Thoughts

“God is the source of all good things”[1]

Based on interviews with Fr Luke Veronis, taking into account his experience in mission work in Albania, and Fr Alexios, considering his experience of Christian mission in Kenya, along with some reflections on the views of Justin Martyr, Tertullian and Clement of Alexandria and the significance given to these in Orthodox mission.

In the early Church

The question of how Christianity should engage with a dominant non-Christian culture has been an active one from the very earliest days of the faith, both in its relationship with Judaism and with the paganism of the Roman Empire, and still continues to this day.

Already in the Acts of the Apostles, a controversy over the issue of the applicability of Jewish law to new Christians arises, and is discussed at the Council of Jerusalem, where it is taken for granted that those of a Jewish background will maintain their traditions, but it is also decided that new converts to the Church from a gentile background should be freed from most of these provisions, being required only to “abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from illicit marriages” (Acts 15:29).

Meanwhile, Paul, on his missionary journey to Athens, is faced with a different culture. He finds in that culture a means of approach for the faith he is teaching in the altar to “An Unknown God” (Acts 17:23). The Apostolic Fathers of the second century are also faced with the pagan culture of the Roman Empire. While Tertullian, horrified by heretical ideas and especially by those who wish to absorb those aspects of the new Christian faith that please them into their own religious systems, exclaims “What is there in common between Athens and Jerusalem? What between the Academy and the Church? What between heretics and Christians?”[2], others take a more cautious view and are unwilling to reject the host culture wholesale. Clement of Alexandria writes that “God is the source of all good things; of some primarily, as of the Old and New Testaments; of others by consequence, as of philosophy.”[3] Justin Martyr sees all wisdom in the world as partaking of the divine wisdom or reason, the Logos, saying that “those who live according to reason are Christians, even though they are accounted atheists. Such were Socrates and Heraclitus among the Greeks, and those like them”[4] However, even Justin, while acknowledging that “whatever has been uttered aright by any men in any place belongs to us Christians”, also says that these “were able to see the truth darkly, through the implanted seed of reason [logos] dwelling in them” while Christians now see more clearly through acquaintance with the Logos incarnate. It is clear that the Church was never in doubt that all truth seen in culture came from God himself. Clement wrote: “They may say that it is mere chance that the Greeks have expressed something of the true philosophy. But that chance is subject to divine providence… it may be said that the Greeks possessed an idea of truth implanted by nature. But we know that the Creator of nature is one only.”[5] It should be noted, though, that while Church Fathers throughout the early centuries made use of Greek philosophical terms to discuss theology, recognizing implicitly the good in the classical inheritance, they were also critical of much in the same civilization. In the fourth century, St Basil the Great urged discretion in the reading of pagan literature, using the memorable “similitude of the bees… [which] neither approach all flowers equally, nor in truth do they attempt to carry off entire those upon which they alight, but only taking so much of them as is suitable for their work, they suffer the rest to go untouched. We ourselves too, if we are wise, having appropriated from this literature what is suitable to us and akin to the truth, will pass over the remainder. And… let us guard ourselves against what is harmful.”[6]

It is important to stress the understanding of all the Fathers that the Christian message was a message for all people, in all cultures; the culture must not be allowed to get in the way of the message, but at the same time, the message was true independently of any culture and could therefore be ‘incarnated’ within the context of any culture.

The Orthodox approach to mission

In discussion with Fr Luke, comparisons were drawn between these attitudes of the Apostolic Fathers, and the activities of several later mission situations, namely the ninth-century mission to the Slavs, the nineteenth-century missions of the Russian Church to Alaska and Japan, and more recent mission work in Indonesia, Albania, Uganda and Kenya (where discussion with Fr Alexios shed further light).

All of these examples of Orthodox mission followed to some degree the tradition of Justin Martyr and Clement in their willingness to recognize the good in the host cultures and to engage critically with the cultures, rather than attempting simply to supplant the host culture with the culture of the original missionaries.

In general, Fr Luke identified three approaches to the surrounding culture:

· acceptance – those items or aspects of the culture that are already completely compatible with the Church,

· transformation – where certain cultural items or issues must be transformed, or to use the expression he and Archbishop Anastasios Yannoulatos prefer, ‘baptized’ into the Church,

· rejection – for those aspects of the culture that are absolutely incompatible with Christianity.

(In addition to these three approaches, it is possible to discern a fourth category, not explicitly mentioned by Fr Luke, that of concession. It may be considered necessary to make (at least temporarily) some concessions to a culture. Fr Luke suggested, for example, that the shorter form of the Liturgy in use in the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese in the USA may indicate a concession to both the attention span and the scheduling of the host culture. He justified this based on the historical distinction between monastic and cathedral rites. On the other hand, some of these concessions to culture may not be justifiable – for example, Fr Luke also gave the example of a practice in Nairobi in the 1970s where at communion two chalices were presented, one for Europeans and one for Africans. Later this was seen to be an improper concession to cultural mores, and the practice was stopped.)

The challenge in any culture is to work out what fits into which category: this is where St Basil’s ‘similitude of the bees’ comes in; how can we distinguish between these things? This is also where the different approaches identified in the Fathers are relevant. Fr Luke points out that Justin’s and Tertullian’s immediate contexts were not the same, and the different approaches may very well have been related to this. Indeed, it is notable that Tertullian’s oft-quoted ‘What is there in common between Athens and Jerusalem?’ appears in the context of his writing not against Greek philosophy in general, but against those syncretistic groups that were attempting to absorb what they saw as the desirable aspects of Christianity into themselves. It is important to remember that the fear of another culture works both ways. Richard Niebuhr explains that “not only Jews but also Greeks and Romans, mediaevalists and moderns, Westerners and Orientals have rejected Christ because they saw in him a threat to their culture.”[7] The syncretistic technique is one attempt to ‘neutralize’ this threat by editing Christ to fit an alternative religious or cultural system.

In exercising this discernment, Fr Luke identified some dangers to be aware of and some guidelines on how to discern. The missionary should try to examine the culture with ‘indigenous eyes’ so as not to be confused by his own cultural prejudices. He needs to allow time simply to learn about the culture initially, following the example of St Nicholas of Japan who spent several years familiarizing himself with Japanese culture and traditions, learning the languages and visiting Shinto temples in order to identify the positive aspects of Japanese religious identity before feeling adequately prepared to begin his work. The discernment of how to treat elements of the culture can only follow a deep understanding of those elements and the part they play in the culture. Patience is also required in giving the people time to change: ‘baptizing’ elements of a culture may take generations, for example, in changing something like polygamy. The key starting question should always be: ‘What is God already doing with these people?’ – in what ways are they already living ‘according to reason’ as Justin says; where is God’s natural revelation (the ‘divine providence’ of Clement) already showing in the culture? Archbishop Anastasios expresses it from his own experience in Africa: “I said to myself, ‘Let us be more humble. For all these centuries, Africa was not outside the interest of God. How did he give them his witness? What are the African religion, African symbolism, the African way of relation with God?’”[8]

The key dangers that Fr Luke warned of were the extremes of too much rejection – importing a foreign culture along with the faith the missionary teaches – and the opposite extreme of too much acceptance – leading to a syncretism that would distort the teaching of the faith he is trying to bring. An example of the former error that Fr Luke gave concerned not so much a rejection of the host culture as an infatuation with the Greek culture in which new Orthodox priests from Uganda were trained. This was all the more ironic in this case, as these converts to Orthodoxy came from what they regarded as the more colonially-minded Anglican Church, and part of their attraction to Orthodoxy had arisen from their view of it as a less colonial church, more likely to be accepting of indigenous culture. Ironically they ended up with a Liturgy that even used Greek language three-quarters of the time. Fr Alexios, however, from his experience living in a culture to which missionaries were sent, suggested that the effects of missionaries bringing in their own culture along with their faith were not always negative. He highlighted the health care and education that missionaries often brought with them, which earned them respect from the indigenous people.

Discerning what to accept, what transform, and what reject

As was mentioned above, the key difficulty here is to discern what elements of a given culture are acceptable as they are, which must be transformed or ‘baptized’ into the Church, and which have to be rejected outright due to complete incompatibility with the faith.

One of the most basic issues that a missionary must grapple with is that of local language, and this is the first example that occurs to Archbishop Anastasios[9] as something from the local culture that should just be accepted. To many, this seems obvious, and it has certainly a strong tradition in Orthodox mission work, even when the missionaries had to create an alphabet for local languages to be written down, as in the case of Cyril and Methodius in their mission to Russia, and the later Russian missionaries in their mission to Alaska. However, in the Western Church even from early times this was not so clear, and there was often pressure to use one of the ‘sacred’ languages of Hebrew, Latin and Greek.

In terms of things which must be rejected, this is generally the case when local customs transgress Christian ethics or doctrine. Fr Luke gave the clear example of the old Hindu custom for a widow to commit suicide by throwing herself on to her dead husband’s funeral pyre, and the more complex and controversial examples of the role of women in society and systems of arranged marriages, where some practices are clearly incompatible with Christianity, but it is more difficult to know exactly where to draw the line.

It seems that the majority of cultural issues, however, are in some ways or forms in need of being transformed, or at least ‘baptized’ into the Church. The first example of this category which occurred both to Fr Luke and to Fr Alexios was the African example of drums. Fr Alexios stressed the great significance drums have to his Kenyan culture, and their significance both for danger signals and for communicating important events such as death, for example. (In both these cases there is some correspondence with the more established Christian use of bells.) The third use of drums is for entertainment. This can also be praising God, as Fr Alexios said, in reference to Psalm 150, “our trumpets are the drums”. This use of drums has been brought into the Church (or ‘baptized’) in Kenya, where at the end of the Liturgy it is customary to have a few hours sitting in the church with the accompaniment of drums, while Christian teaching is done, announcements are made and other cultural events take place. This has not been uncontroversial: some visitors have been shocked by this and have said, according to Fr Alexios, ‘This is not Orthodox’. Archbishop Anastasios reacts strongly to this criticism: “What is not Orthodox? Not Orthodox is to be impure, to be dishonest, to be against the will of God, this is unorthodox. The African church is a joyful church; the Africans are cheerful people. This is a blessing, I believe, for Orthodoxy.”[10] He wishes to guard against cultural prejudice, against those who confuse their culture with their faith. Yet separating these is not such an easy thing as some would have us believe. Fr Luke says that it is key not to be afraid of mistakes in relating to a new culture: trial and error, he says, is one of the key ways of finding out just what in the culture should be ‘baptized’ and how this can be achieved.

St Nicholas of Japan, as has already been mentioned, spent some time studying Japanese religious traditions, and found that one thing the Japanese loved was to go on pilgrimages to holy places. It was immediately clear how to bring this practice into the Church, as the Church too has pilgrimages. It was a point of contact which would help Japanese converts feel more at home in the Church. Fr Daniel Byantoro, the indigenous Orthodox missionary in Indonesia, had a similar understanding with regard to fasting. Recognizing that local Muslims are already used to fasting, he decided that his church should follow the Muslim style of fast rather than the more usual Orthodox one in order to help new converts feel at home. Interestingly, this is a case where we have some evidence from the early Church: “Do not let your fasting be with the hypocrites, for they fast on the second day and the fifth day of the week [Monday and Thursday], but you shall fast on the fourth day and the day of preparation [Wednesday and Friday].”[11] This seems to be the opposite advice to the practice of Fr Daniel. However, it is important to contextualize: in the context of the Didache, it may have been more important for Christians to distinguish themselves from Jewish practice, but for the Orthodox in Indonesia, in a Muslim context where it is a capital offence to convert to Christianity, Fr Daniel considered it more important for their practices not to draw attention to themselves unnecessarily.

One of the more complex issues discussed by Fr Alexios was the situation in Kenya of what he called the ‘menabi’. These are charismatic healers and prophets who have been Christianized, but do not hold official position in the Church. People will go to them for prayer and healing, and the ‘menabi’ will perform a variety of rituals to effect this. For example, one ritual is the lighting of twelve white candles. It was explained by Fr Alexios that there are twelve candles for the apostles, and they must be white as this is the colour of the angels. Other rituals have a less explicitly Christian explanation, such as those involving stamping, clapping, slapping, shaking and other forms of bodily contact. The Christianization, the ‘baptizing’ of the concept of the ‘menabi’ is thorough. According to Fr Alexios, in order to be recognized as one of the ‘menabi’, a person has to be identified as having a gift, then must spend seven days alone in the wilderness (living only off what he can find to eat), followed by seven days alone in the church building (where people will bring him water, but he will fast). At the end of this time, other ‘menabi’ come to recognize and bless him, and there is a celebration. Their position is very controversial, especially with the hierarchs of the Church and with missionaries, but Fr Alexios says they should be judged by their lives and fruits: since they spend many long hours in the church praying, since their rituals involve invoking only saints of the Church and prayer to Christ, then there is no reason to doubt their full integration into Christian life. There is another interesting parallel here with the charismatic and peripatetic prophets described in the Didache, which gives advice on how to recognize a true prophet from a false, and the kind of hospitality to offer them, and also hints at an uncomfortable relationship between these prophets and the established leadership of the local church.[12]

Among other examples Fr Alexios gives of cultural traditions that have been ‘baptized’ by the Church, two particularly interesting ones are animal sacrifice and circumcision. Animal sacrifice has given way to a donation of an animal to the church, to be eaten at a subsequent feast. Circumcision, a traditional rite from boyhood to adulthood in Kenyan culture, has been brought into the church, and is now part of a ceremony blessed by the priest and followed by a celebration in the church, and where the transition has also taken on the significance of spiritual maturity – that the circumcised man is now to take on the responsibilities of a man in the church, to be responsible for his own attendance, to be ready to be called on to serve in the altar and in other ways in the community.

Conclusion

Mission churches today will agree with Tertullian’s ‘call to arms’: “Away with all projects for a ‘Stoic’, a ‘Platonic’ or a ‘dialectic’ Christianity!”[13] This is the danger of syncretism when the Church is finding her feet in a new culture. Fear of this, though, must not lead to the opposite reaction of building an artificial culture within a culture, or of importing a Greek or Russian culture where it does not belong. This has meant that missionaries need great wisdom in the approach to the local culture, being aware that some things need to be accepted and some rejected, and that many will need to be transformed, or ‘baptized’ into the Church. Archbishop Anastasios says, “Respect for cultures, respect for the dignity of others: this is the beginning, this is the Orthodox attitude. This respect was demonstrated in history, in the Byzantine period, when Cyrillus and Methodius went to the Slavic people. The Russian church also kept this tradition in approaching other peoples – and when they kept this respect for the dignity of others, they were successful. When we forgot it, the result of our own efforts was very poor.”[14]

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