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"Woe to me if I do not preach the Gospel!" – Evangelism in the Orthodox Church (from a North of England perspective) by Fr. Gregory A good doctor who is expert at his craft will bring his patient to health only if he first rightly diagnoses the condition or disease from which he suffers. He will not apply the medicine haphazardly or irrationally but with a clear understanding of his patient’s needs. The best doctor will also work with his patient’s strengths and own latent power to heal so that the healing process is maximised through collaboration. Evangelism as practised by the Orthodox Church is both the healing of persons and the healing of communities by helping both grow back into the life of God. Community evangelism can range from families and small groups to Empires and Superpowers. The healing of persons is rightly called salvation and living a holy life toward union with God. An evangelist, a teacher and a pastor will all three practice God’s healing art in three slightly different ways. The evangelist will share the gospel in words that his hearer will understand and respond to. The choice of words, place and time is at God’s disposition and according to His wise and perfect understanding of each soul. The evangelist must, therefore, only speak and act when he discerns that the Holy Spirit has moved him to that point. The teacher will help the person apply God’s Word to the particular circumstances of his inner and outer life by which is meant, his heart, mind, body and relationships with others. In this the teacher will also vitally depend on the guidance of the Holy Spirit for there can be nothing worse than receiving an inappropriate or untimely word. Finally, the pastor will exercise God’s healing art by building on the work of the teacher but with great care, respect, diligence and attentiveness to God, he will apply good counsel as a surgeon plies his instruments to heal and put the patient on the road to recovery; in this case, recovery in God who is our Divine Lover and Beloved. Evangelism, therefore, in the Orthodox Church can never be separated from the cure of souls of which it is an integral part. But what of evangelism to and in communities, all the way up to superpowers? Is this not inherently more problematic as soon as one moves away from the particular and distinctive needs of persons? Not really. It’s just that a different discipline is required under the general heading of preaching and living out the gospel. The diagnostic work is the same. We still have to work out what is the patient’s condition or illness. We still have to apply the cure in line with this diagnosis, collaborating with the patient’s own latent, God given power to heal. The only difference, albeit a significant one, is that we must be more aware of communal trends and patterns of thought, of ideas and structures in human communities, of faulty presuppositions and, more positively, of moves toward God at the macro rather than micro scale. Let’s consider a practical example of this pre-evangelistic diagnosis. We need first to choose a community along with its culture, say England, more specifically the north of England. Here we must take care both to avoid easy self-serving cultural stereotyping (friendly north, unfriendly south) and not to neglect the way in which English culture permeates certain levels of life and thought, north and south. It’s interesting to note when surveying the location of Orthodox Churches using English amongst primarily convert communities that these parishes more prevalent in parts of the country that, historically, have had a strong self of regional autonomy. Since the geo-political centre of English life has moved to the southeast since the collapse of the first Industrial Revolution in the late 20th century, this has left the other regions of England to rediscover an identity more based on history and precedent than in the south. We can see this process at work not only beyond England in the Celtic regions of Britain but within England itself, most notably in the North, the Midlands and the far West. This search for stability, local authenticity and roots has perhaps made communities in these areas more open to a Faith that has precisely these marks in its own self-understanding. It’s easy to see how the northern English might respond to a faith "wi’ now’t taken out," rather than in the south and the home counties where the cultural paradigm has often been, sometimes relentlessly, to modernise at all costs, (whatever that means!) In many ways this gives the north of England, the Midlands and the far West a ‘head start’ when it comes to establishing English speaking Orthodox communities, and this in fact, statistically is what we see, (but, strangely, less so in the south west). Finally, and this is necessarily a very cursory and slight survey of the religious scene in the North of England, we might identity a problematic factor. It is precisely this distance from the Establishment in all its forms and the history of non-conformity in the region that has left the religious culture rather dissipated, derelict and barren. Since the collapse of non-conformity in the first part of the 20th century a big gap opened up between this period of decline and the emergence of English Orthodox communities in the 19080’s onwards, arguably, the new non-conformity in the North. For a time the house church movement, which had some of its roots in the north, held forth much promise in the Protestant tradition but this now seems not the force that it used to be. Orthodoxy now has a great potential here in the north but, as elsewhere in England, it continues to be blighted by a tenacious stereotype of being perceived as "foreign." The historical reluctance of ethnic Orthodox communities to engage religiously with English culture has, sadly, reinforced this perception. We in the English use communities need to address this perception and stereotype urgently by being much more pro-active in our self-branding as the historic faith of England, (and indeed Britain). The healing of our region in God, by which I mean the restoration of the Christian Faith and Church, will start and grow apace with our public celebration of its saints and the use of every opportunity to engage with local culture, community and concerns. I would even go so far as to say that Orthodox (of all jurisdictions) should refer to themselves not as Greek, Russian, Antiochian, Romanian etc., (as reflecting the Mother churches) but simply as Orthodox, or as in the case of primarily English use communities, even, British Orthodox. When it comes to evangelism in the Orthodox Church, therefore, we have a lot to do but many opportunities by God to get going. We need to listen, look, learn and act to put our communities in better shape to give "a good account of the hope that lies within us." (1 Peter 3:15). For this we have not God’s invitation but God’s command. As St. Paul said, "woe to me if I do not preach the gospel!" (1 Corinthians 9:16). |
