Chapter Three.

The Gospel in the Parish

        About twenty years ago Bishop Anastasios Yannoulatos, now Archbishop of the autocephalous Church of Albania, published an article with the striking title “Discovering the Orthodox Missionary Ethos.”^[79] The thrust of the article was to underscore what he saw, during the sixties and seventies, as “a rekindling of missionary interest” in the Orthodox Church. Highlighting Orthodox missionary activities particularly in Africa, where he himself was a pioneer, the Archbishop emphasized that “the awakening of the Orthodox missionary conscience” was “no innovation but a rediscovery” of an essential dimension of the Church.^[80] Today, thanks to the work of His Beatitude and others, both clergy and laity, including graduates of our own Holy Cross School of Theology, many more Orthodox have not only been awakened to but are now strongly supportive of missionary work in distant lands, what we usually think of as “external mission.” Our own Orthodox Christian Mission Center in Florida, a vital and growing panorthodox ministry, is the administrative and inspirational center through which Orthodox clergy and laity of America channel their sense of missionary resurgence.

        The thesis of the present chapter is that, as the new millennium beckons us forward, a parallel rekindling and rediscovery of another closely related ministry of the Orthodox Church is needed, having to do with the “internal mission” of the Church, namely, the evangelization of rank-and-file Orthodox Christian at the level of each parish. The crux of the matter is the ministry of evangelism to the baptized. We are talking about not only the proclamation but also the actualization of the Gospel in the parish. At stake is the discovery of the inner evangelical spirit of the Orthodox Church by which the Church may be empowered to continue to fulfill its mission in North America. It may be rather startling to suggest that, after twenty centuries of Church history, Orthodox clergy and laity need to reawaken to the Gospel of Christ, the core message of salvation. And yet it is precisely true in the sense of Archbishop Anastasios’s words: it is a matter not of “innovation” but of “rediscovery” — the rediscovery of a precious and dynamic treasure already enshrined in the Holy Scriptures, the Divine Liturgy, the hymnology, the theology and tradition of the Church. But the treasure is not adequately appreciated, nor sufficiently effective, unless it is brought out into full view so that its beauty and power may be released by God’s grace.

        In our generation a significant number of formerly evangelical Protestant Christians joined in mass the Orthodox Church in the United States and now constitute one of the fastest growing parts of the worldwide family of the Orthodox.^[81] Over the last decade they have stirred up things in Orthodoxy, bringing with them a fervent personal faith, a zeal for the Scriptures and the Gospel, and a high level of Christian commitment sometimes discomforting to Orthodox Christians born into the Orthodox faith.  At the same time, they have earnestly sought to live and express the gifts they have brought with them in terms of an authentic liturgical and doctrinal Orthodox mindset (phronema). We so-called “cradle” Orthodox have been learning from them and they have been learning from us, sometimes in creative tension. Whatever our reciprocal lessons and perceptions, whatever our mutual gifts and tensions, the substantive task is clear and decisive for all: What is the direction and shape of the Orthodox Church in America that we should strive for as bishops, priests, and laity? What is the enduring message of Orthodoxy according to its own authentic identity as the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church? What is the dynamic spirit by which to build up the spiritual character of our parishes and to help them become local missionary centers across America? Certainly, one of the major tasks that lie ahead is that of the evangelism of the baptized membership. The future growth of the parishes, the spiritual vigor of the whole Church, as well as the mutual reinforcement of the internal and external mission of the Church, will significantly depend on the effective proclamation, as well as the actualization of the Gospel in the parish. At issue is nothing less than the evangelical nature of the Orthodox Church and the rediscovery of the Orthodox evangelical ethos.