the notion of property or product) in the
official names of many of our local Churches. According to Orthodox ecclesiology,
there cannot be "the Church of Athens", but only "the One Church of God in Athens"
 27

(see 1 Cor. 1:2, 2 Cor. 1:1, Gal. 1:2, Eph. 1:1). The Orthodox mission aims at the birth
and growth of a real local church, not at the establishment of a branch of the type of
multinational companies. No doubt, mission creates outposts; but outposts of the
Kingdom.
The dominant phenomenon of our times seems to be Globalization46. It is worth
considering, because it seems to be a kind of universalism or, perhaps, a counter-
ecumenicity. The universal expansion of the capital and the stock exchange market
laws step beyond the geographical and state borders and tend to shape a new universe.
Modern technology and information systems change the notion of space, since
communication from one end of the earth to the other is possible at a radically
different speed than previously, and job or shopping can be done from the PC at
home, in privacy, or rather, in individuality. Many argue that globalization may
subdue what we know as particularities now (culture, tradition, politics, religion etc).
If this really happens, we must defend the importance of locality and the importance
of cultural diversity. But we must neither lapse into chauvinism nor identify human
creativity exclusively to the cultural forms existing so far. New creations may appear,
in the interesting process described as hybridization47. Thus, the cultural flesh of the
local churches must not be reversed into shells or jail of them. If Globalization
prepares a new world, we must get ready for a new mission, putting aside
provincialism and laying emphasis on our treasure called Ecumenicity. But, how
easily can it be done as long as fundamental canonical institutions of Orthodoxy, such
as its synodal system, are practically very often downgraded?

b. Catholicity in time, today

A modern Orthodox has to remain faithful to catholicity. This can be done by

affirming what the Church has affirmed through the centuries. The fact that the
synods used to introduce their doctrinal statements with the phrase: “Following the
Holy Fathers...”, proves that they witnessed to the truth in modern terms, by

46
See, e.g., Ulrich Beck, Was ist Globalisierung? Irrtümer des Globalizierung - Antworten auf
Globalisierung, Suhrkamp Varlag, Frankfurt am Main 1993.
47
D. Howes, “Commodities and Cultural Borders”, Cross-Cultural Consumption: Global Markets,
Local Realities, Routledge, London 1996, pp. 6-8. See also Emmanuel Clapsis, “The Challenge of a
Global World”, The Orthodox Churches in a Pluralistic World, op.cit., pp. 58-59.
 28

remaining faithful to what the earlier synods had defined. Nevertheless, it will be a
severe misunderstanding if this necessary and precious affirmation is conceived as
48
worship of the past . The Church maintains her relation with the past, not because
the past is sacred in itself; not because the experience of the truth means transition to
the past (this reminds me rather of shamanism). There is a secret in Christian
understanding of the past: the past is valuable, because it points not to itself, but to the
future. The historical itinerary of the Church consists of a chain of irreplaceable steps
towards a final destination. It is there, in this destination, that is, in the Eschata, that
the truth lies. “The things of the Old Testament”, said St Maximus the Confessor, “are
the shadow; those of the New Testament are the image. The truth is the state of things
to come”49.
If one takes a careful look at church history, one realizes how wise and how
flexible the Church has very often been in adopting new cultural and social data and
embodying them, in order to express her truth in terms compatible to the present.
Even the term “catholicity” does not originate from the Scripture, but it is a fruitful
loan from the Aristotelian glossary. Besides, in response to the then contemporary
socio-political reality, the Church proceeded to the formation of a new administrative
system, the pentarchy (that is, the "net" of the five older Patriarchates). One could go
on mentioning numerous examples like these, which confirm that the criteria must
remain the same, the forms can change. All this presupposes a missionary sensitivity
in the broadest possible sense.
Nowadays one of the inherent powers of the Church that can prepare her creative
encounter with the future is missionary consciousness. The time-to-come resembles a
foreign land, which the missionary has to enter in order to achieve a new synthesis
between the Gospel and the indigenous culture. If the Church does not succeed in
incarnating her truth into the new social and cultural data, if she clings to past data (as
if they possess a salvific power by themselves), she risks opting for marginalization
instead of catholicity.

48
See Florovsky, op.cit., pp. 105-106. See alsoTheodor Nikolaou, "Die synodale Verfassung und die
Ökumenischen Konzile der Kirche", Orhodoxes Forum 2 (1991), p. 214.

49
Maximus, De Eccles. Hierarch.3, PG 4, 137D. Elaborated by Metropolitan John (Zizioulas) of
Pergamon, "Symbolism and Realism in Orthodox Worship”, Sourozh 79 (2000), p. 9, n. 13.
 29

The Flight as Fight

The flight into the desert as a paradigm for the mission of the
Church in history and society

A.1. An introductory question: Desert versus society?

Anchoretic life is one aspect of the multidimensional Christian ascesis and

especially of monasticism. The term “anachoresis” is usually used as identical with
the “hermitism”. Both refer to solitary life in the desert. Nevertheless, “anachoresis”
has a dynamic meaning. It derives from the verb “anachorein”, meaning "to leave, to
withdraw".
The origins of anachoresis as a historical phenomenon can be traced to the third
century AD in Egypt, when individuals - or sometimes whole communities -
abandoned their villages and withdrew into deserts or swamps to escape the
intolerable burden of taxation; besides, during the persecutions many Christians
sought refuge in the desert, where they possibly tasted the spiritual benefits of
solitude50. For some Christians, however, the motive of the withdrawal into the
wilderness was primarily the desire to live a life in the fullest possible accordance
with God's will, away from every kind of compromise which life in the world implies.
This tension appeared even stronger around the fourth century, when the persecutions
came to an end and Christian life in the empire, enjoying peace and official
recognition, started to become secularized. In particular, after the Egyptian St Antony
(c. 251-356) who, through his exaltation by St Athanasius the Great (c. 296-373),
gained a reputation as “the teacher of the desert”, anchoretic life is highly esteemed in
Christian consciousness. What can be determined as its basic feature is a twofold
action. An exit and, at the same time, an entry: on the one hand, exit, retirement from

50
Derwas J. Chitty, The Desert a City; An Introduction to the study of Egyptian and Palestinian
Monasticism under the Christian Empire, St Vladimir's Seminary Press, New York 1966, p. 7; Peter
Brown, The World of late Antiquity from Marcus Aurelius to Muhammad, Thames and Hudson,
London 1971, p. 98; Peter Brown, The Making of Late Antiquity, Harvard University Press, Cambridge
/ Massachussets / London 1978, pp. 84-85. See also Karl Heussi, Der Ursprung des Mönchtums,
Verlag von J.C.Mohr (Paul Siebeck), Tübingen 1936, esp. pp. 70-78.
 30

the cities, disengagement from the world, withdrawal from society; on the other hand,
entry into the desert, flight into the wilderness.
This flight is usually understood as a practical way to avoid the commotion and
upheaval of society. The anchorite appears as the one who pursues tranquility and
silence, that is, conditions which would facilitate his spiritual struggle against his
passions. Certainly, this approach to anchoretic life can easily be seen in the literature
of the Church. Christ Himself withdrew privately to solitary places from time to time
(Mat. 14:13, 23). With regard to this, St John Chrysostom (to mention only a few of
the numerous testimonies one could cite) argues that he who manages to get rid of the
cares, the troubles and the anxieties of everyday life in society, runs an easier way of
life and resembles him who avoids the sea waves and dwells in a safe harbour51.
Tranquility, says St Basil the Great, is highly beneficial to us, since it soothes the
passions of our soul and offers us the opportunity to uproot them52.
The opposition between society and desert is an antithesis between two modes of
life. In the minds of religious people, however, it is not always clear. Very often,
society and desert are wrongly conceived as two ontologically different parts of
Creation, as if they were created out of two different substances, one "holy" and one
"profane", one "clean" and one "unclean". In that case, anachoresis is considered the
saving exit from society, from the sinful place par excellence. Others cannot see in
the anchoretic life anything but a selfish escape which seeks to run away from the
major problems of real life, that is, of life in society. In this respect, established
society has been attributed the characteristics of the "holy" place; every withdrawal
from it appears as nonsense. Though both these aspects seem to be opposed to each
other, they both presuppose - mutatis mutandis - the said dualistic and irreconcilable
distinction between desert and society.
According to authentic ecclesiastical faith and doctrine, however, asceticism
cannot be reduced to a matter of geography. Numerous patristic texts show that the
distinction between desert and society is not an ontological one. Every testimony, of
course, has to be treated properly, that is within its context and not in a fragmentary

51
John Chrysostom, Ad Theodorum lapsum liber secundus, PG 47, 312, 315.
52
Basil, Epist. ii, Gregorio, 2, PG 32, 225B. See also Epist. 42i, ad Chilonem, 5, PG 32, 357A-B.
 31

way53. For example, the above mentioned quotation from St Basil, which praises the
benefits of solitary life, might lead a careless reader to a misunderstanding (e.g. that St
Basil regards the desert as the only place proper for ascesis). Nevertheless, it is very
important that the said quotation is actually preceded by a valuable clarification: If
one - says St Basil - wants to fly from the cares of life, one has to separate oneself
from the world. But exit (anachoresis) from the world must not be conceived literally,
as a bodily withdrawal. Anachoresis from the world means primarily that the soul
must stop being subordinate to the body 54. In a similar way, St Isaak of Nineveh (d.
ca 700) makes it clear that: “When you hear about renunciation of the world or about
abandonment of the world or about being pure of the world, first of all you need to
learn and know... what the term ‘world’ means... The world is the carnal way of life
and the mind of flesh... Negation of the world becomes apparent in these two changes:
by a transformation in way of life and by a difference in mental impulses”55.
On this subject, the words of Nicetas Stethatos (ca1005 - ca1090), the disciple and
biographer of St Symeon the New Theologian, are of special significance: “I have
heard some people arguing that none can aquire virtue without leaving and taking off
to the desert; but I wondered, how can they ever believe that something unlimited (i.e.
our relationship with God) can be restricted to certain places... The powers of the soul
have been inscribed within us since our creation, by divine and non-material energy.
With and through these powers ... we can enter the heavenly Kingdom, which is
inside us, as the Lord said. Thus, the desert is not necessary, since we can enter the
Kingdom even without it, by repentance and keeping God' s commandments. This can
be done, according to Saint David, in every place which is dominated by God;
because he says 'Praise the Lord, O my soul, everywhere in His dominion' (Psalm
102:22)”56.

53
For the relationship between the catholicity of the church doctrine and the partiality of certain
testimonies, see my “Tes Christianikotetos e askesis” (Greek for: “Practicing Christianity”), Sinaxi 53
(1995), pp. 11-26.
54
Basil, Epist. 2, Gregorio, 2, PG 32, 225 B. Actually, St Basil was in favour of cenobite life. See
Basil, Regulae Fusius Tractatae, 7, PG 31, 928B-933C.
55
St Isaac of Nineveh, On Ascetical Life (transl. from the Syriac by Mary Hansbury), St Vladimir's
Seminary Press, New York 1989, 39-40.
56
Filokalia ton ieron Niptikon, Astir, 3, Athens 1976, pp. 289-290 [in Greek] (The Greek texts are here
rendered by myself). Others have interpreted the verse “the Kingdom of God is within you” (Luke
17:21) as pointing not to the soul of the individuals, but to the Church community. In any event, what
 32

A.2. An introductory answer: Creation versus Autonomy

Nicetas' last comments successfully highlight the heart of the matter: Every place
can become the place of the dominion of the Lord; nevertheless, the dominion of the
Lord has not yet been established everywhere. What is implied here, and what has
been partially clarified above, can be summed up in Church doctrine as follows:
The only fundamental distinction we can make is not between two parts of the
creation (e.g. society and desert), but between the Creator and the Creation; that is,
between the Un-created (God) and the Created (universe). This is an ontological
distinction, since God's essence and the essence of the Creation are totally different.
We must keep in mind that the word “Creation” denotes everything except God alone:
angels, humans, animals, inorganic matter etc. Each one's particular mode of
existence is just an aspect of the Created57.
Thus, the whole world is conceived as Creation; and since it was created by God
himself, “it was very good” (Gen. 1:31). He brought Creation into existence so that it
would of its own volition lead towards God, meet Him and finally become His flesh;
to be more precise, the final goal of Creation is to become the body of the Son, the
second Person of the Holy Trinity, and thus enter the eternal trinitarian life. The
realization of this schema began with the Incarnation of the Son. As God-Man (that is,
as the person in whom the divine and the created nature met and became united),
Christ marked the inception of a procedure with universal - cosmic perspectives. The
entire Creation was brought into being and invited to participate in His incarnation, to
be assumed by Him, to become Church, so that God may be finally all in all (1 Cor.
15:28; see also Eph. 1:22-23, Col. 1:15-20, Rev. 21). In particular, man was ordained
priest and was appointed as helmsman who will lead Creation to its destination. This
eschatological perspective of the historical course of Creation has been emphasized by
Orthodox theology and especially by Church Fathers such as Irenaeus (ca 130 - ca

matters here is not the biblical interpretation, but the clarification of the concepts “desert” and
“society”.
57
Cf. Athanasios N. Papathanasiou, Religion, Ideology and Science, Alexander Press, Montreal 2004,
pp. 23-27.
 33

200), Maximus the Confessor (ca 580 - 662), Nicodemus of the Holy Mountain (ca
1749 - 1809) and others58.
Man, however, can either accept or reject God' s invitation. Hence, Creation can
either become a place of the Lord's dominion, or degenerate into a place of evil's
dominion. Thus, the distinction between “holy” and “profane” cannot be abolished,
but it must be clear that it does not refer to the essence or the calling, but to the
deliberate orientation of Creation, that is, its choice to go towards God or away from
him. What we have just called “orientation of Creation” has nothing to do with
moralism or sentimentalism. It is a matter of life. The relationship with God and,
finally, unity with him means participation in Life, since for every created existence
life is a gift, a donation by him who is uncreated and owes his existence to nothing
and none. In this perspective, communion and life coincide. On the contrary, if the
creatures choose autonomy by breaking their connection with God, they face the
danger not merely of becoming “bad” in a moral sense, but primarily of depriving
themselves of Life.
The status, however, of autonomy can give way to relationship with God
whenever man repents and responds to God' s calling. Every part of Creation which
has not yet found its way into the Church, resembles a territory under illegal
occupation. What remains in abeyance, is its liberation and the re-establishment of
freedom over it .
In cases like this, what we could call a liberation struggle bears historical and
eschatological characteristics. Its ultimate horizon is the vision of the final encounter
of Creation with its Creator. The struggle of the Christians to elevate every part of
Creation to the position of the dominion of the Lord means to serve the itinerary of
Creation towards God. It is a historical attitude and, at the same time, a sign, an
anticipation and foretaste of the Kingdom. Every particular activity has to derive its
meaning from this fundamental perspective; otherwise it is meaningless. So, the
Christian ascesis cannot be conceived as the effort of the spirit to get rid of the body,
or as the longing of the soul to escape from history. Such concepts, placed in an un-
historical, static frame, constitute a kind of spirituality clearly at variance with the
Christian faith. In other words, what the Church craves for, is not the annihilation of

58
For a comprehensive examination of this issue see Panayotis Nellas, Deification in Christ; The
Nature of the Human Person (tr. Norman Russell), St Vladimir's Seminary Press, New York 1987.
 34

a part of the creation (e.g. the body) in favour of another part (e.g. the soul), but the
Resurrection of the human being in its fullness in communion with Christ.

B. The flight as fight

Anachoresis into the desert has many dimensions. To a great extent, the meaning
it assumes presupposes the meaning attributed to the desert. Thus, the desert can
appear as the realm of tranquillity, as the shelter for the persecuted, as the meeting
point with Yahweh, as the pure place distinct from the corruped urban life, or as a
cursed, devastated land. These dimensions appear already in the Semitic Orient and
the Old Testament, that is, before the 4th century, the age of anachoresis59.
But here we shall deal only with a specific aspect of anchoretic life, which is
usually ignored or overlooked: anachoresis not as an escape, but as an expedition, an
invasion; not primarily as a "withdrawal", but as an "entry". Here, what counts more
is not the city (as the place left behind) but the desert (as the territory to be
conquered). As we shall argue extensively later on, from this point of view
anachoresis is conceived as the active vindication of places occupied by evil, that they
may be liberated from evil and rendered to God.
In the Semitic and Mesopotamian tradition, the desert was not thought of as an
empty place, but - on the contrary - as inhabited. It was considered to be the abode of
the powers which harass mankind; the domain of the demons. The wilderness, the
wasteland and the ruins were regarded as their favorite haunts60. A similar concept
recurs in ancient Egypt. The cultivated, fertile “black land” was the realm of the god
of life, while the sterile “red land” was the habitation of the evil god Seth61.

59
For the various concepts of the “desert” and withdrawal into it, see Antoine Guillaumont, “La
Conception du dιsert chez les moines d' Egypte”, Revue de l' Histoire des Religions 3 (1975), pp. 3-21;
J. A. Selbie, “Wilderness or Desert”, A Dictionary of the Bible (J. Hastings, ed.) IV, Edinburgh 19043,
pp. 917-918; W. L. Reed, “Desert”, The Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible, I, New York / Nashvill
1962, pp. 828-829; G. Kittel, “Ἔρημος” , Theologisches Wörterbuch zum Neuen Testament (Hrgs.
Gerhard Kittel) II, Stuttgart 1935, pp. 654-657; John Chryssavgis, “The Sacredness of Creation in the
Sayings of the Desert Fathers”, Studia Patristica 25 (1993), pp. 346-351.
60
T. H. Gaster, “Demon. The habitat of demons”, The Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible, op.cit., pp.
821; Guillaumont, op.cit., p. 4.
61
Guillaumont, op.cit., p. 11.
 35

It is interesting that in the Old Testament the devastated and ruined cities become
the residence of demons and wild beasts 62. In the case of desolated cities it becomes
clear how a place can be deprived of the presence of God and degenerate into desert.
The places which - through their inhabitants' sins - reject the sovereignty of God, pass
under the yoke of the demons. Perhaps it is not by chance that the supposed root of
the Hebrew word denoting “demon” means "to be mighty", hence "to rule"63. In a few
words, one could say that the devil and his demons are usurpers since they keep under
their own yoke creatures (places, living beings etc) which do not belong by nature to
them. In the New Testament the evil spirits dwell in arid areas; when they possess a
man, they try to drive him into solitary places (where they dominate) and they succeed
in this, even when his relatives have chained him hand and foot (Luke 8:29, 11:24)!
Within the frame of this tradition, the anchorites cannot be seen as fugitives. On
the contrary, they are a kind of determined pioneers of the Church. They penetrate and
intrude into the quarters of the enemy, seeking for direct conflict with him in order to
expel him. The example for an action like this was set by Christ Himself.
After he was baptized, "Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by
the devil" (Mat. 4:1; see also Mark 1:12-13, Luke 4:1-2). Jesus stayed in the desert for
forty days and was confronted with the three demonic temptations. In this event we
can lay emphasis on the following parameters. Christ's entry to the desert was not an
accidental episode, but a deliberate initiative guided by the Holy Spirit. The pattern of
the incarnational mission of the Son is repeated here. The Son is being sent (John
17:18) into a place which has renounced its relationship with God (John 1:10-11). The
purpose of this "invasion" was direct struggle with Satan. Theophylact, archbishop of
Ochrid (ca 1050-1126), comments: “The Holy Spirit led Him to the battle against the
devil. He went into the desert in order to give the devil the pretext to attack Him”64.
After the victorious outcome of the battle, that is, after Christ's confrontation with
the three temptations had been completed, "the devil left Him, and angels came and
attended him" (Mat. 4:11); "he was with the wild animals and angels attended him"
(Mark 1:12-13). The desert, which had shortly before been occupied by the devil, was

62
Isaiah 13:21, 34:13-14, Jeremiah 27:39, Zephaniah 2:14, Baruch 4:35. The beasts are often connected
to evil powers. See Psalm 21:11-21, Ezekiel 34:5, 8: 25.
63
Owen C. Whitehouse, “Demon, devil”, A Dictionary of the Bible, op.cit., I, p. 590.
64
Theophylactus, Enarratio in Evangelium Lucae, 4, PG 123, 745C.
 36

at last liberated and became a place of dominion of the Lord, a place where
communion between the Creator and his Creation (man, angels, animals etc) was re-
established. Actually Christ acted like this during the whole period of his earthly life.
He consistently expelled demons from every residence they usurped, including the
people they had possessed. St Ambrose of Milan (ca 339-397) connects the verse
Luke 4:1-2, with the whole work carried out by Christ; Jesus, the second Adam,
entered the desert, where the first Adam had been exiled, in order to challenge the
devil and liberate the ancestor (in reality, entire mankind)65. Furthermore, it is of
particular importance that in an exegetical tradition, even his flight to Egypt (in order
to avoid the massacre ordered by Herod) is viewed not as an escape, but rather as a
purposeful entry in order to purify Egypt, which was considered one of the two
“workshops of evil”. The other one, Babylon, was purified voluntarily, because its
representatives, the three Magi, went to him. But Egypt had stayed away from Him,
so He had to go to it 66.
It would probably be fair to say that the anchorites have modelled themselves
upon Christ. The “Life of St Anthony”, for example, informs us that in the desert,
where Anthony dwelt, something which reminds us of the above quoted scriptural
narrative, happened: When Anthony came to attain the heights of ascesis, the demons
went away from him and the wild animals became peaceful towards him67. The
anchorites and the authors of the relevant texts (narratives, sayings, lives etc) probably
shared the said tradition about the evil yoke over the desert. It is very important that
the demons appear very often claiming to be the owners and masters of certain parts
of the creation. When they attacked Anthony, they cried to him: "Get off our own
domain; it's none of your business to involve the desert"68. According to another

65
“Conuenit recordari quemadmodum de paradiso in desertum Adam primus eiectus sit , ut aduertas
quemadmodum de deserto ad paradisum Adam secundus reuerterit... Plenus igitur Iesus spiritu sancto
agitur in desertum consilio, ut diabolum prouocaret... ut illum Adam de exilio liberaret ». Ambroise de
Milan, Traité sur l' Evangile de S. Luc, I, livres I-VI, SC 45 (Dom Gabriel Tissot, ed.), Paris 1956, pp.
153, 156. Here another dimension is clearly implied: the desert as the symbol of human life away from
God. I refer to this in the last section of this study.
66
Theophylactus, Enarratio in Evangelium Matthaei, 2, PG 123, 168C. Cf. Chrysostom, Homilia 8, Et
intrantes domun, 4, PG 57, 88.
67
Athansius, Vita et conversatio S.P.N. Antonii, 51, PG 26, 917B.
68
Athanasius, Vita, 13, op. cit. 861C.
 37

narrative, the famous anchorite Macarius from Alexandria decided to enter an ancient
pagan graveyard. There he was confronted with the demons who inhabited that
devastated place. They uttered the following (indeed revealing) words: “What do you
want, Macarius? Why have you come to us?... You and your fellow anchorites occupy
our property, that is, the desert. You have chased our relatives away... Why do you
trespass on our own regions?”69. Something similar is said to have happened when an
anonymous anchorite entered a pagan temple and had a skirmish with the demons
dwelling there. They told him: “Go away from our own place”. His reply, though
extremely brief, fully expresses the Church faith: “You have no place of your own”70.
For the Church, the claims of the demons over the desert are false and groundless; in
reality, “the Lord's power extends over the desert” (Psalm 107:35). Nevertheless, the
concern which constantly preoccupies the mind of the demons is how they will expel
the anchorites from the desert, either through direct attacks71 or through indirect ones,
that is, by trying to persuade them that no spiritual progress could be achieved in the
desert, and that it would be better for the anchorites to leave the wilderness and return
to the cities. St John Climacus (ca 570 – ca 649) explains that many demons have
been exiled by Christ to the deserts and the abyss for the sake of human kind. Thus, it
should be no surprise if the anchorites suffer severe tribulations there. In particular,
the demons of the prostitution - says St John - attack violently the hermit in order to
convince him that the desert offers him nothing and that he has to go back to the
world72.
The anchorites invade every shelter of the demons without exception: the deserts,
the pagan graves, ruins. In ascetical literature this is expressed through a "charming"
setting: the demons often appear to complain that they are forced to flee from place to

69
Palladius, Historia Lausiaca, 19, PG 34, 1052C-D. The entry into pagan graveyards, as well as the
conversion of pagan temples to Christian Churches should be considered a specific aspect of the
"invasion into the desert". Especially for the conversion of the pagan temples, see my “Aftokritike
ermeneia tes katastrofes paganistikon ieron apo christianous” (Greek for: “A self-critical interpretation
of the destruction of pagan sanctuaries by Christians”), Sinaxi 69 (1999), pp. 49-65.
70
Apophthegmata Patrum, 7, PG 65, 184D.
71
See for example Vita S. Antonii, op.cit., 53, PG 26, 920A-B. See, in general, A. Guillaumont, “(Le
démon) dans la plus ancienne littérature monastique”, Dictionnaire de Spiritualité, Ascetique et
Mystique III, Paris 1957, pp. 189-191.
72
John Climacus, Scala Paradisi, 15, PG 88, 893A. Besides, it is recorded that the demon managed to
persuade abba Nathanael to leave his cell and build another, closer to the town; Palladius, op.cit., 18,
PG 34, 1041 D. See also 32, 1091 D.
 38

place, and that they are ruthlessly expelled successively from all. This is how satan
addressed Anthony: "I have no longer place, arrow or town of my own. The Christians
have settled everywhere; even the desert has been crowded with monks"73. Similar
complaints are found in an episode during the persecutions launched by Valens (ca
375) against the monks in Egypt. Macarius and other anchorites were exiled to an
island inhabited exclusively by pagans. When they disembarked, the demons told
them through the possessed daughter of the pagan priest: "You have chased us out of
every place; of cities and towns, mountains and hills, even out of the uninhabited
desert. We hoped that if we settle in this little island we would be saved from your
arrows; but our hopes are defeated"74.
The struggle for the liberation of Creation seems to be subject to no limitations.
The relevant ascetic narratives, though they may seem mythical and naive, are texts of
wisdom, founded on Christian cosmology. Palladius, the author of the “Lausiac
History” narrates that on one day he was sent by his spiritual father, abba Dorotheus,
to draw up water. When he approached the well, he saw an asp in it; so he returned
desperate to the abba without bringing water at all. But Dorotheus told him: “If the
devil likes to place asps in every well or snakes and other poisonous beasts in every
spring of water, will you abstain from drinking for ever?”. Then the abba drew up
water himself, drank and concluded: “Wherever the Cross dwells, the satan's evil has
no power”75. Here it becomes apparent that the mission of the anchorite is not the
rejection of contaminated Creation, but its purification. Otherwise it would mean that
the anchorite compromises with the devil and finally recognizes and legitimizes his
arbitrary yoke. Every place can be contaminated and every place must be cleansed,
and vice versa. This is why another anchorite, John the Cilix, would advise the monks

73
Vita S. Antonii, op.cit., 41, PG 26, 904 A-B. See also 853C-856A: when Anthony entered a cemetery,
he was attacked by a demon who was afraid that Anthony would fill the desert with monks.
74
Theodoret of Cyrene, Historia Ecclesiastica, 4, 18, PG 82, 1165C. Theodoret (ca 393-ca 466) draws
his information from Socrates (ca 380-450), who mentions the story more briefly. See Socrates,
Historia Ecclesiastica, 4, 24, PG 67, 524C-525A. For the said persecution see Chitty, op.cit., 48.
75
Palladius, op.cit., 2, PG 34, 1011D-1012A. Acording to Barsanuphius (question 416), since the
devil was defeated through the cross, he cannot imitate it even in dreams in order to deceive the
faithful. See Vivlos Varsnoufiou kai Ioannou (Nikodemos Agioreitis, ed.), Rigopoulos, Thessaloniki
1974, pp. 214 (in Greek); French translation in Barsanuphe et Jean de Gaza, Correspondance (tr.
Lucien Regnault - Philippe Lemaire - Bernard Outtier), Abbaye Saint Pierre de Solesmes, Solesmes
1971, p. 290.
 39

not to re-stain the place that had been cleansed from the devil by the earlier
anchorites76. In short, as the late Derwas Chitty put it, anachoresis “was no mere
flight, nor a rejection of matter as evil... It was rooted in a stark realism of faith in
God and acceptance of the battle which is not against flesh and blood, but against
principalities, against powers, against the world-rulers of this darkness”77.
What we find in ascetical texts as “purification” and “cleansing” has to do with the
liturgical relationship between man and the rest of Creation. They are not strangers to
each other. Man can contribute either to the fall or to the resurrection of Creation
(Rom. 8:19-23). Thus, the Christians are the priests who minister the transformation
of the whole world into Church. In this perspective, the anchorites are the
missionaries who would go “to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:7-8) in order to invite
the whole creation to the Kingdom. The above quoted words of abba Dorotheus,
“wherever the Cross dwells...” are extremely important. On no occasion do they imply
magic ritual or such like. Actually, they have to do with the inculcation of Christ into
every aspect of life; it has to do with the incorporation of the Creation into his body.
In fact, the mission which the anchorites have undertaken is to act as new Apostles in
order that what Christ himself achieved on his Cross may be - in a way - extended,
activated, grafted into space and time. This is about human cooperation (synergia) in a
divine work with cosmic potential. In an especially important text St John
Chrysostom throws light on these universal dimensions. Why was Christ crucified
outside the city (Jerusalem), on a high place (Golgotha), and not under a roof? -
Chrysostom asks. And he replies: Christ did so in order to cleanse the air, which was
believed to be the domain of the devil. During the crucifixion the sky was the only
roof over him, so that the sky itself would be cleansed. Apart from the sky, the earth
was also cleansed, because his blood trickled down on the earth and purified all its
pollution. But - Chrysostom continues - why was not he crucified in the Judaic
Temple? And he answers again: he was crucified outside the walls of the city so that
his sacrifice would not be misappropriated by the Judeans. Because his self-offering
was catholic; it was made for the sake of all nations and the cleansing of human

76
John Moschus, Pratum Spirituale, 115, PG 873, 2980 B.
77
Chitty, op.cit., p. xvi .
 40

nature benefits all mankind. Thus, Christ cleansed the entire earth and transformed
every place into place of prayer78.
It is perhaps impressive that the concept in question (i.e. the flight into the desert
seen as an invasion into the domain of evil) underlies the theological understanding of
Christ's death for three days as an active initiative; not only a descent, but, moreover,
an invasion into Hell, the dominion of death, in order to liberate mankind. The images
recalled by the Orthodox Easter hymnes speak for themselves: “Today hell groans and
cries aloud: ‘My dominion has been swallowed up; the Shepherd has been crucified
and He has raised Adam. I am deprived of those whom once I ruled... The power of
death has no more strength’ ” (Holy Saturday). “O Christ, into the deepest abyss of
earth thou didst descend, and didst break the unyielding everlasting bars which held
men prisoners” (Easter Sunday)79.
For the time being, a basic characteristic of Christian life is expectation. The
Christians “groan” inwardly as they wait eagerly for their adoption by God; moreover,
even Creation waits in eager expectation for its liberation from its bondage to decay
(cf. Rom. 8:19-23). Every battle the Church wins (needless to say, such military
images must be understood in a spiritual sense) is a step towards the expected end.
This is why the author of the “Life of St Anthony” rejoices for the presence of the
anchorites in the wilderness. He uses a rather striking hyperbole: “The desert was
turned into a city by monks”80. This is a renowned phrase, very often quoted in essays
on monasticism. It certainly has to do with the communal ideal of the Church and
especially of the coenobitic monasticism; the faithful are not conceived as individuals,
but as members of a body, as citizens of a city. But we shall not deal with this

78
John Chrysostom, Oratio 2 in crucem et in confessionem latronis , PG 49, 408-409. See also
Athanasius, Oratio de humana natura a Verbo assumpta, 25, PG 25, 140B-C, where it is emphasized
that the air had to be cleansed, since it had been the domain of the devil (Eph. 2:2) after his original
fall. I think Cyril Mango is right to wonder whether the same concept (Christ's crucifixion as direct
challenge of the demons in the open air, that is, in their own habitat) “had some bearing at a later date
on the introduction of stylitism”; Cyril Mango, “Diabolus Byzantinus”, Dumbarton Oaks Papers 46
(1992), p. 215.
79
The Lenten Triodion (tr. Mother Mary and Archimandrite Kallistos Ware), Faber and Faber, London
/ Boston 19843, p. 656; Divine Prayers and Services of the Catholic Orthodox Church of Christ
(compiled by Rev. Seraphim Nassar), Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America,
New Jersey 1979, p. 924. For the Orthodox understanding of Christ's descent into hell, see Ioannes
Karmires, I eis Adou kathodos tou Christou ex epopseos orthodoxou (Greek for: “Christ’s descent into
Hell, from an Orthodox point of view”), Athens 1939, esp. 107-143.
80
Vita S. Antonii, op. cit., 14, PG 26, 865B.
 41

perspective now. What we want to underline here is the expression of rejoicing. It is

probably no accident that the same concept (the transformation of the desert into a
city) recurs in the “Life of St Sabas” (439-532). It is interesting to watch how the
“Life” presents and interprets Sabas' withdrawal from the monastery into the desert.
According to the “Life”, the desert was destined to turn into a city by Sabas and so the
prophecies of Isaiah concerning the desert were fulfilled. Sabas pleaded with his abbot
to let him leave the monastery and depart to the desert. Yet, the abbot did not consent;
eventually, however, God appeared to the abbot in a vision and told him: let Sabas go
in order to worship me in the desert81.
We can see here that flight to the desert appears as the performance of God's will,
as the fulfillment of prophecies. That means that God never ceased to vindicate the
desert; the warm expectation for its liberation giver place to rejoicing over the
realization of the liberation. The “Life of St Sabas” is here probably referring to the
prophecy of Isaiah: “Your people will rebuilt the ancient ruins and will raise up the
age-old foundations”82. Besides, the words the abbot heard in his vision are also
biblical verses: “Let my people go, so that they may worship me in the desert”
(Exodus 7:16).
It seems that this hermeneutical approach (i.e. anachoresis, the conquest of the
desert seen as a joyful fulfillment of prophecies) was an idea shared by many. In a
source which refers to monastic life in Egypt, it is recorded that the monks who
gathered around an ascetic named Apollo resembled an angel army. Through their
lives two scriptural prophecies came true: “The desert and the parched land will be
glad; the wilderness will rejoice and blossom” (Isaiah 35:1), and “Sing, O barren
woman, you who never bore a child; burst into song, shout for joy, you who were
never in labor; because more are the children of the desolate woman than of her who
has a husband” (Isaiah 54:1). According to the author, these prophecies were fulfilled
in the case of the Egyptian desert, which became spiritually the most fruitful place,

81
Edward Schwartz (Hrsg.), Kyrillos von Skythopolis, Leben des Sabas (Texte und Untersuchungen),
Leipzig 1939, p. 90.
82
Isaiah 58:12. In the Septuagint the words “ancient ruins” are rendered as ἔρημοι αἰώνιοι
(everlasting deserts). Nevertheless, the Hebrew word comes from a root meaning “to be waste” or
“desolate”; the proper application of this Hebrew term is to cities or districts once inhabited, but now
lying waste. J. A. Selbie, “Wilderness or desert”, A Dictionary of the Bible, op.cit., 4, p. 918 .
 42

though the whole land of Egypt had previously been the most unclean country among
the pagan nations83.
Precisely the same biblical verses (Isaiah 35:1, 54:1) are evoked by Procopius of
Gaza (ca 475 – ca 538), who wants to show that “the Father subordinated the desert to
Christ”. Nevertheless, Procopius gives the "desert" an allegorical meaning, denoting
the evil powers which were defeated by Christ and the nations which, according to
84
God's old promises, were finally converted .
We can see that what is stressed by Procopius (and clearly implied in many of the
above cited texts), is the evangelizing activity of the Church. A number of historical
examples may be briefly cited here to illustrate the point.
It is understandable that the anchoretical attitude discussed so far, that is, the
movement towards all the enslaved parts of Creation, can imply a negation of definite
settling down. Such a concept may be an extreme reflection of the Church conviction
that as long as history proceeds, that is, until the Eschata, we can hardly speak of
anything really definite. Thus, the idea of a constant pursuit of the desert inspired - to
varying degrees - several traditions of monasticism. In the fifth to seventh centuries,
Celtic and, especially, Irish monasticism, for example, developed the ideal of the
monk who was dedicated to missionary “peregrinatio”, that is, to constant travelling
and evangelizing restlessness. For them, the desert was very often the unknown
islands beyond the uncrossable sea. Though we cannot deal in extension with this
admirable missionary epopee here, it is worth pointing out the fact that Celtic
Christianity was influenced by the eastern (Byzantine) tradition85. This tradition
includes not only canon law that firmly forbade the monk to abandon his monastery
without very serious reasons86, but also a practice of constant movement, which may

83
Historia Monachorum in Aegypto (A.-J. Festugiere, ed.), 19-21 (Subsidia Hagiographica 34),
Bruxelles 1961, pp. 54-55. This tranformation of Egypt (especially of its desert) is also stressed by
Chrysostom, Homilia i, Et intrantes domun, 4, PG 57, 88.

84
Procopius from Gaza, Commentarii in Josue, PG 871, 993A-C.
85
See Hans Frhr. von Campenhausen, “Die asketische Heimatlosigkeit im altkirchlichen und
frühmittelalterlichen Mönchtum”, Tradition und Leben. Kräfte der Kirchengeschichte, Verlag von
J.C.B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck), Tübingen 1960, esp. pp. 302-305.
86
See, for example, the 4th canon of the Fourth (451) and 21 of the Seventh (787) Ecumenical Council.
 43

be termed residential instability87. Besides, it is noteworthy that the Rule of St

Benedict (c. 540), which was drawn up freely from the earlier Rules of St Basil, the
Desert Fathers etc, dedicates its very first chapter to the kinds of monks (“De
generibus monachorum”). Benedict praises the cenobites, but he also mentions two
other types which interest us here: first, the anchorites, that is, those who enter the
wilderness in order to fight against the devil; second, the “gyrovagi”, the wanderers,
those who always travel and never remain in one place88. Needless to say, these
ascetical practices bear to our subject to the extend that the said instability is not
merely a seeking of solitude and tranquility, but - on the contrary - is interwoven with
an understanding of the world outside the Church as a huge desert. And, certainly, in
no case is this instability allowed to function as an anti-canonical behaviour, as it
happens with the rejection of the eucharistic-centered structure of the Church89.

C. Mission to every desert

The biblical story of mankind begins with life in a garden (the garden of Eden,
Gen. 2:8-15) and ends with life in a city (the new Jerusalem, Rev. 21:2-4). It is only in
this intervening period, that is, between the original garden and the final city, that is
the desert, the fruit of autonomy, the fallen mode of existence, emerges90.

87
See, for example, Donald M. Nicol, “Instabilitas Loci. The Wanderlust of late Byzantine monks”,
Monks, Hermits and the Ascetic Tradition (Studies in Church History, 22, W. J. Shells, ed.), Blackwell,
Oxford 1985, pp. 193-202.
88
Benedicti Regula, Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticarum Latinorum, lxxv (recensuit Rodolphus
Hanslik), Vindobonae 1960, pp. 17-18: “... Secundum genus est anachoritarum, id est heremitarum...
qui didicerunt contra diabolum multorum solacio iam docti pugnare... Quartum vero genus est
monachorum, quod nominatur gyrovagum, qui... (sunt) semper vagi et numguam stabiles”.
89
It is characteristic that Augustine disapproved of wandering ascetics and accused them of leading a
parasitic life. Perhaps this opinion of his was reinforced by the fact that the ascetics of the schismatic
Donatist church (Augustine's freat rival) formed the “circumcelliones”, bands of wanderers who
terrified their religious opponents. See Henry Chadwick, “The Ascetic Ideal in the history of the
Church”, Monks, Hermits and the ascetic Tradition, op.cit., pp. 12-13.
90
Andrew Louth, The Wilderness of God, Darton-Longman-Todd, London 1991, pp. 26-27 (the author
speaks about this interim, nevertheless the concept he stresses is desert as a meeting point with God).
Jean Meyendorff, St Grιgoire Palamas et la mystique Orthodoxe, Editions du Seuil, 1959, pp. 13: “Le
désert apparaît ainsi comme le type parfait du monde, hostile à Dieu et soumis à Satan, où le Messie
vient apporter la vie nouvelle”. According to St Augustine of Hippo, for the Christians the desert is the
present world. See Karl Bosl, “Ἔρημος-Eremus. Begriffsgeschichtliche Bemerkungen zum
 44

This is where the historical role of the Church comes in.

The Church is neither an air-tight compartment of human life, nor a kind of social
service of established societies. The Church alone constitutes a fresh proposal, a
radically new perspective for the life of the entire world. So, to open herself to the
world - even to those parts which seem totally alienated from her - means to remain
faithful to her own identity.
St Gregory of Nazianzus comments on the way Christ lived on earth and makes it
clear that he did not address himself only to individuals, but also to the concrete
circumstances of human life and to the specific characteristics it has in space and
time. Jesus - Gregory says - committed himself to fishing, so he traveled from place to
place. Why didn't he stay permanently at one place? Because he wanted not only to
win more and more followers, but also to sanctify more places. So, he became a Jew
for the sake of the Jews, he put Himself under the law for the sake of those who are
under the law, he became weak for the sake of the weak and cursed for the sake of us,
the cursed91.
An important aspect of the Incarnation is the “mobility” of Christ, that is, what St
Gregory distinguished as constant travelling from place to place. In other words,
Christ’s deliberate entry into every area, where pain and decay still reigned. One has
to note that in Gregory's words the term “places” is not conceived merely in a
geographical sense, but as signifying the various contexts of human life. This concept
is certainly not irrelevant to what modern Missiology calls “contextualization”.
The anchorites, on behalf of the Church, carried out a critical shift. The people of
God, instead of keeping away from the desert and sending away into it the scapegoat
alone, now enter the desert themselves and pollinate it. The anchoretic entry into the
deserts, therefore, is not exclusively the mission of a particular cast in the Church. As
an attitude towards the world and the historical responsibility of the faithful, it
pertains to the whole Church. Actually, what the anchorites do is not something

historischen Problem der Entfremdung und Vereinsamung des Menschen”, Byzantinische Forschungen
2 (1967), p. 74.
91
Gregory, Oratio37, in dictum Evangelii Cum Consumasset Jesus hoc sermones, PG 36, 281A, 284A-
B. Besides, John Kantakouzenos (d. 1383) argues that Christ did not come only to call sinful
individuals to repentance, but also to honour humble places which were considered unimportant till
then (Bethlehem, Nazareth, Galilee). See Charalampos Soteropoulos, Ioannou tou Kantakouzenou,
Kata Ioudaion logoi ennea, (Greek for: “John Kantakouzenos’ nine sermons against the Jews”), Athens
1983, 91.
 45

exceeding the task of the Church; it is simply the performance of this task. Perhaps it
is not an exaggeration to say that it is a tragedy when the Christians imagine that some
parts of human life belong by nature to evil, or that resistance to evil is carried out by
a kind of expectant, pathetic immobility, rather than by an active initiative.
The desert, as the place under the yoke of evil, has not merely geographical
meaning. This becomes apparent especially in those cases where the setting seems to
have been inverted. Some anchorites, after having won the battle in the desert,
continue their mission by invading, as we have already seen, other devastated places,
such as pagan graveyards, temples, and so on. In such cases the demons (already
expelled from the desert and now dwelling in the graves) protest and, instead of trying
to expel the anchorites from the desert, try to restrict them to the desert. Thus, the
demon of a temple invaded by Macarius, appears to utter to the monk something
which would be unthinkable out of the specific context: "Since you are an anchorite,
the desert is enough for you (restrict yourself to the desert)"92. In reality, the inversion
is only ostensible; the terms and the reason for the clash remain the same. When,
therefore, evil seems to have possessed a part of human life, the anchorite regards this
part as a desert and enters it. An initiative, for example, attributed to St Ephraem
Syrus, a strict ascetic, is significant. Ephraem was informed that the city of Edessa
was heavily afflicted by famine. Judging that social injustice contributed considerably
to this disaster, he left his hermitage, went to the city and convinced the rich to let him
administer their wealth to the profit of the weak. After this was done, the anchorite,
having fulfilled his prophetic mission, returned to his cell93.
Thus, anachoresis can help us understand that the life of the Church is a struggle
indeed, yet it must not be misconceived in terms of an imperialistic expansion. The
entry into the desert is not a model for militant crusades. The fight is actually waged
against evil; not against the infidels, the sinners or even those possessed by evil. The
fight in the name of Christ has to be given in Christ’s loving way only. Moreover,
even those who deny the existence of the devil must admit that it is unfair to identify
(as usually happens) anachoresis with withdrawal from participation in history;
actually, it is evident that anachoresis (even viewed merely as a type of religious

92
Palladius, op.cit., 19 , PG 34 , 1052D.
93
Palladius, op.cit., 101, 1204C - 1209A.
 46

behaviour) presupposes profound confidence in man's historical assignment,

intervention and creativity.
The Church has been called to enter every desert. The desert is any part of
Creation and human life which claims existence in autonomy, out of communion with
the Uncreated. The desert can be anything which has lapsed into the domain of evil, of
whatever kind. As a matter of fact, Christians - whether living in a modern city or in
the wilderness - have to be able to discern that autonomy and its fruits (death,
loneliness, alienation, lack of love, starvation, war, pollution, heresies and so on and
so forth) try to dominate human life. The field for the life-giving mission of the
Church is nothing less than all the deserts of the entire world.
 47

Evangelization and Social Justice

An outlook into history

The relation between the Good News and the struggle for social justice has never
ceased to be a constant concern for the Church. An astonishingly large number of
patristic texts throughout the centuries provide us with ample material which clearly
shows that care for social justice has been of vital importance for genuine Christian
consciousness94.
In modern times it has been elevated to an issue at stake within the global Christian
world. Several theological trends not only relate but also identify mission with
solidarity with the poor, the oppressed and the marginalized. If the origin of the
ongoing ecumenical discussion on this is not to be traced as far back as the 1870s
Social Gospel movement95, it should certainly find roots in the 1968 Uppsala
Assembly of the World Council of Churches, which emphasized the understanding of
mission as participation in the humanization process (that is, in the struggle for human
rights and social justice) and gave rise to notable disputes about the eschatological
character of salvation, the question of God’s transcendence, and the communitarian
understanding of the human being versus a platonic emphasis on the soul alone, etc.96.
It is of vital importance to work on a conception of mission which is ready to
denounce every kind of dichotomy in human life. Worldly commitment and
solidarity, being nothing less than a conditio sine qua non for the authenticity of the
Church, cannot be placed in juxtaposition to the existential demand of human

94
See, for example, my Koinonike Dikaiosyne kai Orthodoxe Theologia (Greek for: Social Justice and
Orthodox Theology), Akritas, Athens 2001.
95
See Donald K. Gorrell, “Social Gospel Movement”, Dictionary of the Ecumenical Movement, WCC
Publications, Geneva 2002, p. 1044.
96
See, for example, the essential remarks of M. M. Thomas, Salvation and Humanisation. Some
Critical Issues of the Theology of Mission in Contemporary India, The Christian Literature Society,
Madras, India 1971, who defended the Uppsala approach, claiming that it is the hope for the future
Kingdom that not only inspires, but also demands the historical action of Christians. See also Uppsala
to Nairobi 1968-1975. Report of the Central Committee to the Fifth Assembly of the World Council of
Churches, WCC / Friendship Press / SPCK, New York - London 1975, pp. 122-177; David J. Bosch,
Transforming Mission. Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission, Orbis Books, Maryknoll, New York
1992, pp. 395-97; Timothy Yates, Christian Mission in the Twentieth Century, Cambridge University
Press 1994, pp. 164, 196; J. Andrew Kirk, What is Mission? Theological Explorations, Darton,
Longman and Todd, London 1999, pp. 58-59.
 48

personhood for life eternal. As Anastasios, Archbishop of Tirana and all Albania, put
it in the plenary address to the San Antonio world conference (1989), “the simplistic
anthropology that encourages a naive morality by passing our existential tragedy by
does not help at all”97.
An inquiry into the history and tradition of the Church (needless to say, taking into
serious consideration the changes throughout the centuries) can contribute to the
formation of meaningful answers to questions and dilemmas about the balance
between mission and social justice – answers which have, of course, to be updated in
the contemporary historical context.

Miracles usually occupy a special place in religious life. Many religious people are
convinced that working miracles proves the arrival of their performer at the highest
level of spiritual life. In this perspective, miracles are also conceived as the
missionary means par excellence, that is, as the indisputable manifestation of God’s
power so that conversion seems inevitable. Thus, if anyone dared challenge this
monarchy of miracle-working and say, for example, that care for social justice has a
missionary impact equal to that of miracles, he would most probably be thought
impious. Yet, however strange it may sound, this challenge has been uttered not by a
modern atheist, but by a person renowned for his social engagement and missionary
zeal: St John Chrysostom (4th c.).
Chrysostom reminded his listeners that in the first Church in Jerusalem “all the
believers were one in heart and mind and no one claimed that any of his possessions
was his own, but they shared everything they had; they distributed to anyone as he
had need so that all of them led an angelic life. If the same thing could take place
today, the entire oikoumene would be converted to Christian faith and yet without
working miracles”98. Exhorting the faithful to missionary commitment he argued: “If

97
Anastasios of Androussa, “Thy Will be Done; Mission in Christ’s Way”, New Directions in Mission
and Evangelization (James A. Scherer - Stephen B. Bevans, eds.), Orbis Books, vol. 2, Maryknoll, New
York 1994, p. 33. Let us note here that this couple of introductory paragraphs are extracts from my
Reflections on the Preparatory Paper no 4 for the 2005 Conference on World Mission and Evangelism
(Athens), which I sent to the organizers in August 2004.
98
Chrysostom, In Epist. 1 ad Cor. Homil. 6, PG 61, 52-53 (the translation of all Greek texts is mine).
 49

you cannot work miracles and persuade the others, convince them by what you can
afford; by charity, protection of the weak, mildness, cajolery and all the like”99.
We have to pay special attention to the fact that what Chrysostom calls “angelic
life” in the description of the first Christian community is not identified with a
spiritualistic flight from social commitment, but, quite the opposite, with concern for
social justice. Neither is the Church an isolated island, nor is the world an ocean
indifferent to her. Insofar as Church life reflects the loving life of the Holy Trinity,
she also reflects the constant pouring out of the divine love towards every creature,
without discrimination. Thus, serving others is but the Christian way of life. To serve
others means that we try to cease existing in an individual way. As a matter of fact we
try to live in a Trinitarian way, that is, in communion. Serving others becomes the
path towards fellow-men and God at the same time. In this path the so-called
“spiritual” and the so-called “social” issues can hardly be different – let alone
opposite – spheres. This diaconia, which is “faith expressing itself through love”
(Gal. 5:6), can be exercised in many ways, that is, either by personal charitable
activities or by organized efforts for the prevalence of social justice in sustainable
political terms.
The Trinitarian love that embraces everything without demanding anything in
return, has been since the very earliest times the special feature of the introduction of
the Church into social reality. St Ignatius (1st c.), for example, insisted that “faith and
love sum up everything. Nothing can be placed above them. You can see how those
who reject Jesus Christ’s grace finally oppose God’s will ... They do not care for love,
for the widowers and the orphans, for the oppressed and the distressed, for the
imprisoned and the freedmen, for the hungry and the thirsty”100. We read the same in
the “Didache (Doctrine) of the Twelve Apostles”, the important treatise of the 1st c.101
This witness, coming directly from the experience of the early Church, bears a
bitter irony. For Ignatius and the “Didache”, a divorce between solidarity for social
justice on the one hand, and metaphysical acceptance of Christian faith on the other
hand, is unthinkable. Injustice is conceived as the empirical sign that Christian faith

99
Chrysostom, In Acta homil. 18, PG 60, 147.
100
Ignatius, Epist. Ad Smyrnaeos 6, PG 5, 712B-C.
101
Le Doctrine des Douze Apôtres - Didachè (W. Rordorf – A. Tuilier, eds.), Sources Chrétiennes 248
(1998), p. 166-168.
 50

has been dismissed. One can hardly avoid wondering how the Saint would judge the
global situation today, after almost twenty centuries of Christian faith on earth!

Concern for social justice can function in a missionary manner in two ways:
Firstly, it is a foretaste of the expected Kingdom of the Triune God. It reveals that
the yearned-for fulfillment of history will be the prevalence of love and the abolition
of all powers of decay and pain over the entire creation (cf. Rev. 21:4-5). Struggle for
social justice and brotherly co-existence makes clear that Christians do not understand
history as a passive expectation of the End, but as a creative route inspired by this
future fulfillment.
Secondly, it reveals in deeds the marrow of the Church within a religiously and
ideologically pluralistic world and it usually becomes the measure by which the
seriousness of the Christian message is judged. The “Lausiac History”, for example, a
text depicting the monasticism of the early 5th c., tells of Count Ueros and his wife
Vosporia who, at the onset of a lethal plague, attracted many heretics to orthodoxy,
just by opening their storehouses to the poor and hungry102. Likewise, the tireless
social care of John Eleemon (“the Merciful”), patriarch of Alexandria (late 6th – early
7th c.) had a similar impact on pagans103. But let us return to Chrysostom who
envisioned the revival of the communal ideal of the first Christian Church and its
realization over the entire world. Regardless of how utopian such a revival may have
been, Chrysostom was ready to describe its success and its impact upon society. “If
this thing was dared and accomplished in a time when the faithful ranged between
three and five thousand, when everyone on earth was their enemy, when support was
not to be expected from anywhere, couldn’t the same be done today when, by God’s
grace, one can find faithful in every single place of the ecumene? Who would remain
a pagan in a situation like this? None, I think. We would convert and attract everyone
to us”104.
Beside these Christian literary testimonies there is also another, from a source
hostile to the Church. It is a letter of the emperor Julian the Apostate (4th c.) to

102
Palladius, Les Moines du Desert; Histoire Lausiaque, Desclée de Brouwer, Paris 1981, p. 145.
103
See H. Gelzer, Leontios von Neapolis, Leben des Heiligen Johannes des Barmherzigen Erzbischofs
von Alexandrien, Freiburg/Leipzig 1893.
104
Chrysostom, In Acta homil. 11, PG 60, 98.
 51

Arsacius, the pagan high priest of Galatia: “Why do we not observe that it is their
(that is, the Christians’) benevolence to strangers, their care for the graves of the dead
and the pretended holiness of their lives that have done most to increase atheism?105 I
believe that we ought really and truly to practice even one of their virtues... In every
city establish frequent hostels in order that strangers may profit by our benevolence; I
do not mean for our own people only, but for others also who are in need of money...
For it is disgraceful that, when no Jew ever has to beg, and the impious Galileans106
support not only their own poor but ours as well, all men see that our people lack aid
from us”107.
Despite the Emperor’s bitterness against Christians, the information he conveys to
us is rather impressive. The pagans had fallen into social aphasia. The Jews took care
of their kinsmen. The Christians, however, opened themselves up to everyone in need.
This was really an aspect of the new reality that had already entered the world of late
antiquity. In another letter to a pagan priest left anonymous, Julian disgustedly
mentions the missionary function of Christian charity. “Just as those”, he says, “who
entice children with a cake, and by throwing it to them two or three times induce them
to follow them, and then, when they are far away from their friends cast them on
board a ship and sell them as slaves,... by the same method, I say, the Galileans also
begin with their so-called love-feast, or hospitality, or service of tables... and the
result is that they have led very many into atheism”108. Almost seven centuries later
the Byzantine chronographer George Cedrenus repeats this information claiming, in
his turn, that Julian imitated the Christians’ social sensitivity in order to deceive the
naive109.

105
In Julian’s fixed glossary atheism is Christianity, since it was identified with rejection of the (pagan)
gods.
106
The Christians.
107
The Works of the Emperor Julian (original text and an English translation by Wilmer Cave Wright),
vol. 3, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachisetts / London 19936, pp. 69-71.
108
The Works of the Emperor Julian, op.cit., vol. 2, William Heinemann / MacMillan, London / New
York 1913, pp. 337-339.
109
Georgius Cedrenus, Chronographia, Corpus Scriptorum Historiae Byzantinae, Bonnae 1838-39,
I.533.20-534.15.
 52

As we can see, both opposing sides accused one another of using social care in a
hypocritical spirit, that is, simply as an instrument of propaganda. Here we reach a
point of really crucial importance. Our historical experience enables us to discern
between a wholehearted, deliberate conversion on the one hand and a deceptive
proselytism on the other hand. Irrespective of whether terms like “attracting”,
“converting” etc appear in patristic texts composed several centuries ago, it should
always be clear that freedom is the back bone of Christian presence. All kinds of
aggressive mission have to be condemned as dreadful deviation from Christ’s way.
Thus, the endowing of life-in-Christ with social dimensions must in no case be
exercised as a mask or as propaganda. Concern for justice comes out of the hard core
of Christian faith. It is not the product of a schedule set up opportunistically for the
purpose of gaining new fans. It is not by chance that numerous Church Fathers insist
that love and solidarity have to be exercised without discrimination towards fellow
countrymen and aliens, towards believers and dissenters110. In other words, social care
is not an embellished and illusory shop-window, but an actual revelation of the
mystical self of the Church. As far as it is a revelation, it is mission. That’s why the
distortion of spiritual life and the betrayal of social concern go hand by hand.
As a matter of fact, the root of this distortion and betrayal is the degeneration of
Trinitarian life into ego-monism. Chrysostom lashed out against the practical
dichotomy between the Christian doctrine and the everyday life of Christians: “The
lust for money has possessed even those who appear to be pious. Let us be intimidated
by the evangelical commandments. We have left them to lie in the Bible as mere
words, never making them manifest as real deeds”111. “A great number of poor haunt
the Church, but she cannot help any one of them, though she has so many rich
children. So, one is hungry, while the other is on the booze; one goes to a silver loo,
while the other lacks even bread. What kind of madness is that?”112.
The ecclesiastical tolerance or – even worse – justification of social injustice
means that her consciousness is lame; her backbone of loving freedom is corrupted
and, consequently, her missionary opening-up is a fraud. Chrysostom similarly

110
See, for example, Basil the Great, De eleemosyna, PG 32, 1160D-1161A.
111
Chrysostom, In epist. I ad Thessal. cap. 5, homil. 10, PG 62, 458.
112
Chrysostom, In epist. ad Coloss. cap. 3, homil. 7, PG 62, 351-352.
 53

interrogates each member of the faithful: “Tell me! When being a vulture and greedy,
what can you tell the pagan? Can you perhaps tell him ‘get away from paganism, get
to know God and tear yourself away from money’? Is it not most likely that he is
going to laugh at you and reply: ‘Say that to yourself first’? It is outrageous if a pagan
worships idols (that is, money) and a Christian does the same. Shall we be able to
invite others away from idolatry, if we are not willing to do so first to ourselves?”113.
“When a pagan finds out that he who has been commanded to love even his own
enemies is greedy and a vulture who preaches contradictory to his own life and
behaves to his fellow humans as if he handles beasts, then the pagan will conclude
that Christian teaching is nothing but silliness... We Christians are the reason for their
remaining in error. They reject their traditional faith and admire ours. Yet our own
way of life hinders them... As they see us behave worse than beasts and mangle our
neighbours, they call us the disaster of the oikoumene. All these things impede the
pagans from joining us. Thus, we are going to account to God not only for the wrong
things we did, but also for any of our acts because of which the infidel curse the name
of God”114.

At the beginning of this essay we spoke about the misconception common among
many religious people that performing miracles enjoys the primacy in Christian life.
We should always keep before our eyes the well-known metaphorical description of
the final Judgment, as Christ himself narrated it. Christ, reads the scriptural text, will
push away from him many who performed miracles and welcome near him those who
welcomed others in unconditional love (Mat. 7:22-23). Love incarnate in acts of
solidarity with the victims, and in collision with dehumanizing exploitation, is a
special mission today. As St John Chrysostom put it, the language in which the
Church addresses herself to the world cannot refer always to its glorious past; the
world is expecting to see how the Christians of today will testify to their faith115.

113
Chrysostom, In epist. ad Rom. homil. 7, PG 60, 440.
114
Chrysostom, In Johannem homil. 72, PG 59, 394-395. Cf. Isaiah 52:5, Ezek. 36:22, Rom. 2:24:
“God’s name is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you”.
115
Chrysostom, In Johannem, op.cit., 394.
 54

Between the devil of Imperialism and the deep blue sea of Marketing
Aspects of the distortion of Mission

Even the mere reading (let alone the profound study) of the Gospels creates a deep
sense of “mobility”. Jesus himself has assured us that he himself is a coming God and
that his Church is an itinerant people. The fact that the Church is looking ahead to
Christ’s final coming does not entail an inert waiting within history, but, on the
contrary, it inspires and demands an active march which is going to last as long as
history lasts. In the well-known conclusion of the Gospel of Matthew116, Christ asks
his disciples to go and make disciples of all nations. Yet it is of special importance to
realize that the faithful are not actually going alone, but going along with their God,
since the said commandment is coupled with Christ’s promise that he will be with
them all the way long until the end of this age (Mat. 28:19-20).
Thus, in the span between Jesus’ Resurrection and the Eschata, the Church cannot
rest; she has to walk unceasingly “to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8). The Church
continuously keeps on walking towards the world, opening herself up to the world,
inviting and assuming it. Speaking of either her walking or her opening-up, we do not
speak of an additional and optional activity of hers, but of her own nature. As we have
already noted elsewhere, a Church that rejects this relationship with the world will
cease being her own self, just as Christ would cease being Christ if he divested
himself of his human nature.
It is not difficult to prove that an idle and centripetal Church degenerates into a
sect selfishly indifferent to God’s love for the entire creation. However, is this
contempt for Mission the only problem? Or is it possible that even the diametrical
opposite of this idleness, that is, eagerness for missionary engagement, may result in
the emergence of problems as well? In other words: if the faithful do not go to the

116
It is argued that this conclusion, the so-called “Great Commission” (Mat. 28:19-20) reflects the final
resolution of the apostolic Church to open herself up to the nations, after several dilemmas and
turbulences between centripetal and centrifugal trends inside the community. See, for example, Alan Le
Grys, Preaching to the Nations. The Origins of Mission in the Early Church, Society for Promoting
Christian Knowledge, London 1998, pp. 79-85, 160. Insofar as it is true, it is important that the said
verses depict not only a principle, but also the very experience of the church body.
 55

nations they violate the Lord’s commandment. But does every going to the nations
really mean fidelity to this commandment?

“Woe to you...”

No endeavour, no pain, no cross produces automatic salvation. Each one of them

may contribute to salvation in so far as it is incorporated into Christ and conditioned
by his criteria. Otherwise all these endeavours, pains and crosses are nothing but
regrettable and meaningless troubles that stem from the decay and give rise to despair.
Neither does all the walking coincide with the walking desired by Christ, nor is all
striving for the sake of Mission really ecclesiastical. The Good News is actually
brought into doubt not only by those who explicitly (and honestly) reject it, but also
by those who declare themselves its adherents but actually accept it eclectically and
interpret it so arrogantly that they do not even think about the possibility of erring.
But from where can I draw assurance that every single religious endeavour of mine is
really taking place for the glory of God (as is extremely often claimed) and deserves
divine reward (as is extremely often believed)? How can I ever feel that I am justified
in overlooking the fact that, according to the Gospel itself, on the Judgment Day many
(not only “few” or “some”) of those who will be turned down by Christ will be people
who preached in his name and even worked miracles in his name (cf. Mat. 7:22)? It is
shocking indeed that Christ is going to turn these people down, and in two ways.
Firstly, by declaring that they are absolutely unknown to him, the omniscient! As we
have already noted elsewhere, his strange expression means that a real, personal and
loving relationship between them and him never existed. Secondly, by calling them
workers of evil (Mat. 7:23) rather than workers of his vineyard (the latter being what
they most probably believed of themselves). The need for workers for the harvest
must be the subject of prayers (Mat. 9:38). Yet not every worker is automatically a
conscientious steward of the harvest field; he may well be a devastator and a
contaminator of it (cf. Jerem. 12:10)!
It is of crucial importance that one of Christ’s censures of the Scribes and the
Pharisees concerns their missionary zeal. It is the third “woe” in the line: “Woe to
you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over land and sea
 56

to win a single convert, and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a
son of hell as you are” (Mat. 23: 15). On a superficial viewing it seems that the
Pharisees simply did what Christ in the end asked his disciples to do. But in reality
their mission was of a kind that produces colonists of hell – not citizens of the
Kingdom, even though this mission was worked out in the name of God!
None of these two scriptural extracts (that is, the “woe” to the Pharisees on the one
hand and the missionary commandment on the other hand) should be read in
ignorance of the other. Thus, if a local church, a group of religious people or a single
believer make the second extract their banner and overlook the first, they are in
danger of becoming recipients of the said “woe”, since they justify and glorify
themselves without deigning to submit their arrogance to Christ’s criteria. We are, to
say the least, invited to wonder: what is the special element that makes a missionary
activity give birth to “sons of hell”? Is it perhaps the fact that Yahweh’s message is
replaced by burdens heavy and grievous to be borne, bound by these disastrous
teachers who then lay them on men’s shoulders? Can it be by accident that Christ
castigated the imposition of these loads only a little before starting to hurl his “woes”
(Mat. 23:4)?
So, woe to us if we do not seek the criteria that define the specific weight of the
ecclesiastical openings-up in contrast to other openings-up, especially today when
many kinds of openings-up prevail, such as the military overstepping of national
sovereignty, immigration into foreign lands, the globalization of technology, the
encounter of diverse mentalities, etc. Nevertheless, each one of them can either be a
refreshing meeting or, quite the opposite, a seduction and a rape. It depends...

Imperialism: How far away from us?

An age-old and, at the same time, modern opening-up is imperialism and its
counterpart, colonialism. History – and especially the last five centuries – can provide
us with ample material for the study of the dreadful osmosis between imperialistic
expansion and missionary prowess. But here we will restrict ourselves to the
parameters concerning the Orthodox Churches in particular.
 57

It is often pointed out that, in contrast to the majority of the western European
countries, traditionally Orthodox countries did not participate in the discovery and
colonialism of America, sub-Saharan Africa and the Far East. That means that
Orthodox mission was hardly combined with military enterprises and conquest of
other peoples117. The appeal to this historical precedent has already become a
common-place in Orthodox missionary literature nowadays. Its invocation serves as
the empirical proof that Orthodox mission is different from and superior to that of the
Western Christianity.
However strange it may sound, the appeal to this historical truth can actually
corrode Orthodox consciousness. It may create the un-historical and erroneous
generalization that the Orthodox (either Greek or Russian or...) never succumbed to
the lust of alliance with the state arm118. All this is not just a matter of academic
research into the past. It has to do with present Church consciousness and with a
certain danger it faces: the danger of becoming accustomed to the arrogance of
“ecclesiastical automatism”. By this term I mean the conviction that since we consider
and declare ourselves Orthodox, we are essentially Orthodox in a mechanical way so
that certain sins (which we promptly attribute exclusively to the outsiders) cannot
touch us. It’s really a peculiar way of understanding sin and apostasy! Haven’t the
advocates of this boasting religiosity ever read in the book of Revelation that Christ is
threatening not only single persons but entire local churches that, unless they repent,
he will remove their lamp-stand from their place (Rev. 2: 4-5)? There is no person or
community who can exclude the possibility of becoming the hearer of the dramatic
cry: “Remember the height from which you have fallen”!
The famous Greek writer and traditional iconographer, Photis Kontoglou, wrote in
1962 about the commercial French “Company of Guinea”, a protagonist in the 18th c.

117
As far as Africa is concerned, see Athanasios N. Papathanasiou, “Missionary Experience and
Academic Quest; The Research Situation in Greece”, which will appear in the volume European
Traditions of the Study of Religion in Africa (Frieder Ludwig - Afe Adogame, eds.), Harrassowitz,
Wiesbaden 2004.
118
Speaking of missionary activity in the modern era, one should keep in mind that it was the Russians
who first discovered Alaskan North America in 1740-41. For almost ninety years (that is, until Russia
sold Alaska to the United States in 1867) Alaska was the field of a clash between the Russian
(Orthodox) merchants who oppressed the native population and the Russian (also Orthodox)
missionaries who stood in favour of the latter. See, for example, Vsevolod Rochcau, “St Herman of
Alaska and the Defense of Alaskan Native Peoples”, St Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly 16/1 (1972),
pp. 17-39.
 58

slave trade. It functioned under the auspices of the Christian King of France and its
ships were crewed by faithful Roman Catholics only. Kontoglou sneers at this unholy
combination of Christianity and tyranny to conclude ironically: “Thank God, we
‘heretic’ Orthodox were not fortunate enough to do this honourable job, which
remained the Christian monopoly of the ‘catholiques très chrétiens’”119.
This polemical statement is no doubt grounded on historical facts, though it does
not seem ready to proceed to the acknowledgment of the resistance of western
Christians to the disgrace of slavery120. His sarcastic phrase “we... were not fortunate”
can serve as be a great opportunity for serious theological consideration. Once upon a
time we may not have been “fortunate”. But is it an axiom valid for ever? Is just the
appeal to it enough to safeguard our present and future options? Classical imperialism
has been so blatantly brutal, that its disavowal is not too difficult, especially by those
who live outside its temporal and geographical framework. But it is this verbal
disavowal of past imperialism that can function like a religious opiate which will
grant us the sleep of the just. For example, you may not invade a country with armed
forces, but you may well support modern economic colonialists on a basis of mutual
consent. Are you then entitled to wash your hands in the water of your glorious past?
Insofar as Orthodox churchmen are indifferent to the inculturation process, and
understand Mission as the export of their own ethnic culture rather than as the
building of really indigenous churches (while certain trends in western Christianity
have already – since approximately the beginning of the 20th c. – made impressive
steps in repentance, rejection of cultural imperialism and promotion of
indigenization), we become partners in a new imperialism and a new colonialism in
new, updated manners. After all, we do not live in the age of the “Company”, but in
that of aggressive Marketing!

119
Photis Kontoglou, Adamastes Psyches (Greek for: “Untamed Souls”), Astir, Athens 19752, p. 268
(my translation). When Kontoglou wrote this, the collapse of colonialism was already forcing western
Christians to anguished reexamination of the matter. See, for example, Robert Delavignette,
Christianisme et Colonialisme, Libraire Arthème Fayard, Paris 1960.
120
One can mention at least the struggles of Bartholomé de Las Casas against the genocide of the
Indians by the Spanish (early 16th c.) and the antislavery activity of the Abolitionists with its great
impact on the missionary movement (early 19th c.). See Witness. Writings of Bartholomé de Las Casas
(George Sanderlin, ed.), Orbis Books, Maryknoll, New York 1992 and Ralph R. Covell, “Abolitionist
Movement”, Evangelical Dictionary of World Mission (A. Scott Moreau, ed.), Baker Books /
Paternoster Press, Grand Rapids, USA / Carlisle UK 2000, p. 27.
 59

Marketing: Mission modernized or perhaps mutated?

It is well attested that whenever the Church adopts a “wooden” language, that is, a
jargon irrelevant to the living language of the society, she actually undermines her
own work, disappoints her friends and pushes the dissenters away. Numerous
theologians and churchmen have so far underlined the need for a warm and
meaningful language that manages to communicate with modern people. Needless to
say, this is an issue related not merely to the public image of the Church but, more
than that, to her very nature and commitment in history. As a matter of fact, the use of
a language compatible with the language of the world and at the same time capable of
referring the human to the mysteries of faith is an aspect of the incarnational task of
the Church.
Some churchmen, however, do not concentrate on this correspondence between the
nature and the language of the Church, but focus almost exclusively on rhetorical
technicalities. They contend that the only thing missing is an attractive
communications policy, which can be provided by well-organized, clever and modern
Marketing.
By the term “Marketing” here I denote the nowadays dominant mechanism for
opening-up, which is related to the globalization of free market laws, multinational
companies and Stock Exchange securities regardless of national boundaries. Here a
clarification may be needed. Marketing, like many other phenomena of our world,
certainly can (and necessarily must) be used by the churchman, provided its use is
governed by the same principles as govern every tool in our life. As a matter of fact,
its use should be accompanied by a question. Is there not a possibility with modern
Marketing that it will not merely remain an instrument of neutral nature, but rather
will serve a concrete way of life (that of the globalized capitalism whose maxims are
development and profit) and engender a cognate (that is, profit-centered)
understanding of our relationship with things and fellow humans? Within societal life,
instruments are not something ontologically neutral and sterilized. Very often they
escape from the periphery and are enthroned in the center; they then impose
themselves on the essence of life and imbue it with their own logic121. Thus, in the

121
See, for example, M. Castells, The Rise of Network Society, Blackwell, Oxford 1996.
 60

following lines I will refer to this specific function of Marketing (though not to
information distribution and the spread of ideas in general), and I will try to approach
critically the kind of ecclesiastical opening-up already mentioned, which espouses
Marketing in so triumphalist a fashion that, in the end, the logic of marketing tends to
be accepted as the only one.
Admittedly, as a communication strategy, Marketing seems similar to Mission, to
an impressive degree. Exactly for that reason, forming a proper ecclesiastical attitude
to it is much more difficult than forming one towards brutal imperialism. Up to date
Marketing, being a genuine child of flexible capitalism, has nothing to do with vulgar,
forced intervention. It functions in a way which could be called sweet. Its
characteristics could make many religious people shiver with paternalistic excitement:
it moves beyond boundaries, offers information, pursues communication, speaks the
language of its receiver, seeks for his consent. Doesn’t it really look like the kingdom
of persuasion in contrast to the imperialistic realm of violence?
So, faced with this Christian-like sweetness of Marketing, let us raise four
objections.

First Objection

I have the impression that the roots of marketing-style Mission are fed by an
improper fertilizer, that is, the conviction that the rejection of the Christian message is
due to the mistaken language in which the Church has attempted to present this
message. Of course, that is right in many cases and when it happens it is a real
tragedy. However, the rapture of the relationship between the world and God cannot
be always and exclusively interpreted as a misunderstanding! If the human being is
truly endowed with freedom, then he can certainly denounce not only the false images
of God produced by various preachers, but, more than that, God himself! Beyond all
experiences and interconnections of misunderstanding and elucidation, faith as well as
apostasy remains deep down a mystery (cf. 1 Tim. 3:9, 2 Th. 2:7). So, the conviction
that attractive promotion is the only missing ingredient required for the unhindered
and tidal expansion of the Christian message, and for the accomplishment of what
Christ himself did not manage to accomplish (the weeping conversion of all), is
 61

essentially a deeply authoritarian conviction, since it believes that human freedom is

unable to resist a polished preaching which appears faultless from a technical,
rhetorical and psychological perspective122.
This conviction also underlies the premature enthusiasm into which some religious
circles slide in their (otherwise necessary) adoption of computer science and
multimedia. Though it should be all too clear, it is often overlooked that an
aesthetically successful product does not automatically hold only one content. It may
well fashion an ecclesiastical invitation rightly phrased in modern society’s language,
but it may also be a fraud that embellishes the most miserable theological
obscurantism, exactly like a tomb of fine marble that contains within it sheer
rottenness. Is it by accident that the assimilation of the Pharisees with white washed
graves full of uncleanness (Mat. 23:27) is one of Christ’s “woes”?

Second Objection

Modern multinational companies seem not to remain apathetic in the face of social
malaise. For example, a company of this kind may well take an initiative for the relief
of earthquake victims. Nevertheless, in no way is it ready to become an earthquake
victim itself!
Let us rephrase this in theological language. Modern Marketing is rather an
adherent of Docetism, the ancient heresy that understood Christ’s incarnation and
suffering as virtual reality and pretence. That means that Marketing is not irrelevant to
the world, but it does not really assume the world as its flesh; as a matter of fact, it
pretends to assume it. Quite the opposite from this, genuine ecclesiastical mission is
the adherent of real incarnation. In the same way as Christ really assumed human
nature and made human flesh his own real flesh, so mission in Christ’s way means
true acceptance of diverse culture, true incarnation in the factual reality of each
people. Flesh is part of the self, that is, it is much more essential than a mere wrapping

122
See Nikos Nissiotis’ excellent analysis of the phenomenon that a “theology of communication”
tends to replace the “theology of evangelism”. N. A. Nissiotis, “An Orthodox View of Modern Trends
in Evangelism”, The Ecumenical World of Orthodox Civilization (Russia and Orthodoxy; vol. III),
Essays in Honor of Georges Florovsky (Andrew Blane, ed.), Mouton, The Hague / Paris 1973, pp. 184-
186.
 62

of the soul123. The incarnational relation to the world, modelled upon Christ’s
historical action, asserts two (different but also mutually complementary) things at the
same time. First, that there is no real humanity outside of concrete historical and
culturally conditioned human existence. Second, that culture does not lie beyond
criticism. Certain phenomena that bear decay, death and injustice in them are deemed
an illness of the self – not as constituent elements of the self. Christ was not a ghost
just pretending to be physical; he assumed real human nature (physicality included)
and healed it: he abolished not human flesh, but the dominion of death over it and
inaugurated the journey of humanity towards resurrection.
Thus, incarnation is different from a tourist safari, and from a visit to an orphanage
arranged within the framework of an electoral campaign. It is also more than a
scholar’s research in the field. When the Church wants to speak about the
indescribable coming of the Son of God, she speaks of kenosis (cf. Phil. 2:7: Christ
“ekenose eafton” meaning literally in Greek: “emptied himself”; he made himself
nothing) and expatriation (cf. Mat. 25:35).
Kenosis implies readiness to empty myself from yielding decisive priority to
racial, national, cultural and class predeterminations of myself. It means readiness to
share blackness in Africa, so that a real local Church is built up – not a subsidiary
branch of a foreign headquarters. Kenosis means emptying myself of my self-
importance – with regard to both my own self and to the wellspring of my identity,
that is, my membership of the Church. The Gospel of the Church – not the gospels of
specific traditions – needs to be offered and incarnated in all cultural contexts. Every
attempt at an incarnation without kenosis results in new forms of colonialism124.
Expatriation of a missionary is something quite different from an executive’s
travelling abroad. Expatriation means readiness to become a stranger in a foreign
land; readiness to experience the alienation and division of humanity in the innermost

123
On the ecclesiastical versus the platonic anthropology, see my Religion, Ideology and Science,
op.cit., pp. 20-28.
124
Fr. Justin Popovic used to note that Christ is not only the Truth, but also the Way (cf. John 14:6),
which means that Orthodoxy is really orthodox when practiced in orthopraxis [I can only refer the
reader to the Serbian publication “O sustini pravoslavne axiologije I kriteriologije”, Bogoslovje 1(1935)
and its Greek translation Anthropos kai Theanthropos (: Man and God-Man) (tr. Athanasios Jevtic),
Astir, Athens 1974, p. 115]. Similarly, J. A. Kirk is right when applauding the 1989 WCC Mission
Conference in San Antonio, which affirmed that “mission is appropriate only if carried out in Christ’s
way, because the way of Christ is the standard by which all mission is to be judged”. J. A. Kirk, The
Mission of Theology and Theology as Mission, Trinity Press International, Pennsylvania 1997, p. 52.
 63

recesses of my existence, holding, at the same time, the faith that the entire oikoumene
is the motherland of the ecclesiastical person, since “the earth is the Lord’s, and
everything in it” (Psalm 23:1). Expatriation, videlicet, is to find yourself in a strange
land as a real stranger – not as a carefree tourist or as a pre-accepted investor – but, at
the same time, to live your arrival in this foreign land as repatriation. Remember the
strange clarification of the fourth Gospel that the Son of God “came to that which was
his own, but his own did not receive him” (John 1:11).
The status of stranger is very special in Church consciousness. The ecclesiastical
person becomes a stranger and, at the same time, a friend of strangers. That is, he
becomes a friend of the different, the alien, the homeless, the marginalized. In old
times a foreigner could be one who walked through our land. Today he can be the
inhabitant of the Third World who is pushed to the margins of the developed world or
is an immigrant in it125. The ecclesiastical man, very often secure in his own place,
culture, welfare, religious customs, should listen carefully to the hymn read on Great
Friday, in the Orthodox celebration of Christ’s death. This hymn shows how kenosis
and expatriation are understood and interrelated through the supposed words of
Joseph of Arimathea who went to Pilate and asked for Jesus’ body: “Give me this
stranger, who has been alienated from the world since he was a baby; give me this
stranger, who is hated by his fellow-countrymen and put to death by them like a
stranger; give me this stranger, whose death is so strange to me; give me this stranger
who knows how to welcome the strangers and the poor...”126.
Mission is an opening-up to strangers and the rejected. Why? A properly expected
answer would be: “In order to invite them to Christ”. However, the answer should
proceed further. When we meet these people, we find Christ, since he explicitly
identified himself with them (Mat. 25:35-40). The missionary is wrong if he deludes
himself that he “occupies” Christ and so can use him as an export product. More than
that, he misses Christ altogether, insofar as he (the missionary) does not serve the
strangers and does not stand in solidarity with the broken. This is why we claimed
above that expatriation is, at the same time, repatriation.

125
On the missionary predicaments produced by the wealth of western Christians, see Jonathan Bonk,
Missions and Money. Affluence as a Western Missionary Problem, Orbis Books, Maryknoll, New York
1991.
 64

In no case does this opening-up imply the emergence of an ideological relativism

at the expense of Christian truth claims. On the contrary, it is based on the persistence
and the uniqueness of Christian truth, and upon the conviction that all people are
entitled to have access to it. However strange it may sound, when the missionary
addresses himself to others in order to preach Christ to them, at the very same
moment he meets, in the faces of those others, the one whom he preaches.

Third Objection

In the life of a modern company, staff meetings are well established, as a way to
evaluate the company’s course and re-schedule its marketing policy if necessary. That
means that the company may have regrets, but does not repent. In having regrets, it
resembles the rich man who seemed to feel regret in hell, but was actually mourning
over his own torments - not over his attitude towards poor Lazarus (Luke 16:22-31).
For the ecclesiastical man, repentance is his own way of life, not just something he
preaches to others. Repentance presupposes the awareness that Truth is not an asset
possessed irrevocably. Even if its acceptance is real and not a mere illusion, one may
well lose it later. Thus, a missionary praxis that lacks repentance as one of its
constituent elements and consequently demonizes self-criticism is the missionary
praxis of blind guides (cf. Mat. 23:15).

Fourth Objection

... and partly a sequel to the Third. Properly organized Marketing promotes a
product by underlining nothing but its fantastic qualities. The more humans are
primarily conceived as consumers, the more each product has a twin nature: on the
one hand it is what it really is; on the other hand, it is what the advertisement presents
it to be. In a similar way, a missionary burned by propagandistic zeal very often
promises spiritual profits and all manner of blessings to those who will consent to the

126
The attempt at an accurate translation of that hymn faces special difficulties, since the writer plays
with several meanings of the Greek words relevant to “stranger”: xenos (noun: “stranger”), xenos (adj:
“strange, odd”), xenizein (vb: “be hospitable”) and xenizein (vb: “startle”).
 65

faith, but omits to mention all the parameters that in his opinion may make faith seem
unpleasant and may hinder its expansion.
One has to wonder what remains of Christianity if we twist it into a bourgeois
religion that guarantees security and social success; if we turn it into a gospel of
health and wealth, released from the foolishness of the Cross (cf. 1 Cor. 1:23)! The
Church is inconceivable without her relation to world and society, but her mission is
also unthinkable without active opposition to every kind of malaise in this world.

* * *

No one has the right to rule out the possibility that the world can meet salvation
through the most strange and unexpected channels, not even should the preacher of
the salvation go as far as proving a sanctimonious rascal. But this possibility does not
deliver us from our responsibility. Our lawlessness does not obstruct Christ’s action in
history; however, it can endanger our participation in this action. That humans are
itinerant beings is sure. What is not sure is the orientation of their itinerary. Is it really
headed towards Christ or away from him? In no case can we get rid of this tortuous
dilemma. Alongside the missionary promise “Come, follow me and I will make you
fishers of men” (Mat. 4:19) stands the nightmarish dismissal “Depart from me, you
who are cursed” (Mat. 25:41). Isn’t it true that both phrases speak about itineraries?
 66

Sisoes and Alexander

Dilemmas for Church Mission in the age of Globalization

I should like to comment on an icon of a fifth-century saint, which is to be found in

a number of churches in traditionally Orthodox countries127. It depicts the Egyptian
Abba Sisoes (+ ca. 429)128 standing before the open tomb of Alexander the Great 129,
mourning as he stares at the skeleton of the king in its depths. An inscription on the
painted surface130 explains the scene:

"Sisoes, the great ascetic, before the tomb of Alexander, King of the Greeks,
who was once covered in glory. Astonished, he mourns for the vicissitudes of time
and the transience of glory, and tearfully declaims thus:
The mere sight of you, tomb, dismays me
and causes my heart to shed tears,

as I contemplate the debt we, all men, owe.

How can I possibly stand it?

Oh, death! Who can evade you?".

The icon is profoundly humane and philosophical. It has been argued that its
purpose was to instruct the monks that they should always concentrate on the

127
A list of these icons in Greece, Romania, Cyprus, Venice, Russia etc is published in R. Stichel,
“Studien zum Verhältnis von Text und Bild spät- und nachbyzantinischer
Vergänglichkeitsdarstellungen“, Bizantina Vindobonensia 5 (1971), pp. 83-91. See also C. Weigert,
“Sisoes der Große”, Lexikon der Christlichen Ikonographie 8 (1976), pp. 377. A Greek bibliography is
contained in the Greek version of this essay, which is going to be published in the periodical “Nea
Hestia” (Athens).
128
About the persons bearing this name see Joseph-Marie Sauget, “Sisoes”, Bibliotheca Sanctorum,
Istituto Giovanni XXIII, τ. 11, Roma 1968, pp. 1253-1254.
129
The tomb was allegedly situated in Egypt. See Harry E. Tzalas, “ ‘The Tomb of Alexander the
Great’. The history and the legend in the Greco-Roman and Arab times”, Graeco-Arabica 5 (1993),
328-354.
130
The inscription (when extant) appears in several slightly different forms. See Stiechel, op.cit., pp.
93-100.
 67

“remembrance of death”, that is, the fact that all humans are mortal; that’s why the
usual place of the icon is in the refectories and the porches (narthex) of the
monasteries. This connotation is probably right. Yet, it may not be the only thing
implied by the icon. On the one hand, the monasteries are not the only places where
one can find it. On the other hand the iconography of the monasteries is not addressed
to monks only, since the monasteries have always functioned as spiritual centers for
the Church as a whole, and have nourished theological trends that concerned the
Church in her wholeness. I think it is not by accident, for example, that in the chapel
of St John the Theologian in the Panagia (: All-holy Mother of God) Mavriotissa
Monastery (Kastoria, Northern Greece), this icon131 is placed on the outer surface of
the wall by the entrance.

I think it is very important to avoid approaching the theme of the icon in an un-
historical and abstract way. On the contrary, we must investigate whether the meaning
of the icon is to be found not in its theme alone, but in the fact that this theme was
created under certain historical conditions or, in other words, in order to send a
message comprehensible within a concrete historical context.

Surprisingly enough, the event of the elder’s visit to Alexander’s grave is not
mentioned in the older literary sources of Sisoes’s life, that is, either in the Sayings of
the Desert Fathers (5th - 6th c.)132, or the Byzantine Lives of Saints (10th c.)133, which
have been the basis for the composition of the later versions134. On the other hand, the
earlier surviving icons belong to the period between the early 16th c. and late 18th 135.

131
Here the dead man has been left anonymous.
132
Apophthegmata Patrum, PG 65, 392B-408B. See also 428B-429A about Abba Tithoes, who is
identified with Sisoes. For the dating of the work see B. Baldwin – A. Cutler, “Apophthegmata
Patrum”, The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium, Oxford University Press 1991, v. 1, p. 139.
133
Synaxarium Ecclesiae Constantinopolitanae (Hippolytus Delehaye, ed.), Bruxelles 1902, p. 801 (for
its dating see R. F. Taft - N. P. Sevcenko, “Synaxarion”, The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium, op.cit.,
v. 3, p. 1991). See also Menologion, PG 117, 525A-C (it was composed a bit after 979, following the
Synaxarium; see N. P. Sevcenko, “Menologion of Basil II”, The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium, ό.π.,
τ. 2, σελ. 1341-1342); F. Halkin, “Le Synaxaire Grec de Christ Church a Oxford”, Αnalecta
Bollandiana, τ. 66, Bruxelles 1948, pp. 89-90.
134
See, for example, Nikodemos of the Holy Mountain, Synaxaristes ton Dodeka menon tou Eniaftou
(Greek for: “Collection of the Lives of the Saints of the Twelve Months of the Year”), Ch. Nikolaidou
Philadelpheos, Athens 1868, v. 2, p. 249. See also the liturgical texts of the feast of St Sisoes, Menaion
Iouliou (Greek for: “Services of July”), Apostolike Diakonia, Athens 1993, pp. 71-78.
135
See Stichel, op.cit., pp. 83-89.
 68

All these considerations converge in the conclusion that the said iconography was
most likely created (actually, invented), and then spread out, after the sack of
Constantinople by the Muslim Turks (1453). This means that the narrative of the visit
to Alexander’s grave in the 20th c. editions of Sisoes’s Life136 has been simply a later
addition due to the influence the icon had exerted!
In my opinion, the major questions the icon gives rise to do not have to do merely
with the “remembrance of death”, but with Alexander’s presence. The motif (someone
reflecting on a noble man’s death and commenting on the vanity of the human world)
is old and common in theological literature and iconography as well137. Thus, the
questions are:
a. Why did the iconographers choose especially Alexander?
b. How did this iconography emerge without having roots in the literary sources?
c. Why did it happen after the sack of Constantinople and not before it?

It seems that the icon actually records the collective trauma caused by the collapse
of the once mighty Roman Empire and, what is most important, represents a
viewpoint different from the one that was dominant before the fall of the capital. From
as early on as the reign of Constantine the Great138, the Byzantines had looked to
Alexander as a symbol of exemplary world leadership and a predecessor of Byzantine
universality139. His positive image (which was already shaped by the time of his
death) supplanted the criticism deployed against him by philosophers and Church
Fathers who underlined the meaninglessness of human luxury and glory140. The figure

136
See O Megas Synaxaristes tes Orthodoxou Ecclesias (Greek for: “The Great Collection of the Lives
of the Saints of the Orthodox Church”) (Victor Marthaiou, ed.), v. 7, 19622, pp. 101-104. See also the
reprint, Matthaios Lagges, ed., v. 7, Athens 19938, pp. 101, 104. Stichel, op.cit., p. 112, notes that the
addition was posterior to the first edition of this work in 1950.
137
Stichel, op.cit., pp. 102-112.
138
E.M.Jeffreys - A. Cutler, "Alexander the Great", The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium, op.cit., p. 59.
See also Peter Brown, Late Antiquity, The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge,
Massachusetts 1998, p. 33.
139
“Für das byzantinische Kaisertum war das Vorbild des ersten Beherrschers der Oikumene von ganz
besonderer Bedeutung“. Heribert J. Gleixner, Das Alexanderbild der Byzantiner (Inaugural
Dissertation), W.& J.M.Salzer, München 1961, p. 11.
140
Stichel, op.cit., pp. 104-111.
 69

of the Macedonian king had undergone a process of christianization, had been

represented as a Byzantine emperor and had acquired almost saintly dimensions141.
Numerous legends about his exploits relate how wisely he prepared himself for his
death and how gloriously his burial was carried out. Nevertheless, popular
consciousness was gradually (and especially after the fall of Constantinople)
preoccupied with the idea that Alexander remained alive in a mystical way. Whether
literally dead or mystically alive, he steadily came to occupy an extraordinary place,
as characteristically confessed by Augustus in Roman times. The historian Dion
Cassius (155-235 AD) reports that after Augustus had visited the body of Alexander,
he was asked if he also wanted to visit the tombs of the Ptolemies, the sovereigns of
Hellenistic Egypt. He refused, saying: “I came to see a king and not dead men” 142.

All these data fit into the framework of a certain ideology. Within the Roman
conception (that had, to a great extent, already permeated the Christian world), that
the empire covering the length and breadth of the known world was the highest and
final stage in the history of humankind, the Byzantine people would have perceived
the then Christian globalization as an eternal reality. It was believed that the empire
was actually imperishable, but, should it chance to be destroyed, history would come
to an end, and with it the entire world143. Thus Alexander, now an integral part of the
imperial ideology, should have been seen as the living symbol of the perpetuation of
the empire in spite of all its vicissitudes, but certainly not as a common human
decaying in his tomb. His tomb was probably conceived as the sign of this eternity.

Although this image of Alexander bathed in everlasting glory is undoubtedly a

moving image of crucial importance to a nation's self-confidence and survival, it
nevertheless threatened to eclipse the Church's teachings that all creatures (even the
most noble and most glorious) are merely transient, and that only the future Kingdom

141
See Rudolph Macuch, “Pseudo-Callisthenes Orientalis and the Problem of Du l-qarnain”, Graeco-
Arabica 4 (1991), pp. 237; Andreas Xyggopoulos, “O Megas Alexandros eis ten vyzantinen technen”
(Greek for: “Alexander the Great in Byzantine Art ”), Makedonikon Hemerologion 1940, pp. 37-40.
142
Tzalas, op.cit., pp. 334-335.
143
See F. Paschoud, “Roma Aeterna”, Bibliotheca Helvetica Romana 7 (1967), pp. 340-352 ; Gerhard
Podskalsky, Byzantinische Reichseschatologie, Münchener Universtiätsschriften, Reihe der
Philosophischen Fakultät, 9, München 1972.
 70

of God is eternal. In the theological perspective of “inaugurated eschatology”144 the

Kingdom will be fulfilled at the end of history, so it cannot be identified with any
particular stage of history. In stark contrast to the imperial ideology mentioned above,
the unthinkable happened and Constantinople fell; nevertheless, history did not come
to an end. Thus, when the “humble icon painters at work during the period of Turkish
rule”145, that is, after 1453, painted the icon in question depicting Alexander neither as
a glorious mortal being nor as a living demigod, but as a decomposed body in the
tomb, they were reasserting the major theological conviction long in abeyance. The
answer I propose to the questions posed above is that the said iconography in question
was invented (using the older motif of reflection on death) in order that a theological
trend might be expressed. It was the theological trend which insisted that the Church
keeps on walking despite all historical setbacks. Thus Alexander was picked up,
exactly because he was the symbol of imperial eternity. In short, this trend (and,
respectively, the iconography) moved the center of gravity from eternity-in-history to
the post-historical eternity of the Kingdom.

But why was Alexander paired with Sisoes in particular? I suppose that this elder
was chosen because he lived in the country where the Macedonian king was buried.
Besides, according to his “Life”, God bestowed on Sisoes the gift of raising the
dead146. So, the iconography in question declares that the ontological basis of human
life is not its own magnitude, but its relation with the Resurrected Lord who promises
the final resurrection to everyone. In so far as Sisoes the ascetic dares to declare what
even Augustus could not conceive, and captures the truth of all of Creation, he is
infinitely more ecumenical than the conquering Greek, whose campaigns had taken
him to the very edges of the known world and beyond.

144
Georges Florovsky, Bible, Church, Tradition. An Eastern Orthodox View, Büchervertriebsanstalt,
Vaduz, Europa 1987, p. 36.

145
Fotis Kontoglou, E Ponemene Romiosyne [Greek for: “Eastern Christianity in pain”], Astir, Athens
7
1989 , pp. 145-146.

146
Synaxarium, op.cit., p. 801.
 71

I mentioned Abba Sisoes to underline the fact that it is not the first time the Church
has been faced with the phenomenon of Globalization. We have already spoken about
her opening-up to Graeco-Roman civilization and Roman globalization. Such an
opening (and one needs to be particularly careful at this point) is anything but feckless
and naïve cosmopolitanism; in fact, it constitutes the goal of an ascetic creativity that
is often both uncomfortable and difficult. By way of illustration, let us recall the
difficulty of Christ's last earthly discussion with his disciples.

The Acts of the Apostles tell us that shortly after his resurrection and shortly before
his ascent to heaven, Christ instructed his disciples not to travel any distance from
Jerusalem, but rather to remain in the city to await the arrival of the Holy Spirit,
which he had promised them (Acts 1:4-5). Not long after this, the disciples posed their
well-known question: had the time come to restore the Kingdom of Israel? Now, what
does this question reveal? In all probability, the disciples believed that Christ was
confirming Jerusalem as the holy city par excellence; indeed, as the sacred center of
the world. Interestingly, however, it would seem highly likely that we are faced here
with a form of universality rather than simple regionalism. The disciples must have
had in mind the Judaic tradition that the nations would accept the faith of Israel as the
147
world neared its end, and descend on Jerusalem in their droves as pilgrims . In
short, they aspired to a form of universality, though one with a national-religious
center.

Christ's reply, however, reveals that this was not what he had meant when he told
them to stay in Jerusalem. The conviction that the historic city of Jerusalem
constitutes the sacred world center has given way to something else: the heart of the
new Ecumenicity is now Christ resurrected himself: “But [that "but" shows that a new
and different perspective was in the process of coming into being] you will receive
power when the Holy Spirit comes on you: and you will be my witnesses in
Jerusalem, and in all Judea and in Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8).
Indeed, immediately after Pentecost the heart of the apostles' preaching “to the ends of
the earth” (and via the globalization of the Roman era) is Christ Resurrected 148. The

147
David Bosch, Transforming Mission, op.cit., p. 146.

148
Acts 2:22-32, 3:15, 4:10, 17:31-32.
 72

Resurrection of Christ inaugurated a radically new reality. Far from being understood
as a personal triumph of Christ alone, it is humankind’s first sight of the Eschata (the
End Times), and the beginning of the final salvation of the whole of Creation from
death and decay of every sort. It is a new ontological possibility for all of mankind,
and the universe.

We can see, therefore, that the Church's conception of ecumenicity is actually

linked to an offer of life for the universe. The Church can talk of ecumenicity because
its embrace can encompass the entire universe and more. Its offer of life stems from
the meeting of the universe with another entity; with someone different and beyond
itself. Thus, the truth of the world does not lie in any one of its constituent parts (even
the most glorious or noble), but rather in its relationship with God. If the world limits
itself to its own (even — let us reiterate — if it restricts itself to that which is
considered as the most noble within it), it will remain subject to decay and death.
Even its most exalted manifestations will unfailingly be reduced to nothing once their
allotted span is past. In a world which is constantly decaying, even the most noble
desire of all — to evade decay — is destined itself to decay. However, if the world is
transformed into the Body of the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, it will become
party to the life of God; which is to say, to a life that the world is incapable by itself
of producing: a life in which boundless love and a beloved life come together.

Thus, if it was essential to stay in Jerusalem before the Resurrection and Pentecost,
then after these events, the only Jerusalem we can speak of is the eschatological New
Jerusalem of the book of Revelation; the multinational city (21:24) which signifies the
renewed Creation of the Lord. Characteristically, while the Greek word "oikoumene”
149
(ecumene) is used at several points in the New Testament to signify simply the
inhabited part of the world (in the Graeco-Roman manner), Saint Paul uses it to
denote the whole of Creation (Hebrews 1:6) including the new, renewed "world to
come" (Hebrews 2:5).
An Orthodox interpretation of this eschatological, ecumenical vision is neither an
exhortation to flee from history nor to passively await it; rather, it encourages active
creativity. Man is called upon to officiate at the meeting between God and his

149
E.g. Mat. 24:14, Luke 2:1, Acts 19:27, Rom. 10:18.
 73

Creation, to assist in the elevation of human civilizations into the body of Christ, and
to fight the forces of decay, death, and evil through history. The truly ecumenical man
is he who struggles to mirror in every aspect of his life — everyday, personal, and
social — the preparation and offering up of the consecrated bread in the Holy Liturgy.
As said above150, God requires Man to act creatively; to take the fruit of His Creation
(the wheat), to make it into dough with the sweat of his brow, to turn it into products
of civilization (bread) and to offer it up to God so He can cleanse it of decay and
make it of His Body. Every person (and not just some people), every nation (and not
just some nations), every civilization (and not just one), every era (and not just the
past) are called upon to be transformed in the Holy Eucharist.
In his turn, the truly ecumenical man constantly runs the risk of being “de-
universalized” by the temptation to set aside his orientation towards the Eschata,
whether by allying himself with some ungodly center (cf. the whore of Babylon from
the book of Revelation), or — however mutually contradictory it may seem — by
anchoring himself to some “holy” center (e.g. a unique place or a past era). In the
latter case, in particular, we can find help in a letter composed by Saint Gregory of
Nyssa (4th c.), which may well bring into focus so much that we currently perceive
hazily, if at all. In it, Gregory advises several individuals to rethink their intention of
visiting the Holy Land, arguing that no one place is any more holy than any other,
since, thanks to the work of Christ, holiness can exist wherever there is faith and an
altar, that is, a eucharistic gathering 151.

This essentially broad view requires the faithful to adopt a simultaneously critical
and creative stance. Christianity is called upon to question every power center which
attempts to impose Heaven on earth, or unifies at the expense of freedom. However,
particular care is needed once again at this point. The problems faced by the world
today do not stem in their entirety from the phenomenon that has been labelled

150
See the chapter Mission, the Self of the Church in this book.
151
Gregory of Nyssa, De iis qui adeunt Jerosolyma, PG 46, 1012. He does in fact comment on Christ
ordering the disciples to remain in Jerusalem, drawing attention to the fact that the Holy Spirit
descended on the disciples “in accordance with the faith of each, and not during their stay in
Jerusalem”.
 74

Globalization152, but also from the singular opposition it has inspired from all manner
of nationalist, regionalist and theocratic movements, the majority of which share a
fixation with the past. The forces that can keep afloat, to constructive effect, in the
turbulent waters of Globalization are those whose gaze is fixed firmly on the future
rather than the past; those forces, in other words, who regard opening themselves up
to the future as a core element in their identity and not as a threat153. This is clearly
consistent with the eschatological identity of the Church, which can inspire creative
openings-up to the future. But the readiness for these openings-up is the characteristic
of those who are able to discern and admit (as the iconographers of Sisoes actually
did) that the monarch who graced his epoch is not merely nude, but dead!

Two of the most significant aspects of the phenomenon we now describe as

Globalization are, firstly, a world economy which functions in a manner dictated by
its stock markets (which serves to consolidate the prevalence of economic laws over
the way individual nations function economically and politically), and, secondly,
information technology (which has transformed the world by changing our concepts
of space, distance, and time154). The Church has to avoid two temptations at the same
time: firstly, that of withdrawing from public life and becoming a recluse in a private
universe; secondly, that of succumbing to secularization in her effort to become
pleasant to everyone. Yet, her major task is to serve the encounter of her truth with the
real world and assume the data of this world as the material for the construction of a
meaningful life; not to legitimize them simply as consumer goods.

We can therefore spotlight two of the most significant areas requiring study and
action on the part of the ecumenical man: Physicality and Solidarity.

1. Although contemporary life is usually described as materialistic, it is

simultaneously anti-materialistic. It not only places material things above all else, it

152
Both the concept and content of Globalization are still very much in flux (a fact signalled in our use
of the expression “the phenomenon that has been labelled Globalization”). See, for example, M.
Walters, Globalization, Routledge, London 1995, where it is investigated whether Globalization is a
new reality or simply a new phase of the already existing historical process.
153
See Benjamin Barber, Jihad vs. Mc World, Times Books / Random House 1995.
154
On the important issue of time and space compression see D. Massey, Place and Gender, Polity
Press, Cambridge 1994.
 75

also despises them, stripping the planet of its physical resources, and effortlessly
transforming everything it uses into rubbish. Even when various ecological
movements deify nature, they perceive it as eternally subject to the laws of recycling
and perpetual decay. Moreover, although the commercialization of love may give the
impression that the human body is being glorified, modern man is in fact being
pushed into denying his own physical nature in a number of ways; for example, via
virtual reality. It is true that numerous religious people have rushed to express their
fear that the Internet leads the user into isolation and impersonal individualism. As I
see it, however, this is not the crux of the matter. We should clearly be grateful for the
infinite possibilities the Internet now offers us in the field of communication, thus
favouring the processes that reinforce democracy and counterpart the control of
information and the monopoly of power. Of course, the function of the Internet is
interwoven with numerous questions that cannot be discussed here. But in any event,
what is at issue here is not that Internet communication is impersonal; on the contrary,
it can be inter-personal, even interactive! The real problem seems to be that the said
communication is incorporeal. In fact, we can generalize and state that the
incorporeal would seem to have assumed a dominant position in today's world. The
tangible, three-dimensional book with volume, weight, shape, and smell is gradually
losing ground to the bodiless display of its content on a screen. Similarly, we can now
create art by displaying shapes and virtual colours on the screen, thereby bypassing
any physical contact with the thickness of the paper, the texture of the cloth, the
consistency of the paint, and so much more. Even the act of writing has ceased to
entail the drawing of the particular shapes associated with a particular script,
everything now taking place with a click of the mouse. What we would appear to be
faced with here is mankind enabling the maximum number of mental choices to be
executed with the minimum physical participation (in this case, with a single
movement of a single finger). Of course, the issue here is not how to escape this
reality or to reject the amazing capabilities it provides us with. A major source of
worry may arise155 when our entire lives begin to display a tendency towards the
virtual, and we are satisfied with exchanging messages, thoughts, information, and

155
We say “may”, because our intention here is essentially to frame certain questions on the basis of
the situation as it is now, and not to predict (a catastrophic) future.
 76

images virtually, without genuine human interaction with either people or things.
Human interaction entails physical interaction in a particular place at a particular time,
since Christian anthropology tells us that man does not have a body, he is body. Man
is a soul and a body, not a soul wrapped in matter156. Sisoes is standing in front of
bones which are not anonymous – not because Alexander was extremely famous, but
because no one is anonymous in the eyes of the Church. The dry bones in the grave
declare not only the inevitable decay of this world, but also the expectation of the
Resurrection and the renewal of the world. Humans are invited to trust Christ, “the
firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep” (1 Cor. 15:20), so that they become
participants in the Resurrection not only bearing a body, but bearing their own body.
A man cannot be truly ecumenical without physical, spatial, and temporal dimensions.
He must orientate his entire being (in which all the elements of the universe are
brought together) to the perspective described above.

The issue of virtual reality and its limits is not a mere technicality. It has to do with
the way the Church is constructed and functions. One, for example, is justified in
wondering how real the reality proclaimed by the Church is. St Paul has insisted that
the Church is actually a Body with several and various members which complete and
help one another (1 Cor. 12). But, is this kind of function a tangible historical reality
(as it should be), or is it perhaps merely virtual reality “existing” only behind the
screen? Is it possible that some churchmen handle this theology as if it is only a
virtual reality game, while in real life they reproduce the ugly hierarchy between
gifted masters and deprived subordinates? Is it possible that Christ’s self-emptying
and incarnation is pushed into the realm of virtual reality157 while everyday life is
haunted by power and arrogance?

These questions can be even harder if combined with another trend in the Church.
This trend, diametrically opposed to fear of the Internet, is possessed by the illusion
that the unconditional adoption of new technology is the missing ingredient of the

156
We cannot at this point explore the dangers inherent in the usual use of the terms 'soul' and 'body',
which are perceived as different — and, indeed, ontologically opposed — entities. On this subject, see
Fr Georges Florovsky, Creation and Redemption, Nordland, Belmond 1976, pp. 43-78.

157
See the chapter Between the devil of Imperialism and the deep blue sea of Marketing; Aspects of the
distortion of Mission in this book.
 77

recipe for the tidal triumph of Christian presence; a conception deeply paternalistic, as
we have already argued elsewhere.

2. The Holy Eucharist is offered up on behalf of all Mankind, and not just for the
congregation. Concern for the whole of Mankind (for those of our race and other
races, for the faithful and unbelievers alike) is thus an essential part of ecclesiastical
self-consciousness. Aspects of Globalization such as neo-colonialism, declining
working conditions, the marginalization of members of society, fanaticism — in short,
various infringements on our freedom — could be described as the work of the
antichrist. Here I use the notion of “antichrist” (in a way far removed from
fundamentalist attempts to decipher the term, or the numbers allegedly connected with
it) to designate profound opposition to God’s will, as it is, employed, for example, by
numerous Church Fathers like St Diadochus of Photike (mid. 5th c., northern Greece),
who equates exploitation of poor people with blasphemy against God158. Sisoes’s
lament at the inevitability of death (which reminds us of St John of Damascus’s
hymns in the Orthodox Funeral Service159) implies a radical re-evaluation of life.
Everything (glory and wealth certainly included) is transient, but the stance before
injustice and evil, love and solidarity is not. This stance moulds and accompanies the
human person throughout the ages of ages. It is not by chance that in Church tradition
the acknowledgment of the transience of human affairs is paired with an invitation to
social engagement in favour of the weak. St Basil the Great, for example, argues that
since everyone comes to life naked and departs from it also naked, none is entitled to
be wealthy while his fellow people are starving. To be unconcerned with help and
solidarity equates directly to committing injustice160.

Thus, the ecumenical man of the Church — he who holds freedom in high esteem
as God's seal on Mankind — is called upon to defend that freedom wherever,

158
Diadochus of Photike, The Hundred Gnostic Chapters, ch. 91.
159
“Where is the pleasure in life which is unmixed with sorrow? Where the glory which on earth has
stood firm and unchanged? All things are weaker than shadow, all more illusive than dreams; comes
one fell stroke , and Death in turn, prevails over all these vanities… Vanity are all works and quests of
man, and they have no being after death has come; our wealth is with us no longer. How can our glory
go with us?”. See An Orthodox Prayer Book, op.cit., pp. 106-107.
 78

whenever, and however it may be threatened, and not only when it is in his benefit to
do so. Solidarity is the footprint of love. To extend our love to those we find before us
does not require that others share our religious identity; nevertheless, this extension is
a sine qua non requirement, if our religious identity is to be truly Christian.

160
Basil, Homil. In Destruam etc, PG 31, 276B-277A.
 79

FIRST PUBLICATIONS

The chapters of the book correspond to papers delivered or published on disparate

occasions. Here they are all re-worked and adapted in order to form a coherent corpus.

“Mission, the self of the Church” was originally published in Greek (under a slightly
different title) in the quarterly Synaxe (Athens) 78 (2001), pp. 5-12.

“The Language of the Church and the Language of the World: An Adventure of
Communication or Conflict?” was presented at the VII International Consultation of
Orthodox Theological Schools, organized by Syndesmos, the World Fellowship of
Orthodox Youth, in St Petersburg, Russia, 20-26 January 1999. It was published in
The Ecumenical Review 51 (1999), pp. 40-45 as well as in Sourozh 76 (1999), pp. 36-
43.

“Mission: A Consequence or, perhaps, a presupposition of Catholicity?” was

presented under the title “Is Mission a Consequence of the Catholicity of the
Church?” at the Conference on the theme “Orthodox Unity - Act locally, think
globally”, organized by Syndesmos, the World Fellowship of Orthodox Youth, in
Amman, Jordan, 23-30 July 2000. It was published in the International Review of
Mission 359 (2001), pp. 409-416 and reprinted in the volume The Bond of Unity:
Syndesmos, fifty years of work for Orthodox Youth and Unity, Syndesmos, Athens
2003, pp. 191-198.

“The Flight as Fight; The Flight into the Desert as a Paradigm for the Mission of the
Church in History and Society” was presented in a slightly different version under the
title “Anachoresis. The Flight into the Desert as a Missionary Paradigm” at the
Symposium organized by the “Balkan Orthodox Youth Association” at the Belgrade
Orthodox Theological Faculty, Yugoslavia, 15-21 July 1996 (see the periodical
Bogoslovje 40, 1996, pp. 71-82). It was published in The Greek Orthodox Theological
Review 43 (1998), pp. 167-184 as well as in Proche-Orient Chretien 48 (1998), pp.
229-248.
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“Evangelization and Social Justice. An outlook into history” was originally published
in Greek (under a slightly different title) in the quarterly Panta ta Ethne (Athens) 24
(1987), pp. 27-28.

“Between the Devil of Imperialism and the deep blue sea of Marketing. Aspects of the
Distortion of Mission” was originally published in Greek (under a slightly different
title) in the quarterly Diavase (Athens) 28 (2000), pp. 16-25.

“Sisoes and Alexander. Dilemmas for Church Mission in an age of Globalization”

was published in a much shorter version under the title “Anchored in the Future;
Globalization and Church Consciousness” in The Ecumenical Review 56 (2004), pp.
226-233.