History of Orthodox missiology. Andrey Borisovich Efimov essays on the history of missionary work of the Russian Orthodox Church

Acknowledgments

I would like to express special gratitude to the editors, nun Elena (Khilovskaya) and Elena Yuryevna Kovalskaya, without whom this book in its present form would not have seen the light.

I also thank the students, graduate students, and colleagues who have worked in a new rewarding scientific direction - the history of Russian missionary work.

Introduction. Missiology. Basic principles of missionary service. Periodization

§ 1. Missiology. Basic principles of missionary service

“Mission” (from Latin missio - sending, order) in Greek sounds like holy apostleship. Christ's ministry is called apostolic, and mission is one of the main forms of its ministry, when the living, grace-filled organism of the Church comes into contact with the unenlightened world.

The Divine Liturgy begins with the proclamation: “Blessed is the Kingdom of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit...” We live in the Kingdom of God - in the Church. The Lord says to His disciples: “Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you” (). This grace-filled world of God, in which and in which God lives, comes into contact with an unenlightened world that has not accepted the saving grace of God. “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” () - the light of Christ’s Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church shines in the darkness, in this world. And the area where the light and the unenlightened world come into contact is the field of mission activity.

The theology of mission is called upon to reveal the mystery of the holy apostleship, the mystery of the spread of grace-filled light. To do this, we need to give an idea of ​​the world, saved and enlightened by the grace of God. It is necessary to describe a person and how he, by the grace of God, becomes a member of the Church, lives, builds his life in relation to God, to other people and to the world. It is necessary to explain how a person, to the extent of the image and likeness of God, can be a co-worker with God in His grace-filled enlightenment of another person. It is necessary to reveal the secrets of the boundaries of the Church, the relationship between the Church and the world. And then, on the basis of Orthodox anthropology, ecclesiology and soteriology, the mystery of the Holy Apostleship is revealed, missiology, the theology of mission arises.

Missionary begins with the image that Christ gave us - the image of preaching, the image of all three years of His ministry. The apostles, who carried the good news of the Kingdom of God, were likened to this image. The Lord prepared the apostles for service, sending them to preach in twos and giving them the grace-filled power of evangelism and healing (). In the Gospel, Jesus Christ gives perfect images of both the Good Samaritan () and the good shepherd who lays down his life for his sheep (). The earthly ministry of the Lord ended with His words addressed to the apostles, to the Church, to us: “Go and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit... and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age” () .

The fullness of the grace-filled life of the Church begins with Pentecost (), and here, in the Upper Room of Zion, the missionary service of the Church was revealed, when in simple words Apostle Peter, the grace of the Holy Spirit opens the hearts of those listening and joins them to the Church.

During this same period, the basic principles of missionary work were formed.

The preaching of the good gospel news must be intelligible and understandable; The mysteries of the Kingdom of God must be conveyed in images that are understandable to those listening.

The preacher is only a collaborator with God in the matter of enlightenment and salvation of an unenlightened person. The preacher only helps the listener to open his heart to receive the grace of the Holy Spirit.

The sermon must be conducted on native language, as it was during Pentecost, when everyone heard the words of the Apostle Peter, sounded in his native language.

Missionary work is, in the end, always an exorcism, an expulsion of demons. Light pushes back darkness, fights the prince of darkness - the devil - and expels him from the human soul. Let us remember the words of F. M. Dostoevsky from the novel “The Brothers Karamazov”: “In the world, the devil fights with God, and the battlefield is the hearts of people.” This struggle is “not against flesh and blood” (), and the apostle, in the image of his Teacher, is ready to give his life for his flock. The life of every apostle and missionary gives us numerous examples of such spiritual struggle and the victory of Christ. Let us only remember the words of the Venerable Elder Silouan of Athos: “To pray for peace is to shed blood.”

“So let your light shine before people, so that they see your good deeds and glorify your heavenly Father” (), that is, the basis of missionary service is built on the example of the personal pious life of every Christian and the fulfillment of his duty. This is especially true for the apostle of the laity.

It is appropriate to give one example. In 1910, a famous mullah and a Protestant pastor met at a missionary diocesan congress in Tashkent. The pastor read the Sermon on the Mount to the mullah and asked: “Okay?” “Very good,” answered the mullah. “Why don’t you turn to Christ?” “We do not turn to Christ because you do not live according to His commandments,” answered the mullah.

The cause of the Holy Apostleship is served by charitable and other forms of social service, as well as work in educational and cultural spheres. Saint Nicholas of Japan expressed this in these words: “First win love and respect, and then bring the Word of God to people.” Vast experience of such service has been accumulated by Catholics and Protestants. The Apostle Paul says the same thing: “I have become all things to all, in order to save at least some” (). St. was able to vividly embody this covenant of the supreme apostle. Innokenty (Veniaminov). At the call of God, he and his family traveled thousands of kilometers and settled in a dugout on the island of Unalaska near Alaska among the Aleuts. He taught the Aleuts carpentry, the art of mason, joiner, gardener, blacksmith, watchmaker, then compiled the alphabet, translated the Holy Scriptures, divine services into the Aleut language and taught both children and adults from the books he compiled. He had to travel around his flock (who lived on about 20 of the Aleutian islands), often across the ocean alone on a kayak covered with leather, he protected the Aleuts from the arbitrariness of officials and merchants, taught how to hunt fur seals so that their numbers did not decrease, and helped his spiritual children to cope with illnesses, etc.

It is not surprising that these simple people responded to the feat of his love with childlike trust and love, and ten years after the start of the mission, there was not a single person left in these places who had not converted to Orthodoxy.

A principle well known to every missionary: with baptism the spiritual path, the path of enlightenment, only begins. This is exactly how St. formulated it. Innocent (Veniaminov), and St. Nicholas of Japan, and Archimandrite. Makariy (Glukharev), and many others. Baptism places an ontologically new foundation stone on which to build the temple of the Holy Spirit.

The last condition for the success of the sermon: the non-violent spread of Christianity, since violence takes away freedom and extinguishes love. In Orthodoxy, especially Russian Orthodoxy, there has almost never been forced coercion to accept Christianity. There was preference in the choice of servants and masters, partners in trade or business, hostile or military actions could occur, provoked by various motives, including religious ones, but there were never military crusades against any people for the purpose of mass conversion. And if St. Stefan of Perm, after several years of living among the Zyryans, alone or with his closest disciples, went to “destroy idols and idols”, to cut down the sacred birch tree, then he went to the armed pagans unarmed. The same thing happened in the Volga region with the Tatars and Bashkirs in Siberia, and even difficult wars in the Caucasus did not lead to the forced baptism of local peoples. There were incentives for those who were baptized, especially for the local nobility, there was exemption from taxes and duties, but without violence. The policy of nonviolence reveals itself throughout the history of the Russian Church and the Russian state and can be traced through instructions, decrees, messages, both state and church, at various levels of church and state power. Perhaps the only clear exception that confirms the general rule is the instruction of Emperor Peter I to the Tobolsk Metropolitan with the recommendation, without hesitating through violent measures, to baptize the peoples of Siberia. However, after Peter I, the government again drew up instructions on the inadmissibility of forced baptism. It is characteristic that, for example, in the Catholic mission at a monastery in California, according to the recollections of travelers, in the first half of the 19th century. Indians were kept as draft animals and locked in barracks at night. There were also discussions about who the Indians came from - from or from the devil.

Every Christian brings to the world the joy of the Good News, the joy of participation in the Resurrection of Christ, the victory that has conquered the world. And this joy of the touch of God’s love, which he shares with others, becomes an inexhaustible source of joy in the Holy Spirit. “For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks” (). The apostles and all generations of Christians were witnesses of this gracious joy.

The natural state of a healthy, living organism of the Church is growth. This growth in all its diversity of forms is studied by the history of missions. For a millennium, Russian has been enlightening the peoples of the Russian Empire and beyond its borders and has accumulated vast experience in this field. This is due not only to the fact that the territory of the empire occupied about a sixth of the land, and not only to the diversity of peoples and small ethnic groups (more than 130) that inhabited these lands. The entire history of Russia, starting with Saint Prince Vladimir, can be viewed as a struggle for Orthodox statehood. The idea of ​​the union of Church and state in resolving all issues of our earthly life has become national idea of the Russian people. The experience of the history of the symphony of Church and State in Russia is unique. For many centuries, the Russian Empire was the main, and at times the only, stronghold of Orthodoxy.

The Russian peoples, who adopted the idea of ​​​​an Orthodox state from Byzantium, also accepted the covenant of Christ - to go to the ends of the Earth preaching Christianity. What Byzantium did not always succeed, Russia and the Russian Church succeeded over the course of ten centuries. It was possible to create and maintain an Orthodox empire, which included partially or completely unenlightened peoples, and gradually introduced them into the fold of Orthodox civilization. It was possible to create churches and centers of Orthodox education at embassies abroad. It also happened the other way around, when Orthodox missionaries took the lead in relations with other states, winning love and respect, and then a diplomatic mission began to operate. Thus, in Beijing, diplomatic representation was carried out through a spiritual mission until 1863. The role of the spiritual mission in the education and history of Alaska, America, and Japan can hardly be overestimated.

The history of Russian missionary work has revealed many ascetics and saints who served the Church and the peoples inhabiting our Motherland. Through their exploits, the grain of the Orthodox faith was sown and nurtured, and on this basis the Russian peoples grew, the Russian statehood, Russian culture and farming; my whole life was imbued with the spirit of the Orthodox faith. On the foundation of Orthodoxy, relations were built between the various peoples who inhabited Russia, including those who adhered to Mohammedanism, Buddhism or paganism. The thousand-year experience of religious preaching in the most diverse conditions of the clergy and laity, the aristocracy, sovereigns and commoners, learned theologians and peasants who have not even received primary education remains today largely unknown and, as a result, unclaimed. Until now, there is not a single comprehensive monograph on the history of the Russian mission, except for a small brochure by Rev. E. Smirnov, published in 1904.

The history of Russian religious preaching begins with the exploits of Sts. Equal-to-the-Apostles Olga and Vladimir and the Baptism of Rus'. Statehood and culture spread, grew and strengthened along with Orthodoxy. spread throughout the cities, from the cities - along the rivers - to the villages, and the process became most intense when the sermon was carried out by monks, who testified to the truths of Christ with the purity of their lives. This stage of monastic or monastic colonization of Rus' was quite long. It was followed by the period of formation and strengthening of the Russian Orthodox Kingdom, when missionary work was recognized as one of the most important areas of state policy.

The end of the Tatar-Mongol yoke is associated with a significant expansion of the borders of the state and the gradual bringing to Christianity of various tribes of the North, Siberia, peoples of the Volga region, residents of the southern and western regions. The difficulties of church life during the synodal period could not but affect the work of religious preaching, nevertheless, at the same time, the principles and forms of all missionary work of the Church were formed: they shone with the feats of the holy apostolate of St. Innocent of Irkutsk, St. John and Philotheus of Tobolsk, St. Herman of Alaska, St. Philaret and Innocent, Metropolitans of Moscow, St. and many others. At the same time, internal and external missions were founded, a system for training missionary personnel was created, scientific missionary schools were formed, special publications appeared, etc. The heyday of Russian missionary activity occurred in the second century. half of XIX– beginning of the 20th century (before the outbreak of the First World War), which was significantly facilitated by the Orthodox Missionary Society created in 1870, which united the healthy forces of Orthodox Russia in helping Christian preaching. Over the course of several decades, amazing successes have been achieved, but in parallel with this process, destructive phenomena have also increased.

The temptation to replace the moral values ​​commanded by Christ with anti-Christian slogans of “freedom, equality, brotherhood” penetrated Russia from the West for a long time and destroyed the Orthodox faith among the people, the Orthodox way of life of the people, and Orthodox statehood. These destructive phenomena periodically manifested themselves in all layers of society in various forms, right up to the Decembrist uprising and the activities of terrorist organizations. Anti-Christian totalitarianism (including in democratic garb) came to Russia from the West, where attempts at anti-church revolutions shook Europe for several centuries. The result was that at the beginning of the 20th century. not all of the Russian people lived in the Church anymore and sinful temptations found soil in the souls of people and took root, therefore, during the period of great temptations, largely related to the hardships of war, the people did not maintain their faith, the spiritual foundations of the entire society were not strong enough, and the Orthodox the empire fell.

The collapse of the Russian Empire and the seizure of power by the Bolsheviks were accompanied by the establishment of a totalitarian atheistic regime unprecedented in history and the persecution of Orthodoxy, which began in 1917. Not only Christian believers were subjected to widespread destruction, but also the Christian way of life, the Christian family, Christian morality, Christian culture. The clergy, monasticism, Orthodox intelligentsia and ordinary believers were destroyed and isolated in camps and distant exiles. As a result of the persecution, three generations of people faithful to the Church almost completely died, and the surviving Orthodox families and educated priests were the rare exception.

It is characteristic that a wave of anti-Christian totalitarianism swept across the world; there were attempts to establish such regimes (in some cases for decades) in a number of countries in Europe, America and Asia. The collapse of the Russian Empire was a disaster for all of Orthodoxy and led to the collapse of other “small” Orthodox worlds (in Bulgaria, Romania, etc.). In the 60s the majority of Orthodox Christians around the world found themselves in an atmosphere of oppression or persecution. Everywhere they faced the challenge of a spiritually hostile culture. As a result of the destruction of monasteries and theological schools, the foundations of the sources of piety and spiritual succession were undermined. This situation was interpreted as in the “post-Christian world.”

Confrontation with the modern, explicitly or implicitly, “post-Christian” world also occurred in the Catholic world. The openness of Catholicism to the secular world and secular culture, proclaimed by the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965), led to a catastrophe - the falling away from the Church of many laity and clergy in various countries West. This experience of Catholicism and attempts at similar relations with the modern world of more conservative (in general) Orthodoxy were also interpreted as suicidal.

At the same time of the 20th century. It also became the century of the spiritual mission of the Russian emigration. As a result of the collapse of the Russian state, about three million people found themselves outside their homeland. Refugees, forced to fight for survival in a foreign land, were bearers of Orthodox Russian culture and the Orthodox faith. Under favorable circumstances (for example, in Harbin, in Paris in the 30s), Orthodox communities quickly arose, churches were built, Russian schools, colleges, etc. were organized, and the process of acquaintance of the population of the host countries with the great Russian Orthodox Church gradually took place. culture. In Europe, America, Asia, meeting with paganism, Catholicism or Protestantism, Russians testified to the height and depth of the Orthodox faith, and thanks to the diaspora scattered throughout the world, the isolation of the “Orthodox worlds”, which were in full view of the whole world, was put an end to. This is how the great spiritual mission of the Russian emigration was realized.

The entire post-Christian West, “even to the ends of the earth,” is familiar with Orthodoxy today, but can one hope that at least one of the peoples is ready to accept and enter the Orthodox Church, as was the case back in the 19th century? To understand this issue, it is important to take into account the experience of Orthodoxy in America, where, as a result of the emergence of numerous new Orthodox parishes and their unification around the Orthodox diocese of the Russian Church, which strengthened at the beginning of the 20th century. at ep. Tikhon (Bellavina) (later Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia), a new autocephalous church was formed - the American (1970). The emergence of the American Church, like the Japanese Church (1970), was a qualitatively new stage in the missionary life of all Orthodoxy.

One of the main problems in the life of the American Church is the problem of the relationship between Orthodoxy and secular American pseudo-Christian culture, which, being eclectic (“synthetic”) and largely oriented towards paganism (including the so-called neo-paganism), lays claim to the whole person, capturing him emotionally and spiritually, leaving him no real freedom of choice - today the Western way of life and the Western vision of the world have gone too far from the Christian.

In Russia, the situation until recently looked completely hopeless: as in the 20th century. Hundreds of Orthodox parishes grew in America, Asia, and Europe, Russia turned into a spiritual desert. There were periods when there were only a few functioning churches in all of Siberia. The activities of theological schools were either completely prohibited, or briefly allowed, and then they were again destroyed during Khrushchev’s persecutions, which long survived the reign of N.S. Khrushchev himself.

However, the life of the Orthodox Church in Russia and in the free West has a fundamental difference, namely that by the middle of the 20th century. the majority of the population of Western countries basically themselves abandoned faith and life according to faith, life in the Church, while in our country only a part of the people were tempted and apostatized from Christ. The other part did not renounce the faith and the Church in an era of unprecedented persecution and suffered for Christ. Total number There are hundreds of thousands, and perhaps millions of people who suffered for their faith. Now, several generations later, it is not easy to describe the details of this heroic history of the Church in the era of persecution, although much is gradually becoming known and some witnesses are still alive. The host of Russian new martyrs now stands before God for us and calls us to the work of preaching the faith. Therefore, there is no reason to typologically combine the spiritual desert of the West with the thirst for spirituality in post-Soviet Russia. The possibility of a spiritual return is evidenced by the first fruits of modern religious preaching, the massive construction of churches, the re-creation of theological schools, the revival of Orthodox publishing houses, monasteries and much, much more. And the main thing for us today is to find roots in the martyrdom of our fathers and grandfathers for Christ. If this happens, the paths of God’s Providence will open, leading to the re-creation of Orthodox Rus', this unique “Orthodox world”, living by the ideals of holiness, striving for holiness and, in this sense, Holy Rus'.

In the investigative testimony of Bishop. Arseny (Zhadanovsky) (under interrogation on May 28, 1937), shot in 1937 at the Butovo training ground near Moscow along with hundreds of other people, there are the following lines: “The Orthodox Church is currently in a very difficult situation... The Orthodox Church has repeatedly experienced persecution and was revived again, so the present time, which the Church is experiencing under Soviet rule, must change: churches will be restored, and monasteries will open again, Soviet power will be overthrown by the people, and only Russian believers devoted to the Orthodox Church will rule the country.”

Today is the time of spiritual revival of Russia, which was foreseen by many of our saints. And the main task is the Eucharistic revival of Orthodox parishes, to which the close attention of society is paid. Today, every monastery, every parish strives to be that righteous person, without whom not a single village, not a single city, much less a state, can stand.

The revival of liturgical life and entry into the grace-filled Eucharistic life of the Church, into the Kingdom of God, makes every church Christian a full-fledged witness of the Kingdom of God, which has come in power, and places him in the ranks of missionaries. Religious preaching as an example of life itself, which, as it is blessed, also becomes Eucharistic in all the paths of life, is today the main form of missionary work, since due to the increase in lawlessness, trust in words in society has dried up. The Eucharistic nature of life also means the acquisition of gracious love for the suffering world and the long-suffering Russian people. And this love does not weaken Christians, but gives them spiritual tension, which allows them to overcome one of the main difficulties of modern life - the opposition of the Orthodox vision of the world to the modern secular view of it.

The deep churching of the people, families, the growth of children in Christian families and in the church, the upbringing and education of youth and the participation of children, youth and adults in active parish life make it possible to identify those who will be capable of missionary service. The people of God themselves must give missionaries from among themselves who are striving to labor in the feat of the holy apostleship. Preparation for ministry is, on the one hand, spiritual growth, and on the other, education and the acquisition of skills, experience, including experience of participation in the life of the church (liturgical and extra-liturgical) and experience of communicating with people.

Religious preaching is always more addressed to the heart than to the mind: “But in order to act on the heart, one must speak from the heart: for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. And therefore, the one who is filled and abundant with faith and love can have lips and wisdom, but the hearts of those listening cannot resist it, and which indicates how, where and what to say...” (St. Innocent (Veniaminov).

Already now, centers of spiritual education are gradually being created, the work of which has an impact on all segments of the population, the organization of charitable activities (with parallel missionary work) for the elderly, children, and the disabled is being improved - both at home and in hospitals, prisons, orphanages and etc. The time has come for the revival of the Orthodox Missionary Society in order to consolidate all healthy forces for the salvation and enlightenment of the Russian peoples. It is necessary to develop a system of forms and methods of countering the propaganda of spiritual and moral corruption, limiting the activities of pseudo-spiritual and totalitarian sects, Catholicism, Protestantism, Mohammedanism and Buddhism among the population with Orthodox spiritual roots.

Orthodox ecclesiology contains the possibility of defining basic missionary principles, responsibilities, goals and means. The basis of the Orthodox approach is precisely the Eucharistic understanding of the Church, which, as the Body of Christ, is a testimony and mission of addressing the suffering world and people. The focus of the life and verbal ministry of the Church is the Eucharist, which is the actualization The Kingdom of God has come in power, there is the ministry of Jesus Christ Himself, Who “did not retreat... having created everything, until you raised us to heaven and gave us your future kingdom...”. The Eucharist is the source and power of effective Christian witness. She is both the perfect image of holy apostleship and presiding, and the bloodless sacrifice “for all and for all,” and the solution to all difficult questions of modern testimony is sought today within the living Eucharistic church consciousness, addressed to the expected appearance of Christ in power and glory...

§ 2. Main periods in the history of Russian missionary work

In these “Essays on the History of Russian Missionary” an attempt is made to briefly examine the main events of the thousand-year history of Russian religious preaching. It is impossible to cover in detail the variety of events, to cite thousands of famous and little-known names in a relatively short work, so we had to limit ourselves to the most important names and examples for us. We sought to follow the experience of the priest. Sergius Mansurov, so that through the examples of the preaching of our ascetics at different times and in different conditions, not only with the mind, but also with the heart, we can touch their feat, and be ignited by their burning of faith, love and hope. In living communication with them, it is easier to recognize those features, those joys and troubles with which the history of the missionary witness of our Church is full. At the same time, naturally, the choice of the main thing will be largely subjective, and this book does not pretend to be complete.

The introduction offers a very conventional periodization of the history of Russian missionary work. Despite all the ambiguity, it can help in understanding the main trends, problems and events.

The first (pre-Mongol) period (988–1240) is the beginning of the enlightenment of Rus' from the baptism of the people by Prince Vladimir in Kyiv to the defeat of Kyiv by Batu. This is a time of rapid growth of the Church, statehood, culture in cities and the spread of Christianity deep into the country.

The second period (1240–1552) – monastic, monastic spread of faith and the Church, the formation of the Church and the Orthodox state, the Orthodox kingdom. The creation of a network of monasteries as a stronghold of the state and the people, the penetration of Christianity into all corners of Russia and into all segments of the population. Spread of the Church to the north and east. The final strengthening of the ideal of holiness and the ideal of unity of the Church, state and culture. The period ends with the strengthening of the Muscovite kingdom and the capture of Kazan.

The third period (1552–1727) begins with the capture of Kazan. Then, a few years later, the Nogai Horde and the Astrakhan Khanate were annexed, and from 1582, the Siberian Khanate was conquered and the rapid movement began eastward to the Pacific Ocean. This is a period of rapid expansion of the territory of the Russian state, when over several decades the territory increases many times over, and dozens of new Muslim and pagan peoples join it. The Orthodox state includes among its main tasks Christian education and promotion of it. Effective missionary expeditions are organized. The first missionary structures are created. Missionary, educational and educational objectives(St. Gury, German and Barsanuphius of Kazan, St. Joseph of Volotsky, Metropolitan Philotheus (Leshchinsky) and others). A spiritual mission is sent to Beijing. The enlightenment of the Siberian peoples begins. The period ends with the death of Metropolitan Philotheus of Tobolsk, Apostle of Siberia.

The fourth period (1727–1800) is characterized by a weakening of religious preaching activity. The natural spread of Christianity in the Volga region, Siberia and the Northern regions encountered significant obstacles during the long reign of Catherine II. This was partly due to the secularization of church property, the closure of 4/5 monasteries and other difficulties in the life of the Church, state and people during this synodal period. However, there were also encouraging developments: in particular, the formation of the Office of New Baptism Affairs in the Volga region, the Ossetian Spiritual Mission in the North Caucasus and the Kodiak Mission in Alaska. The period ends with a revival of religious life in various strata of Russian society and, at the same time, an intensification.

In the fifth period (1800–1827), the religious life of both the Orthodox people, Muslims and Buddhists revived. Islam is rising in the Kazan region, in other regions of the Volga region and Siberia. Entire villages of old-baptized Tatars are converting from Orthodoxy to Islam, followed by the Mordovians, Chuvashs, and Cheremis. In connection with the rapid spread throughout the Volga region, decrees and messages of the Holy Synod followed on strengthening missionary activity, which gradually intensified.

The sixth period (1827–1870) is the time of the rise of missionary activity and the creation of systems of missionary education, translation activities, school system and training missionaries for many unenlightened peoples. The Kazan missionary school, Altai, Yakut and other internal missions are flourishing, external missions are being created and successfully developing (Japanese, Palestinian, etc.). This period ends with the creation of the Orthodox Missionary Society, which began to attract almost the entire people to the work of preaching the faith.

The heyday of Russian missionary work occurred in the next, seventh period (1870–1905), when dozens of unenlightened peoples received from missionaries writing, schools, churches, and book culture in their native language. Numerous internal and external missions are being created and rapidly developed. At the same time, the style of work of the internal mission, addressed primarily to the Russian people, among whom, during this period, sects were introduced and spread, including those with a socialist and atheistic orientation, changed significantly. Brotherhoods, religious and educational societies, parochial schools (CPS), and monasteries are rising up to defend the Church. The first missionary congresses are held, diocesan missionary structures are created.

The eighth period (1905–1917) takes place in conditions of free, rapid development and spread of sects, as well as the teachings of socialism and atheism. The main efforts of missionaries in Russia are aimed at combating these trends, which are shaking not only the faith of the people, but also the spiritual, moral, cultural and state foundations of people's life. The period ends with the death of the Orthodox empire and the establishment of a godless dictatorship.

The ninth period (1917–1988) is the time of the cessation of missionary activity in Russia and the death of missionary schools, camps and other structures. The era of totalitarian persecution of faith and the Church has arrived. Orthodox witness in the country and in society remained only in the form of martyrdom for the faith, and the Church became silent. At the same time, refugees from Russia brought their faith, their Church and the great Russian culture to all corners of the world. The Orthodox witness of these people and communities (more than a thousand parishes) in exile had a significant impact on the spiritual and cultural life of the whole world.

The present period (since 1988) is marked by a gradual decline in missionary activity of Russians abroad, but at the same time by an increase in the number of national Orthodox parishes and Local Churches in Europe, Asia, and America. In Russia, the revival of the Church and religious preaching began in many forms, covering all spheres of life of different strata of Russian society. The revival of Orthodox Rus' begins, which our saints predicted and prayed for.

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21 . Struve N. A. Orthodoxy and culture. – M.: Christian publishing house, 1992.

22 . Schmeman A., protopr., world, mission: Thoughts on Orthodoxy in the West. – M.: PSTBI Publishing House, 1996.

additional literature

23 . Arkhangelov S. A., priest. Our overseas missions. – St. Petersburg: P. P. Soykin, 1899.

24 . Afanasyev I., prot. Introduction to // LDA Bulletin. – 1990. – No. 3. – P. 87–105; Christian reading. – 1991. – No. 4. – P. 50–70; 1992. – No. 7. – P. 59–81.

25 . Belyaev I., prot. Russian missions on the outskirts. – St. Petersburg: P. P. Soykin, 1900.

26 . Golubinsky E. E. History of the Russian Church: In 4 volumes - M.: Krutitskoye Patriarchal Compound, 1997.

27 . Dobroklonsky A.P. Guide to the history of the Russian Church. – M.: Krutitskoye Patriarchal Compound, 2001.

28 . Malkov Yu. G. Holy Rus': Essay on the history of Orthodoxy in Russia. – M.: Rule of Faith, 2002.

29 . Oleksa M., prot. Icons and space: their meaning in missionary service // The Path of Orthodoxy. – 1996/1997. – No. 5. – P. 78–90.

30 . Essay on the life and apostolic works of Innocent, Metropolitan. Moscow. – New York: Committee Rus. Orthodox youth abroad, 1990.

31 . Monument to the works of Russian Orthodox evangelists from 1793 to 1853 / Comp. Al. S. Sturdza. – M.: Type. V. Gautier, 1857.

32 . Popov A.V. Russian foreign before 1917 and the activities of Russian Orthodox spiritual missions // Makaryevsky readings: Materials of the 3rd international. conf. (Nov 21–22, 2004). – Gorno-Altaisk, 2004. – pp. 173–205.

33 . “Quiet Light”: Biography and works of Bishop. Serpukhovsky Arseny (Zhadanovsky). – M.: Pilgrim, 2002.

34 . 1st Eucharistic Canon // Missal. – M.: Publishing house. Moscow department Patriarchies, 1977.

35 . Florensky P. A., priest. The concept of the Church in the Holy Scriptures // Theological works. – 1974. – Sat. 12. – pp. 73–183.

36 . Florovsky G.V., prot. Father's House // Bulletin of the Russian Western European Patriarchal Exarchate. – Paris, 1982. – No. 109/112. – pp. 177–205.

37 . Florovsky G. V., prot. Paths of Russian Theology. – Paris, 1937.

38 . Shatalov O. V. Theoretical aspects of the development of domestic missiology // Historical Bulletin. – M.; Voronezh, 2000. – Issue. 5/6 (9/10). Specialist. Issue: Materials of the international. conf. “Christianity on the threshold of a new millennium” M., June 20–22, 2000 – Part 1. – pp. 248–253.

39 . Shirokov S., priest. Fundamentals of modern missiological science and the development of missionary research // Historical Bulletin. – M.; Voronezh, 2000. – Issue. 5/6 (9/10). – Part 1. – pp. 237–247.

40 . Shmeman A.D., protopr. The historical path of Orthodoxy. – M.: Pilgrim, 1993.

41 . Ethnographic observations of Russian sailors, travelers, diplomats and scientists in California in the early and mid-19th century. // Russian America. – M.: Mysl, 1994.

42 . Villager E. Russian and Russian ascetics of the 18th century. – St. Petersburg: I. L. Tuzov, 1905.

In 1706, Tsar Peter I issued a decree: “Siberian Metropolitan Philotheus to go to the whole Vogul and Ostyak land, and to the Tatars and Tungus and Yakuts, and to the volosts, where he finds their idols and idols and their wicked dwellings, and then burn everything , and bring them, the Voguls and Ostyaks, into the faith of Christ with God’s help and their labors.” (Cm.: ). (Here and below are references to the literature at the end of the chapter).

According to the first general population census of the Russian Empire in 1897, the ethnic composition included 196 peoples, with the share of the Russian population being 44.3%.

REVIEW ON THE BELGOROD TEXTBOOK

Since I am one of the co-authors of this textbook (more precisely, the author of two chapters: “The Mistakes of a Missionary” and “Methods of Disputation with Protestants”), I remember how this collection of motley chapters was created, and therefore I can testify that its compilers initially had a low assessed the expected result.
The purpose of the collection was to temporarily plug the methodological hole that had formed in our seminar schedules: there is a missiology course, but there are still no textbooks on it. At the same time, everyone understood that the quality of this temporary patch would be low. Too many different people write differently and about different things on the pages of this collection.
Thank God the textbook came out. It will bring its benefits. Now the main thing is to avoid his canonization.
The three parts of the textbook are uneven and of uneven quality.
Half the pages (and a whole academic year) takes up the presentation of the history of the mission, and it is presented as identical to history mission of the Russian Orthodox Church. This means that in the textbook
a) there is no history of the early Christian mission;
b) there is no history of the Christianization of barbarian Europe, including the Irish mission;
c) there is no description of the modern Orthodox mission (for example, the Greek mission in Africa);
d) there is not so much an analysis, but at least a presentation of the modern heterodox mission.
In general, the textbook is too forcedly anti-ecumenical. Its authors forgot that they were not writing a textbook on “accusatory theology,” and therefore, in matters of mission, Catholics and Protestants are not so much opponents for us as teachers. Particularly indecent are the attacks on the popes who SUPPORTED the mission of Cyril and Methodius to the Slavs (p. 16). Also inappropriate are the attacks on the Jesuits in chapter 1.6. Jesuit schools were able to reverse the reformation in Poland - and the missionaries should have known more about this. Instead, they read another evil cartoon. (But another author, in another chapter, for who knows why, declares the identity of the understanding of missions in the Russian Orthodox Church and in some “Book Common Prayer American Episcopal Church" (p. 225). Why do seminarians need this knowledge?)
The fact that the story of the history of the Russian mission takes up half of the teaching hours and pages was justified when teaching missiology began. But now, not historical, but actually missiological material has already been accumulated, with which one can fill the allocated study time.
The conversation on the history of the Russian mission may already be outside the brackets of the missiology course. There are books on this topic (work by A. B. Efimov plus this textbook), and anyone can easily get an overview of several highlights of the mission. Today it would be appropriate to return the conversation about the history of the Russian mission to the framework of the history of the Russian Orthodox Church, and simply integrate certain historical episodes and precedents into the course of the missiological narrative.
It is also inappropriate to devote half of the class time to talking about the history of the mission because when we try to draw advice from history for the work of a modern missionary, we get only a set of platitudes that are obvious to a modern seminarian even before he begins missiology lessons (they say, you must love the natives and speak their language).
Reducing missiology to the history of mission is convenient only for a teacher mobilized by the administration to teach missiology. But this will do little to help the birth of new missionaries.
The absurdity of the textbook is evident from the fact that in it we see 4 hours allocated to a story about the mission of ancient Russian monasteries (although the missiological aspect of their activities, due to the paucity of sources, could be presented in 15 minutes), while the topic is “conversation with a youth audience” takes only one (!) hour.
If we talk about the oddities of the timing, one cannot help but note the unjustified equalization of the Japanese Mission and the Jerusalem Mission. Both - 4 hours. But the mission in Japan was precisely missionary. There is a huge and interesting material. Not a single missionary left behind such detailed diaries as St. Nikolai of Japan (however, for some reason the publication of his diaries is not in the library of the Belgorod Seminary with a missionary orientation, and there is not only a complete five-volume one, but none at all!). The mission in Jerusalem was only a synonym for the Japanese one. She was not involved in preaching Christ to the Mohammedans. This is an archaeological, political, pilgrimage, pastoral, but least of all missionary project.
Again, it makes me sad that “a mission among young people” attracted the attention of the authors of the textbook for only an hour, but a “mission in prison” interests them twice as much. It seems that our missionaries fear youth more than bandits. Also, the authors of the textbook consider it necessary to allocate two hours for familiarization with the structure of the Missionary Department of the MP. It is probably very confusing and very dangerous if someone tries to use it incompetently. In any case, whoever reads this most boring self-report of the Missionary Department to the end will receive a prize - a shock when reading the recommended literature. Then he learns that the surname of Patriarch Alexy was Rideger (p. 223).
The general drawback of the entire textbook is that it is not a textbook. Only some authors (among whom I would like to mention A. B. Pivovarov, author of chapters 3.1-3.2.2) show concern for the student. Most of the authors of the collection do not ask themselves whether the student needs exactly this knowledge or this formula. The conglomeration of names and dates in the chapter on the mission of Russian monasteries is striking. But it will be especially difficult for a student to retell dogmatic (and, by the way, completely unrelated to the topic) heaps in the second part of the textbook. Well, how, for example, can one reproduce the following phrase: “Through the Liturgy and the fulfillment of the commandments, the manifestation in the power of the Life-giving Holy Spirit of Jesus Christ Himself as Lord takes place and the introduction of the real Kingdom of God into the world” (p. 226)?! If only the author would try to give an example of understandable missionary speech and say, “The mission should be Easter. She must testify to the Lord who conquered death” and not spare two more phrases about the connection between Easter and the Liturgy...
The compilers and authors of the textbook confuse a reading book and a textbook. There should be no “extra” in the textbook. Every date and every name must be justified. They should be cited and memorized only if without remembering them the integrity of the entire course is lost.
In addition, the textbook hardly fulfills its role as a guide to the world of thematic information. The bibliography lists at the end of each chapter are almost always inoperative.
Bibliography is given:

a) incomplete
(for example, in the chapter on the Altai mission there is no mention of the publication: Nesterov S.V. Instructing in Word and Life: The Life and Works of St. Macarius of Altai. M., 2005, although it is in it that the most significant works of St. Macarius of Altai are collected. Also surprising is the absence references to editions of the works of Metropolitan Macarius (Nevsky). In the chapter “Mission in China”, it is surprising that there are no references to the books of Priest Peter Ivanov “From the History of Christianity in China” (Moscow, 2005) and A. V. Lomanov “Christianity and Chinese culture" (M., 2002). In the chapter on the Japanese mission, it is strange that there is no reference to the complete five-volume edition of the diaries of St. Nicholas of Japan. In the chapter on missionary congresses there is no indication of the publication of their materials).

b) inaccessible to the student
(for example, in the chapter on the Altai mission, for some reason, students of fifty seminaries are asked to look for a typescript from 1963 that is obviously not found outside the MDA - Klimashin A. Works of Altai missionaries (Zagorsk, 1963) Similarly, in chapter 2.2. it is inappropriate to send students to some Greek magazine 1967. Not a single student will find it). The list of recommended literature for chapter 2.3.4 makes me lose all the power of speech. I quote it in full, because it consists of one point, but what one!: Ginkel A. V. Missionary significance of the “Acts of the Apostles” . Course work. Belgorod, 2004. And this is for the chapter on the preaching of the apostles... Is it even possible that the authors of the textbook do not know any work on this topic except that of their own students?!

c) simply inadequate.
(the chapter on the mission in Lithuania begins in the 16th century, but the bibliography for this chapter begins with an article about the Vilna martyrs - that is, events of the 14th century. For some reason, the next item on the same bibliographic list believes that Russian students will not find a better source on history Russia than the book of a certain Kharkov author named Dukhopelnikov. At the end of this list there is a book that certainly cannot be found in all the seminaries of Russia - Mitsko. Monastiri Podgir'ya 12-14 centuries. Lviv, 1993).

d) untested
(In the chapter “Mission in China” in the very first paragraph there is a reference to the bibliographic void - (3,117-118). In the edition that is in third place in the bibliography of this chapter, the named pages do not contain anything similar to what they seem would have to confirm (that supposedly there were Christians in China already in 64).

e) and it is simply not clear whether the reader will really find more from the indicated sources than he has already read in the textbook
(Why is it recommended to look for a sketch of this textbook, written for the Belgorod seminary in 2005, in the bibliography of Chapter 2.2? If the corresponding chapter in it is better, it should simply have been included in the new textbook. If the old textbook does not add anything to what is said in the new - why mention him and send seminarians to search for him?)

Once in a textbook, even the name of the patristic creation turned out to be distorted. In chapter 2.2 we read the most hacky paragraph in the entire book:
“Serious theological justification for the missionary vocation of the Church was given in the patristic period. Saint John Chrysostom is one of the holy fathers who, in word and deed, actively supported the missionary education of non-believers. For example, his letter addressed to the presbyters and monks of Fenisa, instructing the Greeks in the faith."
So, out of all the supposedly “serious” patristic justification for the mission, only one work has been chosen and named - probably the most serious. And it has certainly been thoroughly read by the author of this chapter.
The trouble, however, is that he took the title of this letter from Chrysostom from some English-language publication. That is why Phenicia turned into the mysterious Fenisa for him. The seminarian is unlikely to guess that we are talking about the 110th letter of Chrysostom - “To the presbyters and monks preaching the faith to the pagans in Phenicia.” If a seminarian nevertheless finds a letter whose title is coded with three errors, he will not find there anything resembling a “theological justification for the missionary calling of the Church.” This is simply an ordinary admonition to the worker not to be afraid of difficulties.
An unpleasant impression is made by the desire of the author of this chapter to avoid an honest recognition of our missiological poverty. If indeed “a serious theological justification for the missionary vocation of the Church was given in the patristic period” - give a list of patristic works on this topic. However, NOT ONE patristic work is given either here, or in the bibliography of the chapter, or in the bibliography of the textbook.
But open juggling begins - “But in the history of the early Church there were no serious theological discussions about the nature and character of the missionary task, since there is nothing unusual in engaging in activities that are an obvious component of the natural course of events” (p. 227).
I believe that this florid construction is a polemic with my thesis (I handed over the manuscript of my book “Perestroika into the Church” to the compilers of the textbook even before the publication of my book):
“I wish I could find in the history of our Church a debate between missionaries about the methods and arguments of the mission! One thing that cannot be taken away from Byzantine church writers is their readiness for polemics and accusations on any occasion. But there are no anathemas condemning incorrect missionary methods. And there are no canons about the correct mission either. And there was no debate about how to bring the Gospel to other nations. A sure sign that this work itself simply did not exist. So is there a missionary tradition in Orthodoxy, and can it be followed in the same way as we follow the dogmatic tradition, iconographic or liturgical?
The Belgorod author says that there was no discussion about mission because there was no debate about what was natural for the Church. But the most natural thing for the Church is prayer. Nevertheless, the church tradition knows a lot of books about prayer and delusion. It is natural for the Church to believe in Christ. And a lot was said about this in ancient times. But almost nothing was said about the mission. And there wasn’t even a single discussion. And not only in the “early Church.” Discussions about mission in Orthodoxy began only at the end of the 19th century of its history. Was it because the mission was too familiar or because it was too unfamiliar? I am inclined to the second answer and therefore consider the phrase “missionary work has always been the main meaning of church activity” to be undeserved flattery (p. 10). The only strange thing is that the “church leaders” themselves realized this somehow very late (and many bishops and priests and parishioners have not realized this supposed axiom to this day).
Of course, in the varied and not always well-edited chapters of the textbook, there are also obvious errors:
The Khazar mission does not date back to 858 (p. 12): the Solun brothers set off on their journey in 861.
Nothing is said about the creation of the Cyrillic alphabet (only the Glagolitic alphabet is mentioned)
“By the end of the reign of Prince Vladimir, there were several hundred churches in Kyiv alone” (p. 20). Sources mention only three: the still wooden St. Sophia Church, the temple in honor of St. Vasily and about the foundation of the Tithe Church.
“The new faith was forcibly introduced in Novgorod” (p. 20). The rebels of Novgorod swept away the Christian church - which means it was there even before the uprising and before the police action of Dobrynya and Putyata.
The last phrase of the chapter on the Japanese mission does not seem appropriate: “After the emperor, there was no person in Japan who enjoyed such fame in the country as Equal-to-the-Apostles Nicholas.” I believe that in the years following Japan's victory in the 1905 war, Japanese admirals and generals were much more popular among the people than the Russian bishop.
“The bishops convicted in the first years of Soviet power rode in “Stolypin’s carriages” (p. 212) Why rinse the name of Stolypin in blood?
“The Church was endangered by the Gnostic heretics, who taught that every person could, through his religious experience and personal revelation, receive true gnosis” (p. 243). Isn’t this the case in Orthodoxy? And is this the essence of false-named gnosis?
“The apostles were a mediator between Christ and the Church” (p. 242). Does this mean that Christ and the apostles themselves are outside the Church?
P. 246 - in Gospel times, “logic was developed to such limits... human wisdom did not need the knowledge of God.” This is not true. This is precisely the time of disappointment in rationalism, the time of active search, the time when many people are trying to go beyond the boundaries of rationalism and find an extra-philosophical source of knowledge, when many mystical-philosophical movements are born (Gnostics, middle Platonism, Hermeticism...).
P. 275 For some reason the Latin word altar is declared Jewish.
P. 277 “It must be remembered that the basis of any non-Christian culture, built on principles alien to the Divine law, is the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life.” A completely impossible phrase in a textbook, because it gives rise to a lot of discrepancies. What does “stranger to Divine law” mean? Which one? Where expressed? One of his traits or all of them at once? Should this be understood to mean that the entire non-Jewish world is “stranger to the Divine law”?

Flaws:
The chapter on the mission to the USSR practically does not describe the public debates of the 20s
There is no story about the work of V. Martsinkovsky and then Fr. Dm. Dudko.
No story about the mission in the camps
There is no story about the Pskov mission
There is no story about the awakening of a craving for Orthodoxy among the intelligentsia of the 70s (village writers, “Black Boards” by Soloukhin, Glazunov...)
There is no story about the Church coming out of silence in the mid-80s.
There is no attempt to interpret “Sergianism” and “Nicodemusism” as a missionary project (“inculturation of the mission”)
Just one phrase about Fr. A. Mene.
The fiction book “Father Arseny” is presented as documentary evidence (p. 214).

Only the first and third parts of the textbook are good (although, of course, the instructions to the missionary about which hand he should hold a glass of wine at buffets seems unnecessary - p. 340).
The second part, in my opinion, is a failure. On each page I want to write: “Arkady, don’t talk nicely!”
In the second, “theological” part of the textbook, its authors themselves create difficulties for themselves, which they heroically try to solve. For some reason, they set themselves the goal of reducing the conversation about the mission to strained parallels between dogma and the needs of the mission.
“The Trinitarian understanding of mission assumes that the task of mission is to project onto human relationships the relationships that exist within the Holy Trinity” (p. 225). In the Trinity life of God, theology knows only the relations of birth and procession. So, a missionary trained by the Belgorod Seminary (the textbook postulates that only missionaries can be trained there: “at present, the training of missionary personnel of the Russian Orthodox Church is carried out by the Belgorod Seminary” - p. 222), must, by some mysterious criteria, distinguish who he will give birth to, and who to harass. Moreover, he must do this timelessly and without will (for in the Trinity these relationships exist without beginning and timelessly, bypassing the will inherent in the One Divinity).
If the Belgorod taste is to merge missiology with dogmatics, then the authors of this chapter are not far from being accused of Latin filioquism. The filioque is based on the identification of theology with economy: Catholics take Christ’s words about sending the Spirit into the world as evidence of the eternal procession of the Spirit from the Father and the Son. So the textbook cites a passage of Scripture that speaks of the sending of the Son and the Spirit into the world (John 20:21-22), and comments on its own that this supposedly speaks of the relationship within the Trinity.
If the author wanted to say that there is a relationship of love in the Trinity, he would have just said it. If the author wanted to say that the stream of God’s participation should pour into the heart of the neophyte, then this can also be said more simply.
Explaining yourself the way the central chapters of a textbook on “theology of mission” do is a sure way to failure of any mission.
“The dogmatic basis for the churching of culture is the doctrine of the Incarnation of the Word of God” (p. 286). The authors are not embarrassed by the fact that for two millennia the Church churched different cultures and at the same time did not think about the “dogmatic justification” of this work. And even more so, none of its saints and theologians put this work in connection with the doctrine of the Incarnation. Like, since God became flesh, then I’ll go and study the barbaric language, or, on the contrary, the language high school... On such occasions, the fathers remembered Moses, who was taught all the wisdom of Egypt, and the Jews taking gold out of Egypt. And this was enough for the Fathers to justify the “Orthodox reception of culture.”
“The Orthodox teaching on theosis as the ultimate goal of the mission of the Church encourages theologians to seek precise definitions for the Orthodox missionary experience in relation to culture” (p. 286).
Firstly, there is no “Orthodox teaching about theosis as the ultimate goal of mission.” These are purely Belgorod prettinesses, which are designed to replace specific thoughts about the mission with phrases about anything. Phrases like “the goal of the mission always remains the transformation of the entire cosmos - man and nature” (p. 226) hastily equate preaching and sanctification. Moreover, the light of the gospel not only sanctifies, but also judges and convicts and casts out (cf. John 3:19). Finally, if the theosis of the cosmos is the goal of mission, then the question is inevitable: is there anything else in the life of the Church besides mission? If missionary work is identified with all spiritual and church life, then the textbook on missionary service itself loses its meaning. It should be called “Textbook of Cosmic Theosis.” If mission and deification are one and the same thing, then besides mission, the Church has no other ministry. And then the Missionary Department should be called the Patriarchate, and its head - the Patriarch.

The disadvantage of the Belgorod understanding of mission is its overly broad understanding, the failure to distinguish missionary work from shepherding and from catechesis. Guided by Belgorod phrases, the missionary will never understand where he himself should stop and stop being a missionary, and either give way to a priest or turn into an ordinary parish pastor. The purpose of the mission is actually very modest: to make a person ready to accept the word of ordinary church shepherding. In other words: to awaken in a person a desire to turn the main questions about himself and his life specifically to the Church. All. Then catechesis begins. There is no need to call everything good in the Church “mission.” Otherwise this word will lose all meaning.

Yes, we can talk about the mission of the Church, serving the deification of creation. But then we must warn that the language of Orthodox missiology is still too poor and does not allow us to distinguish the mission of the Church from the mission of the missionary. The desire to show off buzzword leads to the fact that even hermithood turns out to be a mission in a missiology textbook! (“Personal deification is an expansion of the mission of the Church in the world. And therefore, every ordinary member of the Church who wages a spiritual struggle with his old man performs missionary service in this world by his very presence” - p. 255).

Secondly, the doctrine of deification can motivate one to anything, but only last of all to what the authors of the textbook are trying to attach it to. So there is no point in declaring on behalf of theologians that they allegedly do not find room for themselves because of their thirst to combine the ideas of Palamism with “the definition of the Orthodox missionary experience in relation to culture” (p. 286).
“The concept of “church reception of culture” most adequately conveys the dogmatic understanding of the mission of the Church” (Ibid.). Has the dogma of the “mission of the Church” already been proclaimed? Has someone developed a “dogmatic understanding of the mission”?
The thirst to find dogmatic depth at any cost forces the authors to utter very risky phrases - “The Church of Christ accepts into itself and unites with Christ all peoples and societies in all the fullness of their social and cultural life"(p. 286). What - the hippodrome passions and the struggle between greens and blues, which formed a vibrant and integral part of the social and cultural life of Constantinople, are also connected with Christ? And if this is not so, then why is the word “all” repeated twice?
Can't we say all this in a simpler way? Why dogmatize everything? Isn’t it clear that if a certain area is declared to be dogmatically significant, then all mistakes made in it will have to be classified extremely harshly - as heresies? So what - now missionaries who interact with cultures “in the wrong way” will also have to be accused of heresies?
In the chapter “Mission as Apostolate” we read: “The true guarantee of entry into the apostolate is participation in the act of the Three Persons of the Holy Trinity - election from the Father, calling through the Son and sanctification by the Holy Spirit” (p. 241). Obviously, these are the “guarantees” that are presented in the annual “act” of the Belgorod Seminary by members of its academic council...
In general, if you remove chapters from 2.2 to 2.6, the textbook will become more missionary. There is also a conglomeration of pompous and unnecessary constructions and phrases. Logic is the most capricious. Attachment to dogmatic topics is too close and too artificial, and to real missionary problems, on the contrary, is minimal. A student is more likely to be scared away from missionary work by such a text.
“The Trinitarian understanding of mission assumes that the task of mission is to project onto human relationships the relationships that exist within the Holy Trinity” (p. 234). And it's in the textbook! This means that I have to enter the class and tell the seminarians: “Guys, I will now teach you to project the relationships that exist within the Trinity!”
In the next paragraph the student learns that he must “spread the Divine Intra-Trinitarian relationships in the created world.” You can write something like this. You can read this. Paper will endure anything. Now tell me, what to do with the student who believed this? So he got ready to go on a missionary trip to the North. He walks along the seminary corridor with a backpack. The inspector stops him with the question “Where are you coming?” The student answers in all seriousness: “I’m going to spread and project the Intra-Trinity Divine relationships on Yakutia.” Tell me what time medical service Is the father inspector obliged to contact?

On page 254, the original source of this confusion becomes clear - a certain Greek professor Peter Vassiliadis: “The actual justification of the Christian mission can only be found if we understand our missionary task as a projection onto human relations of the life of the community that exists within the Trinity.” This means explaining the understandable through the mysterious. At the beginning of this chapter something clear was finally said: “mission is preaching to awaken faith” (p. 251). But now this clear disappears again into the Divine Darkness of the Intra-Trinity life.
And to whom should we justify the Christian mission? Before the pagans? But for them the reference to Vassiliadis's understanding of the Trinity has no meaning. Before ourselves? But Christ’s missionary imperative “Go and teach” is enough for us...

The text in chapter 2.3.5. is theologically dubious: in the Church “people are united with God and among themselves according to four characteristics: unity. Holiness, conciliarity and apostolate” (p. 251). These are attributes of the Church, but not attributes of its members. From the text of the textbook it follows that if someone already possesses the signs of holiness, unity, conciliarity and apostolate, then he can unite with someone else who also already has the same characteristics.
The line below we learn that conciliarity is an “administrative and organizational principle.” I wonder which of the Fathers understood the word catholic so clumsily?
No less modern is the understanding of the apostolic predicate of the Church: “apostleship is the implementation of preaching about a new reality.” The Creed affirms the Church as apostolic for no reason at all. The Church is apostolic, first of all, because it traces its origins to the apostles, and preserves the apostolic preaching as the measure of its faith and preaching. It’s somehow strange not to mention this when talking about the four signs of the Church...

The actual layout of the textbook is printed on page 313. It would be nice to write about these topics in simple language and without the “theosis of the cosmos.”
By the way, the same passion for raising any particular to the level of dogmatic heights is visible in the last phrase of the textbook (due to which it can become an anecdote in itself): “The problem of the “Church and the Media” is revealed in an eschatological perspective” (p. 460).
The authors of the textbook generally want to see something eschatologically significant in their work. “The Orthodox understanding of mission assumes that the universal mission is an eschatological event when the Gospel will be preached “to the end of the age” (Matt. 28:20)” (p. 278). Actually in specified location In the Gospels, the words “to the end of the age” do not refer to the missionaries, but to Christ – “I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
Chapter 2.6 “Proselytism.” There is an obvious substitution in it. It is still not clear: is proselytism preaching a transition from one Christian denomination to another or the use of unworthy means for this purpose?
If the first, then there is no answer to the question: can an Orthodox missionary offer a Catholic or Protestant conversion to our Church?
If the latter, then what exactly does proselytism have to do with it? Once upon a time, according to the laws of the Russian Empire, money and tax holidays were given for conversion to Orthodoxy.
In addition, I do not think that many seminarians will share the authors’ concern that “proselytism causes enormous harm to the ecumenical movement.” Many would rather be grateful to proselytism for this very reason.
In general, this is a serious topic. But in the textbook it is simply babble.
In the third part of the textbook better side chapters on the Internet mission and on the mission in prison zones are highlighted. It’s good that there is a chapter on intra-church mission (3.4).
The chapter on working with youth is a failure. The student will not find specific advice for himself in the chapter on preaching through the media.
The authors believe that their “work satisfies all the educational needs of the theological schools of the Russian Orthodox Church” (p. 7). This is not true. The resulting collection can be used by teachers and students as one among several aids. However, on page 8 it is said more honestly: the textbook was published for the needs of not all schools of the Russian Orthodox Church, but only the Belgorod seminary. Well, we agree with the publishers: that’s where he belongs.
It's good that the collection appeared. It's better with him than without him. Whatever it is, it is better than emptiness. It’s just that there are different teachers of missiology. For some it is a duty. Such a person himself does not think anything about the mission and is burdened by the need to talk about it. And he simply has nowhere to get the material from due to the fact that in the library of his seminary the corresponding shelf is simply empty. For such slaves of missiology, the textbook is more than useful.
And a teacher who lives on a mission will add his material to any textbook anyway.
Belgorod should also be grateful for the fact that it honestly admitted the inadequacy of its own achievements and turned to everyone for help.
But it is premature to elevate the result obtained to the level of an official textbook, according to which all missiology courses should be taught in all seminaries. Now it is inappropriate to give this collection such a high rating: further work needs to be done on the topic.

Most of all, the textbook lacks a connection with life. Any science must begin with the collection of observation reports, and in a long-standing case, with the memoirs of missionaries. Because of their absence, cosmic theosis begins to multiply. And you need to start with the protocol facts of observation: “I entered such an audience... I said this... The reaction was like this...”. In a missiology textbook, cartridges should be distributed to students, i.e. specific advice on how to build conversations with which audiences and for what occasions. Without this, missiology becomes a waste of class hours.

Article 145. Terms of remuneration for managers, their deputies, chief accountants and members of collegial executive bodies of organizations concluding an employment contract

The terms of remuneration for heads of other organizations, their deputies, chief accountants and members of collegial executive bodies of other organizations concluding an employment contract are established by agreement of the parties to the employment contract.

4) The problem of stimulating performers (managers of specific enterprises):

Incentives – setting the contractor’s remuneration depending on a parameter that is important to the guarantor

Revenue

Profits

Scope of work

Quality of work

Problems

The executor is less risk-averse than the guarantor: by shifting the risk to the executor, compensation must be offered

The guarantor is interested in quality, but it is difficult to measure and specify in the contract

Incentives must be unidirectional

Unreliability of obligations

B – guarantor’s revenue

e – level of effort of the performer

Executor utility function

Reserve utility

Missiology is a discipline that deals with the evangelistic activity of the Church. By “mission” (Latin: missio - departure, sending, order) is meant:

1. Sending missionaries (as preachers) to certain countries, their activities, as well as the organization (Church) sending missionaries.

2. Special service aimed at deepening and expanding the Christian faith, most often in only a nominally Christian environment (the churching of formal Christians).

3. But the very original meaning of this concept is the preaching of faith among non-Christians, the spread of the Kingdom of God in the world and the creation of new Churches. According to St. Innocent, Metropolitan Moscow, the Apostle of Siberia and America, the missionary needs to “leave his homeland and go to remote, wild places, deprived of many of the comforts of life in order to convert people still wandering in the darkness of ignorance to the path of truth...” (Instructions of His Eminence Innocent, former Archbishop of Kamchatka, Kuril and Aleutian Nushagan missionary, Hieromonk Theophilus).

The Latin word “missio” is a translation of the Greek “αποστέλλω” (to send, send), and therefore in its original meaning it was used to indicate the Divine plan of salvation for mankind: God the Father sends the Son (John 5.36), then through the Son - the Holy Spirit ( John 15.26), after which the Son sends His disciples (John 20.21).

Subject missiology are the forms and methods of proclaiming the Good News of the salvation of mankind, carried out by the Trinitarian God, as well as the study of the Church’s activities in evangelization and the ways in which it carries it out. Missiology is the study of missions, missionary history, missionary thought and missionary methods.

Tasks Orthodox missiology are formulated taking into account two opposing directions simultaneously present in the Orthodox mission. On the one hand, the good news sounds about the coming of the Kingdom of God, calls for knowledge of the Truth and liberation from sin in the Holy Spirit. The “positive” tasks of the mission itself are briefly formulated by the Apostle Peter in his first sermon in the Jerusalem square after the descent of the Holy Spirit on the apostles: “Repent, and be baptized each of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins; and receive the gift of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2.38), that is, there are certain stages of salvation, a more detailed consideration of which will be discussed in further research.

On the other hand, the mission of the Church is a protest against the “world,” which means the evil that exists in human relations. The “negative” tasks were expressed by the Apostle John the Theologian in his first Epistle: “Do not love the world, nor the things in the world: whoever loves the world does not have the love of the Father. For everything that is in the world: the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life, is not from the Father, but from this world. And the world passes away, and its lusts, but he who does the will of God abides forever” (1 John 2.15-17). Only in an eschatological perspective for a Christian is revealed the entire meaninglessness of worldly material and cultural values ​​aimed at satisfying human instincts, which are ultimately reduced to the demands of the mob in ancient amphitheaters: “Bread and circuses!” “Negative” problems will also be considered further.

Thus, the mission of the Church is addressed to the world, but at the same time it carries within itself the negation of the “worldly” and calls for an essential renewal of the world. Briefly, the tasks formulated by missiology for the missionary can be stated in the words “Concepts of missionary activity of the Russian Orthodox Church”:

“The Orthodox mission is to approach the world, to sanctify and renew it, to put new content into the old way of life, to accept local cultures and ways of expressing them that do not contradict the Christian faith, transforming them into means of salvation.”

In the “horizontal” dimension, a distinction is made between internal and external missions. An internal mission is a mission within the canonical, official boundaries of the Orthodox Church, that is, an appeal to those who are, as it were, “listed” in the Church, having been baptized, but not enlightened. Such a mission can be called “evangelization.” And by external mission is meant, in this case, the service of the Church to spread and establish the spirit of Christianity outside its canonical borders, which includes bringing people to Christ through “testimony - teaching - catechism (catechesis) - baptism.”

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1 MISSIOLOGY Textbook 2nd edition, revised and expanded Missionary Department of the Russian Orthodox Church

2 By blessing and under general edition His Eminence JOHN, Archbishop of Belgorod and Stary Oskol, Chairman of the Synodal Missionary Department of the Russian Orthodox Church Responsible editor priest Alexander Ginkel, candidate of theology Missiology. Tutorial. 2nd edition, corrected and expanded. M.: Missionary Department of the Russian Orthodox Church, with Missionary Department of the Russian Orthodox Church 2

3 CONTENTS INTRODUCTION THEOLOGY OF MISSIONS The subject and tasks of Orthodox missiology The place of Orthodox missiology in the system of theological and historical disciplines Theological understanding of the mission of the Church Biblical understanding of mission Trinitarian basis of mission Mission as apostolate Mission as testimony (Christ-centricity of mission) Ecclesiological basis of mission Eschatological understanding of mission Canonical basis of mission Mission as collaboration with God (anthropological aspect) Sacramentological basis of the mission Missionary imperative of the Gospel Gospel and culture Inculturation and reception of culture Goals and objectives of the Orthodox mission Soteriological objectives of the mission

4 The catholicity of the Orthodox mission The universal character of the Orthodox mission Local tasks of the Orthodox mission Mission and proselytism Bibliography for the 1st part PRINCIPLES AND METHODS OF MISSIONARY ACTIVITY Methodology of the Orthodox mission Forms and methods of modern missionary activity The image and qualities of a modern missionary Missionary and scholarship Missionary aesthetics Mistakes of a missionary External means of evangelism Missionary challenges of modern church life Features of the modern “missionary field” of the Russian Orthodox Church Legal grounds for carrying out missionary activities The concept of subculture Practical recommendations on the topics and methods of conducting spiritual and educational conversations Methods of correct communication with an opponent Language of sermon and mission. The problem of translation Church and media Sermon on the Internet Sermon in the military environment Sermon among youth Sermon in educational institutions Sermon among prisoners Sermon in a heterodox environment

5 Methodology of dispute with sectarians Sermon among migrants Missionary service of the laity Missionary parish Missionary camp Missionary worship About the changeability and immutability of worship Liturgical language Missionary expeditions Mission and catechesis Basic principles of planning and organizing missionary activity at the general church, diocesan, deanery and parish level Prospective directions of missionary service Bibliography to part 2

6 INTRODUCTION The need to revive the mission in the Russian Orthodox Church today is caused not only by the internal need of the “church organism”, but also by the state of public life, in which (in relation to this topic) it is necessary to highlight two aspects. Firstly, this is the complex spiritual and moral state of the current society, divided by both financial, economic and political disorders, and nourished by the anti-Christian ideological principles of hedonism and nihilism. The second aspect is the proselytizing activity of some non-Orthodox confessions, religious sects and movements, which, against the general background of insufficient awareness of the population, taking advantage of the religious thirst of people, attract more and more new members to their ranks. Remaining faithful to the tradition of the Ancient Undivided Church and continuing the work of apostolic ministry, the Russian Orthodox Church testified to Christ throughout the entire history of its evangelistic work, seeing for itself the meaning of the mission primarily in enlightening with the light of the faith of Christ people living in the geographical territory of the state called Holy Rus'. On the other hand, the mission of the Church was also conceived in terms of the churching of those people who were baptized in the Orthodox faith, constituting the majority of the Christian population of modern Slavic countries, cared for by the Russian Orthodox Church. In your hands is a unique textbook on Missiology, which reflects the experience of many years of work of missionaries of the Russian Orthodox Church in the field of evangelism. Uni-6

7 Introduction The quality of the textbook lies in the reception of a huge amount of material, processed, meaningful, supplemented and presented accessible language. Twenty-three authors 1, known for their active missionary and teaching activities, who specifically presented their experience in the form of articles, reports and materials, which were included almost entirely in this textbook. This also includes materials that were used for teaching at the Belgorod Orthodox Theological Seminary (with a missionary orientation) for a number of years. For this reason, this textbook should be considered as collective work people engaged in the work of proclaiming Christ’s truth and transmitting knowledge about this “work” to all those who wish to become “fellow workers with God” (1 Cor. 3.9). Missiology is called upon to reveal the mystery of the holy apostleship, the mystery of the spread of grace-filled light in an unenlightened world. To do this, it is necessary to give an idea of ​​the world, saved and enlightened by the grace of God, to describe a person and how he becomes a member of the Church, builds his life in relation to God, and to other people, and to the world. It is necessary to understand how a person, to the extent of his image and likeness of God, can be a co-worker with God in His grace-filled enlightenment of another person. It is necessary to reveal the secrets of the boundaries of the Church, the relationship between the Church and the world. Then, on the basis of Orthodox anthropology, ecclesiology and soteriology, the mystery of the Holy Apostleship is revealed, and the theology of mission missiology arises. 1 Hegumen Panteleimon (Berdnikov) (teacher of the MDA), hegumen Peter (Eremeev), hegumen Sophrony (Kitaev) (teacher of the Belgorod DS), abbot Agafangel (Belykh) (teacher of the Belgorod DS), Archpriest Dionisy Pozdnyaev, Archpriest Dmitry Karpenko (teacher of the Belgorod DS ), Hieromonk Nikanor (Lepeshev) (teacher at the Khabarovsk DS), Hieromonk Nikodim (Shmatko) (teacher at the Sretensk DS), priest Sergius Tsarev (teacher at the Voronezh DS), priest Daniil Sysoev (teacher at the Pererven DS), priest Georgiy Roy (teacher at the MinDA), priest Andrey Khvylya-Olinter (teacher at the Belgorod DS), priest Alexander Ginkel (teacher at the Belgorod DS), protodeacon Andrey Kuraev, deacon Vladislav Serkov (teacher at the Belgorod DS), Luchenko K.V., Maksimov Yu.V., Pashin A.V. , Pivovarov A.B. (teacher at the St. Makaryevsky Orthodox Theological Institute in Novosibirsk), Poletaeva T.A. (teacher at Belgorod DS), Samoilenko V.F., Chapnin S.V., Yarasov A.V. (teacher at Tula DS). 7

8 Introduction With the blessing of His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Rus', the structure of the second edition of the textbook was changed. It was decided to omit the historical part, since the history of the missionary activity of the Russian Orthodox Church is currently written a large number of works, among which one can highlight such modern Orthodox authors as Abbot. Panteleimon (Berdnikov), priest. Sergiy Shirokov, A.B. Efimov, and others. The main attention was paid to the methodological part of the textbook, which in this edition is more expanded, corrected and supplemented. The following authors took part in the preparation of materials for the second edition of the textbook: prot. Oleg Kobets, prot. Pavel Weingold, prot. Dimitry Karpenko, abbot. Agathangel (Belykh), priest. Peter Ivanov, priest. Alexander Ginkel, deacon. Georgy Maksimov, Pivovarov A.B., Yakuntsev V.I., Lukin V.P. The textbook is being created with the aim of filling the resulting vacuum in the field of teaching Missiology. It should be noted that this is the first work that satisfies the educational needs of the theological schools of the Russian Orthodox Church. Much information is published for the first time and is in the nature of “missionary notes” of people sharing their personal experience preaching the Gospel in the modern conditions of a secularized world and society. The second edition of the textbook consists of two parts: the theology of mission (necessary for knowledge of the foundations, goals and objectives of missionary work), principles and methods of missionary activity (as a basic practical guideline for Orthodox missionaries). This work is recommended as a textbook for teaching the subject “Missiology” in Theological seminaries and schools of the Russian Orthodox Church, and in particular, the Belgorod Orthodox Theological Seminary (with a missionary orientation), for whose needs it is published. The book may be interesting and useful to all Orthodox Christians who want to follow the Lord Jesus Christ and His apostles in the work of building the Kingdom of God in human hearts. 8

9 1. THEOLOGY OF MISSION 1.1. Subject and tasks of Orthodox missiology Missiology is a discipline, the consideration of which is subject to the evangelistic activity of the Church. By “mission” (Latin missio departure, sending, commission) is meant: 1. Sending missionaries (as preachers) to certain countries, their activities, as well as the organization (Church) sending missionaries. 2. Special service aimed at deepening and expanding the Christian faith, most often in only a nominally Christian environment (the churching of formal Christians). 3. But the very original meaning of this concept is the preaching of faith among non-Christians, the spread of the Kingdom of God in the world and the creation of new Churches. According to St. Innocent, Metropolitan Moscow, the Apostle of Siberia and America, the missionary needs to “leave his homeland and go to remote, wild places, deprived of many of the comforts of life in order to convert people still wandering in the darkness of ignorance to the path of truth...” (Instructions of His Eminence Innocent, former archbishop Kamchatka, Kuril and Aleutian Nushagan missionary, Hieromonk Theophilus). The Latin word “missio” is a translation of the Greek “apostљllw” (to send, send), and therefore in its original meaning it was used to indicate the Divine plan of salvation for mankind: God the Father sends the Son (John 5.36), then through the Son the Holy Spirit (John ), after which the Son sends His disciples (John). 9

10 Theology of Mission The subject of missiology is the forms and methods of proclaiming the Good News of the salvation of mankind, carried out by the Trinitarian God, as well as the study of the Church’s evangelization activities and the ways in which it carries them out. Missiology is the study of missions, missionary history, missionary thought and missionary methods. The tasks of Orthodox missiology are formulated taking into account two opposing directions simultaneously present in the Orthodox mission. On the one hand, the good news sounds about the coming of the Kingdom of God, calls for knowledge of the Truth and liberation from sin in the Holy Spirit. The “positive” tasks of the mission itself are briefly formulated by the Apostle Peter in his first sermon in the Jerusalem square after the descent of the Holy Spirit on the apostles: “Repent, and be baptized each of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins; and receive the gift of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2.38), that is, there are certain stages of salvation, a more detailed consideration of which will be discussed in further research. On the other hand, the mission of the Church is a protest against the “world,” which means the evil that exists in human relations. The “negative” tasks were expressed by the Apostle John the Theologian in his first Epistle: “Do not love the world, nor the things in the world: whoever loves the world does not have the love of the Father. For everything that is in the world: the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life, is not from the Father, but from this world. And the world passes away, and its lusts, but he who does the will of God abides forever” (1 John). Only in an eschatological perspective for a Christian is revealed the entire meaninglessness of worldly material and cultural values ​​aimed at satisfying human instincts, which are ultimately reduced to the demands of the mob in ancient amphitheaters: “Bread and circuses!” “Negative” problems will also be considered further. Thus, the mission of the Church is addressed to the world, but at the same time it carries within itself the negation of the “worldly” and calls for an essential renewal of the world. Briefly, the tasks formulated by missiology for the missionary can be stated in the words of the “Concept of missionary activity of the Russian Orthodox Church”: “The Orthodox mission is to approach the world, sanctify and renew it, put new content into the old way of life, accept local cultures and their ways 10

11 The place of Orthodox missiology in the system of theological and historical disciplines is expressions that do not contradict the Christian faith, transforming them into means of salvation.” In the “horizontal” dimension, a distinction is made between internal and external missions. An internal mission is a mission within the canonical, official boundaries of the Orthodox Church, that is, an appeal to those who are, as it were, “listed” in the Church, having been baptized, but not enlightened. Such a mission can be called “evangelization.” And by external mission is meant, in this case, the service of the Church to spread and establish the spirit of Christianity outside its canonical borders, which includes bringing people to Christ through “witness, teaching, catechism (catechesis), baptism.” The place of Orthodox missiology in the system of theological and historical disciplines Missiology includes a fairly broad field of analytical research, drawing on historical and theological disciplines. A correct understanding of the mission is rooted in knowledge not only of the foundations, but also of the depths of the Orthodox faith, which involves the study of basic and dogmatic theology, and above all sections on triadology, ontology, anthropology, soteriology, sacramentology and eschatology. The main source from which all this teaching is drawn is the Holy Scripture, which represents the “foundation” of the missionary’s activities. Its continuation is the rich patristic written heritage, studied by such theological science as patrolology. Speaking about the patristic heritage, it is impossible to compile a complete list of all works that, in one way or another, relate to the subject of missiology, due to their huge number. If we understand “mission” in the broad sense of the word, as the preaching of Christian doctrine, then most of all patristic writings are devoted to this very topic. We can distinguish only three directions that determined the written works of the Holy Fathers in the matter of missionary service: preaching among those who do not know Christianity (pagans, Jews, etc.), preaching among those who distort Christianity (gnostics, heretics, etc.), preaching among the unconfirmed in Christianity (catechesis, instruction, etc.). eleven

12 Theology of Mission The next integral discipline for a missionary is liturgical theology, more precisely, a conscious perception of church worship and participation in the Holy Sacraments. Finally, important, although applied, areas of knowledge for missiology are cultural studies, comparative theology, history of religions, sect studies, etc. disciplines, the need for which is determined by the specific circumstances of the time and place of preaching the Gospel. Applied disciplines can also include historical and philological sciences, although in some way, under certain circumstances (for example, during an “external” mission) their knowledge is the primary and determining factor in missionary activity. A special place in missiology is occupied by the written works of Russian missionaries of the 19th century. (catechetical words, teachings to the pagans, and especially their theoretical work and practical instructions addressed to fellow missionaries and other Church officials). The same special place belongs to the history of spiritual missions of the 19th century, recognized in their time as exemplary (in particular, the Altai and Japanese Spiritual Missions), as well as the history of other outstanding missionaries of the past. Study and analysis of this exemplary experience and written works of Russian missionaries of the 19th century. (in the context of their era) is necessary primarily for understanding the general, essential principles of Orthodox missionary work, but can also be useful in terms of specific methods. As for the modern development of missiology as a science, in the Russian Orthodox Church among theological disciplines it did not have a clear scientific systematization until the end of the 20th century, constituting a vast sphere of historical, theological and practical materials, works, notes and publications that often do not have a single "core" for their real application. In 1994, the Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church took place in Moscow, which issued a definition “On the Orthodox mission in the modern world.” The definition spoke of the need to revive the missionary activity of the Russian Orthodox Church. Also in this document, the Holy Synod was instructed to form a working group to plan the revival of the Orthodox mission, and the Educational Committee to develop and introduce the subject of missiology into the curriculum of educational institutions. 12

13 The place of Orthodox missiology in the system of theological and historical disciplines The working group, headed by His Grace John, Bishop (now Archbishop) of Belgorod and Stary Oskol, prepared the “Concept for the revival of the missionary activity of the Russian Orthodox Church” 1. The concept was approved at a meeting of the Holy Synod on October 6, 1995 (4043). It sets out the main theological constants of the Orthodox mission, obliging every Christian, as a member of the Apostolic, that is, messenger Church, to take the path of Orthodox witness. On December 26, 1995, by resolution of the Holy Synod, the Missionary Department of the Moscow Patriarchate was formed, the chairman of which was appointed Bishop (now Archbishop) of Belgorod and Stary Oskol John. The Missionary Department was entrusted with carrying out methodological and practical missionary activities on the canonical territory of the Russian Orthodox Church. On July 17, 1996, by decision of the Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church, a decision was made to open an Orthodox Theological Seminary (with a missionary orientation) in Belgorod. 2. At the grand opening of the seminary, which took place on September 28 of the same year, His Holiness Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus' Alexy II was present. His Grace John, Bishop (now Archbishop) of Belgorod and Stary Oskol, was appointed rector of the seminary. On March 27, 2007, at a meeting of the Holy Synod, the “Concept of missionary activity of the Russian Orthodox Church” 3, developed by the Synodal Missionary Department of the Moscow Patriarchate, was approved. The concept formulates general principles, goals and objectives of the missionary service of the Russian Orthodox Church, which can be creatively developed in dioceses, taking into account local conditions and opportunities. The text of the Concept is based on documents and materials of the Local Council, the Bishops' Councils of the Russian Orthodox Church in 1994, 1997, 2000 and 2004, 1 Concept for the revival of missionary activity of the Russian Orthodox Church. Ed. Working group for planning the revival of the Orthodox mission in the canonical territory of the Russian Orthodox Church. In the text, all references to this document are given in italics. 2 Further in the text BPDS (with m/n). 3 The concept of missionary activity of the Russian Orthodox Church. Ed. Missionary Department of the Moscow Patriarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church. In the text, all references to this document are given in bold italics. 13

14 The theology of the mission is based on the recommendations of the reports of His Holiness Patriarch Alexy II of Moscow and All Rus', as well as the “Fundamentals of the Social Concept of the Russian Orthodox Church”, resolutions and final documents of the All-Church Missionary Congresses held before 1917 and in the years following. Finally, in 2009, with the blessing and under the general editorship of His Eminence John, Archbishop of Belgorod and Stary Oskol, Chairman of the Missionary Department of the Russian Orthodox Church, the publishing house BPDS (s/n) published the first textbook on missiology in the history of the Russian Orthodox Church, which included articles by 23 authors of missionaries, theologians and teachers, compiled specifically for this work Theological understanding of the mission of the Church Biblical understanding of the mission All principles of Orthodox missionary activity are based and derived from the Holy Scriptures, as the most authoritative source of the doctrine of the Orthodox Church. They were either given directly by the Lord Jesus Christ, or developed by the apostles in the process of preaching ministry. The Savior's instructions to the disciples when sending them to preach (before His Resurrection from the dead) are set out in Matt. 10 ch. and Luke. 10 ch. The main topics of the instructions: “Preach that the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand” (Matthew 10.7; Wed: Luke 10.9); “I send you out as sheep among wolves: therefore be wise as serpents and innocent as doves” (Matthew; Compare: Luke 10.3); “What I say to you in the dark, speak in the light; and whatever you hear in the ear, preach on the housetops. And do not be afraid of those who kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul” (Matthew); “He who listens to you listens to Me, and he who rejects you rejects Me” (Luke; Compare: Matthew 10.40). After His Resurrection, the Lord makes the following commands to the apostles, blessing them for preaching: “Go and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe everything that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age." 14

15 Biblical understanding of mission (Matt); “Go into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved; and whoever does not believe will be condemned. These signs will accompany those who believe: in My name they will cast out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will take snakes; and if they drink anything deadly, it will not harm them; They will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover” (Mark); “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1.8). The only difference between these instructions is that before His Resurrection, Christ commands the apostles to preach to the world about the coming of the Kingdom of Heaven, and after the Resurrection from the dead, the Savior commands the disciples to accept people into His Kingdom through baptism. The principles of missionary activity applied by the apostles are set out in the book “The Acts of the Holy Apostles”, as well as in the conciliar and pastoral Epistles (mainly of the Apostle Paul). In Old Testament times, there was a Jewish people whose divine choice consisted in bearing and preserving the true faith in the Lord God of Hosts. But this faith was not a rational knowledge of the existence of the true God, but a vital proof of faithfulness to Him. Faith in God was directly related to fulfilling His commandments, that is, living according to His law, written down by Moses. When the people of Israel departed from their faith in “Yahweh,” He Himself sent people whose purpose was to remind the people of their chosenness by God. Such people were the prophets, the first “messengers” of the Lord, who became the first missionaries. The mission of the prophets boiled down mainly to preaching about God among the Jewish people, who for one reason or another began to betray the Lord or forget about Him (the so-called “internal mission”). However, the preaching of the prophets was not limited only to the borders of Israel, but also often extended to the pagans living in the neighborhood of the Jews. But the prophets did not have the task of specifically converting them to the Old Testament faith. New form of missionary activity (so-called 15

16 The theology of mission ("outward mission") appears only in the New Testament, and then only after Pentecost. To understand what the prophets preached, it is necessary to consider some descriptions of how their calling by the Lord was carried out. As an example, the three callings of the “great” prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel will be given. The first description of the prophet Isaiah’s vision of the Glory of God: “In the year of the death of King Uzziah, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of His robe filled the whole temple. The Seraphim stood around Him; each of them had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And they called to each other and said: Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord of hosts! the whole earth is full of His glory! And the tops of the gates shook at the voice of those shouting, and the house was filled with incense. And I said: Woe is me! I'm dead! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people also of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts. Then one of the Seraphim flew to me, and in his hand he had a burning coal, which he took with tongs from the altar, and touched my mouth and said: behold, this has touched your mouth, and your iniquity is taken away from you, and your sin is cleansed. And I heard the voice of the Lord saying: Whom shall I send? and who will go for Us? And I said: here I am, send me. And He said: Go and tell this people: You will hear with your ears and will not understand, and with your eyes you will see and will not see. For the heart of this people is hardened, and their ears are hard of hearing, and they have closed their eyes, lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and turn, that I may heal them” (Isa.) The next example is the calling of the holy prophet Jeremiah. This is how he himself describes it: “And the word of the Lord came to me: before I formed you in the womb, I knew you, and before you came out of the womb, I sanctified you: I made you a prophet to the nations. And I said: Oh, Lord God! I don’t know how to speak, because I’m still young. But the Lord told me: do not say: “I am young”; For to everyone to whom I send you you will go, and whatever I command you you will say. Don't be afraid of them; For I am with you to deliver you, said the Lord. And the Lord stretched out His hand and touched my mouth, and the Lord said to me: Behold, I have put My words in your mouth. Behold, I have set you this day over nations and kingdoms, to uproot and destroy, to destroy and destroy, 16

17 Biblical understanding of the mission to build and plant. And the word of the Lord came to me: What do you see, Jeremiah? I said: I see the almond tree rod. The Lord said to me: you see correctly; for I am watching over My word, so that it may speedily be fulfilled. And the word of the Lord came to me another time: What do you see? I said: I see a boiling cauldron blown by the wind, and its face is from the north. And the Lord said to me: From the north will disaster come upon all the inhabitants of this land. For behold, I will call all the tribes of the kingdoms of the north, says the Lord, and they will come and set every throne at the entrance of the gates of Jerusalem, and around all its walls, and in all the cities of Judah. And I will pronounce My judgments on them because of all their iniquities, because they have forsaken Me and burned incense to foreign gods and worshiped the works of their own hands. And you gird up your loins, and stand up, and tell them everything that I command you; Do not be faint-hearted before them, lest I strike you in their sight. And behold, I have made thee this day a fortified city, and a pillar of iron, and a wall of brass, in all this land, against the kings of Judah, against the princes thereof, against the priests thereof, and against the people of the land. They will fight against you, but they will not prevail against you; For I am with you, says the Lord, to deliver you” (Jer.). And, finally, another example of the calling of the prophet Ezekiel, described by him after the revelation of the Glory of God to him and the vision of four symbolic animals: “When I saw this, I fell on my face, and heard the voice of the One who speaks, and He said to me: Son of man! stand on your feet, and I will speak to you. And as He spoke to me, a spirit came into me and made me stand on my feet, and I heard Him who spoke to me. And He said to me: Son of man! I am sending you to the children of Israel, to a rebellious people who rebelled against Me; They and their fathers have been traitors to Me to this very day. And these sons with hardened faces and hard hearts; I am sending you to them, and you will say to them: “Thus says the Lord God!” Will they listen or will they not, for they are a rebellious house; but let them know that there was a prophet among them. And you, son of man, do not be afraid of them and do not be afraid of their words, if they become thistles and thorns for you, and you will live among the scorpions; Do not be afraid of their speech and do not be afraid of their face, for they are a rebellious house; and speak My words to them, whether they will listen or not, for they are stubborn. But you, son of man, listen to what I will tell you; do not be stubborn like this rebellious house; open your mouth and eat what I give 17

18 Theology of mission to you. And I saw, and behold, a hand was stretched out towards me, and behold, in it was a scroll of books. And He unfolded it before me, and behold, the scroll was written inside and outside, and it was written on it: “weeping, and groaning, and grief.” And he said to me: Son of man! Eat what is before you, eat this scroll, and go and tell the house of Israel. Then I opened my mouth, and He gave me this scroll to eat; and he said to me: Son of man! nourish your womb and fill your insides with this scroll that I am giving you; and I ate, and it was as sweet as honey in my mouth. And He said to me: Son of man! arise and go to the house of Israel, and speak to them in My words; For you are not sent to a people with slurred speech and an unknown tongue, but to the house of Israel, not to many nations with slurred speech and an unintelligible tongue, whose words you would not understand; Yes, if I had sent you to them, they would have listened to you; but the house of Israel will not listen to you; for they do not want to listen to Me, because all the house of Israel is of a strong forehead and a hard heart” (Ezek). These three examples of the calling of the great biblical prophets very similar to each other. They have the same characteristics and goals. Their comparison reveals the meaning of prophetic ministry as a missionary task set by the Lord. Moreover, many parallels can be cited with the New Testament calling of the apostles, described by the evangelists. So, what was the mission of the prophets? First of all, the calling of the prophets began with the manifestation of the Glory of God, with the vision of the mystery and power of the Divine, with the hearing of His voice. This was the first necessity, since the prophet could not talk about some abstract “God” that he did not know, did not see and did not feel. It was the living experience of communion with God that was for God’s messenger (missionary) the driving factor that nourished and warmed his soul during various trials and tribulations. Moreover, the prophet had to speak the words of God, being a mediator, a “representative” of God among the people to whom he was sent to preach. And for this it was necessary for the internal purification of the prophet and his further spiritual and moral life, consistent with the life of the Holy Spirit, who dwelt in his heart and mind. A visible sign of the prophet's sanctification was the cleansing of his lips, since this testified to the truthfulness of all the words uttered by this man, and his words after that should be perceived as the words of the Lord Himself. (“Listen- 18

19 Biblical understanding of the mission, he who listens to you listens to Me, and he who rejects you rejects Me” (Luke); “Whoever receives you receives Me, and whoever receives Me receives Him who sent Me; whoever receives the prophet, in the name of the prophet, will receive the reward of the prophet; and whoever receives the righteous, in the name of the righteous, will receive the reward of the righteous” (Matthew)). To make the sermon more effective and convincing, the Lord promises His protection and help in the matter of prophetic (messenger) ministry. Proof of the truth of the prophet’s words was not only the fulfillment of his predictions, but also miracles performed in the Name of the Almighty. (“And these signs will accompany those who believe: in My name they will cast out demons; they will speak with new tongues; they will pick up snakes; and if they drink anything deadly, it will not harm them; they will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover” (Mark); “The sick heal, cleanse lepers, raise the dead, cast out demons; freely you have received, freely give" (Matthew 10.8)). Prophets were sent, first of all, to the people of Israel to turn them from the wrong path and through repentance to bring them back to the Lord. And although the Lord predicts the hopelessness of preaching among His people because of their obstinacy, He still does not abandon this people, sending them promises and His messengers to testify that the love of God punishes the unrighteous and has mercy on the repentant. (“Do not go into the way of the Gentiles, and do not enter the city of the Samaritans; but go especially to the lost sheep of the house of Israel; and as you go, preach that the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matthew)). The Lord commands His messengers to be courageous in the face of untruth and sorrow, and promises His help and support in the work of missionary service. Moreover, He testifies that cowardice is an unacceptable weakness for a prophet, and promises punishment for betrayal of the prophetic calling. (“Do not be afraid of those who kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul; but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell... Therefore, everyone who confesses Me before men, him will I also confess before My Father in heaven; If he denies Me before men, I also will deny him before My Father in heaven" (Matthew 32-33)). Thus, prophetic service is a representative form of missionary work, and even to some extent its necessary condition, since the main power of prophecy is 19

20 The theology of the mission whose words are not a prediction of the future, but a testimony on behalf of God Himself, the divine inspiration of speeches uttered by the Holy Spirit. And this is precisely what guarantees the truth of prophetic ministry and the truthfulness of the words spoken by the missionary. (“When they betray you, do not worry about how or what to say; for in that hour it will be given to you what to say, for it is not you who will speak, but the Spirit of your Father who will speak in you” (Matthew)) Trinitarian foundation of mission “ The theological understanding of the Orthodox mission is based on its trinitarian dimension: the source of the mission is in the Most Holy Trinity, which expresses itself through the sending of Jesus Christ by the Father and the sending of the Holy Spirit to the apostles (John). The message of Jesus Christ is included in the plan of the Economy of our salvation, “for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3.16).” “The Trinitarian understanding of mission assumes that the task of mission is to project onto human relationships the relationships that exist within the Holy Trinity. God in Himself is the life of the community, and God’s participation in history is aimed at bringing humanity (and creation in general) into this community by the very life of God.” The Divine Intra-Trinity relationships, spreading in the created world, testify to the ideal harmony of life and communication for rational beings called to imitate these relationships through entry into divine existence, actualized in the unity and holiness of the Church, as the Body of Christ, where many individuals have the same nature - the divine-human organism , just as the Persons of the Holy Trinity have one Essence. Humanity finds salvation “from the Father through the Son in the Holy Spirit”; this is precisely the formulation that expresses the action of the Divine Economy after the Fall of people. The Apostle Paul writes about this: “When the grace and love of our Savior God appeared, He saved us, not by works of righteousness, which 20

21 We have created the Trinitarian foundation of mission, and according to His mercy, the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that, being justified by His grace, we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life” (Titus). Attitude to the fallen world of God the Father: “God’s love for us was revealed in this, that God sent His only begotten Son into the world, so that we might receive life through Him. This is love, that we did not love God, but He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (1 John); Attitude to the fallen world of the Son of God: “This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent. I glorified You on earth, accomplished the work that You charged Me to do... May they all be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You, [so] may they also be one in Us, that the world may believe, that You sent Me. And the glory that You gave Me I have given to them, that they may be one, even as We are one” (John 21-22). The attitude of the Holy Spirit towards the fallen world: “I tell you the truth: it is better for you that I go; for if I do not go, the Comforter will not come to you; and if I go, I will send Him to you, and He, when He comes, will convict the world about sin and about righteousness and about judgment: about sin, that they do not believe in Me; about the truth that I go to My Father, and you will no longer see Me; about judgment, that the prince of this world is condemned... But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all truth: for He will not speak of Himself, but whatever He hears He will speak, and He will tell you the things to come” (John 13 ). The Divine Founder and Head of the Church, the Lord Jesus Christ, carried out in His Person the messenger (apostolic) ministry: He did not come from Himself, but the Father sends the Son in the Holy Spirit (John). The words “sent”, “sent” in relation to Jesus Christ appear in the New Testament about 50 times. The author of the letter to the Hebrews directly calls Jesus Christ an Apostle: “Therefore, holy brethren, consider Jesus Christ the Apostle and High Priest of our confession” (Heb. 3.1). The sending of the Son of God into the world is good news, and He Himself reveals the ministry of the gospel: “and to other cities the good news” 21

22 Theology of the mission I must proclaim the Kingdom of God, for for this purpose I was sent” (Luke 4.43). The Kingdom of God opened with the appearance of Christ into the world, and He Himself preaches about it. He is both the Gospel and the Evangelist in one Person. As the image of the Father, Christ the Son of God bears witness to the Father. He is the first Apostle, Evangelist and Witness. The mission of Christ is absolute. And those works (miracles) that Christ performed, He Himself puts forward as evidence of His messengership: “But I have a greater testimony than John: these very works that I have done testify of Me that the Father has sent Me” (John 5.36). This Messenger confirms His Divine origin and, a kind of justification in the eyes of the Pharisees and lawyers who accused him. It is by pointing to the Messenger from God that He confirms His Sonship of God and equal honor with God, saying: “Do you say to him whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world: you are blaspheming, because I said: I am the Son of God?” (In). He bases love for Himself on the Messengership from God the Father: “Jesus said to them: If God were your Father, you would love Me, because I proceeded from God and came; for I did not come of Myself, but He sent Me” (John 8.42). The mission of Christ reveals to the world the eschatological perspective of the Testimony. The apostle points to the coming of the Messenger in confirmation of his words about the end of the world: “when the fullness of the time had come, God sent His [Only Begotten] Son” (Gal. 4.4). After the Son has fulfilled His Mission, He sends from the Father the Holy Spirit the Comforter (John 15.26), who “comes not in His name, but in the name of the Son, to testify of the Son, just as the Son came in the name of the Father,” so that testify about the Father “The persons of the Holy Trinity are not established by themselves, but One testifies to the Other” (Lossky V.N.). The Holy Spirit bears witness to the Divinity of Christ and reveals “the knowledge of the Divine work which the Father has done in Christ.” Thus, the entire Holy Trinity reveals itself to the world: through the Divine message of its two persons, it calls to regain the lost communication about itself. Just as the persons of the Most Holy Trinity are not thought of separately from each other, so the testimony of the Three must be considered in unity. “For three bear witness in heaven: the Father, the Word and the Holy Spirit; and these three are one” (1 John 5.7). The Holy Spirit testifies to the Divinity of Christ and reveals the knowledge of the Divine work that the Father did in Christ. This is the revelation of St. 22

23 The Trinitarian basis of the mission of that Spirit is realized in the Sacraments of the Church of Christ as a living and life-giving witness. “And three bear witness on earth: the spirit, the water and the blood; and these three are about one” (1 John 5.8). God Himself reveals the unity of love, and the Divine mission of the Persons of the Most Holy Trinity aims to attract man and all creation into the communion of love. This communion of love creates the Eucharistic community, called the Church or, otherwise, the “Assembly” (from the Greek Ekklhs a). A visible expression of the testimony of the Persons of the Most Holy Trinity is the brilliant masterpiece of Russian icon painting “Trinity” by Andrei Rublev. This is what Archpriest wrote about this icon. Pavel Florensky: “Among the turbulent circumstances of the time, among discord, internecine strife..., amidst this deep peacelessness... an endless, imperturbable, indestructible world, the “supreme peace” of the heavenly world, opened up to the spiritual gaze. The enmity and hatred reigning in the earthly world was opposed by mutual love, flowing in eternal harmony, in eternal silent conversation, in the eternal unity of the heavenly spheres. It is this inexplicable world, flowing in a wide stream directly into the soul of the contemplator from the Trinity of Rublev, this incomparable azure more heavenly than the earthly sky itself..., this inexpressible grace of mutual inclinations, this premium silence of wordlessness, this endless friend before We consider other submission to be the creative content of the Trinity.” The eyes of the Son and Spirit are directed to the Father, Who blesses them for the “kenosis” (belittlement, condescension) necessary for the salvation of sinful humanity. And in the center of the “kenosis” is a cup with the head of the Lamb: the Sacrifice of the Cross, which was performed by the Son, and the Eucharistic Gifts, which are performed by the Holy Spirit. “The mission of the two Persons of the Most Holy Trinity sent into the world is not the same, although the Son and the Holy Spirit do the same thing on earth: They create the Church in which the union of people with God takes place” (Lossky V.N.). According to the teaching of the Apostle Paul, the Church is the mystical Body of Christ, and at the same time the fullness of the Holy Spirit, Filling everything in everything (Eph. 1.23). Christ deified human nature in Himself, and the Holy Spirit bestows His grace on human persons. The Orthodox mission strives for the projection into earthly reality of the eternal relationships of the Persons of the Holy Trinity. According to the words of the Apostle John the Theologian, “God is Love, and abiding in 23

24 The theology of the mission of love abides in God and God in him” (1 John 4.16), therefore the mission of the Church is, first of all, the mission of Divine Love. Exist certain conditions bringing a person closer to God. As V.N. writes Lossky, “The Holy Spirit was sent into the world, or rather, into the Church in the name of the Son” (“Comforter, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name” (John)). Therefore, one must bear the name of the Son, be a member of His Body, in order to receive the Spirit.” And Saint Irenaeus of Lyons says that “one can partake of the grace of the Holy Spirit only in the Church, in the Body of Christ.” At the same time, true perception of Christ is possible only in the Church, in the Holy Spirit. “The historical Christ, “Jesus of Nazareth” as He appears to the eyes of alien witnesses, Christ outside the Church, is always filled in the fullness of Revelation, given to His true witnesses, the sons of the Church, enlightened by the Holy Spirit” (Lossky V.N.). The work of the Messenger of Christ continues in his disciples until the “end of the age.” This is evidence of Divine love. Those who heard about Christ and believed in him cannot help but reciprocate His love because “whoever does not love does not know God, says the Apostle John the Theologian, because God is love” (1 John 4.8). He who knows God finds His love within himself and longs to reveal it to those who need it. This Revelation of Divine love is revealed in the sacrament of the Eucharist, where Christ reveals himself as a Messenger who has come to a specific person, so that a participant in the Church as the Body of Christ, who has become a living cell in the church organism, can say, along with the apostle: “And we have seen and testify that The Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the world” (1 John 4.14). Thus, outside the Church there cannot be a full-fledged Christian mission, an adequate witness to Christ. This casts doubt on the possibility of cooperation in the missionary work of the Orthodox Church with the so-called “Christian communities” that have separated from it. Today one can encounter the phenomenon of a plurality of preached “gospels” and, accordingly, a plurality of preached “Christs”. We are talking here not about false Christs and false messiahs, the number of which is currently quite high, but precisely about the many different human interpretations of the true Gospel of Christ and about other understandings of the image of the One and Only Lord Jesus Christ. Orthodox Church of St. 24

25 emphasizes that there can be no question of the equivalence of these human “gospels” with the Gospel kept in the Church, and Christ abiding in the Church is not the same thing as Christ proclaimed outside Her Mission as apostolate Mission as apostolate “Mission, as an apostle, has always constituted the most important duty of church people as the fulfillment of the Lord’s commandment to His disciples: “Go therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you” (Matthew) ......All members of the Church, as the Body of Christ, are called to be missionaries in the broad sense of the word and to carry out church-wide apostolic service. Therefore everyone Orthodox Christian must be aware of the responsibility of testimony assigned to him.” The apostles are the personal chosen ones of the Lord Jesus Christ: “You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you, that you should go and bear fruit” (John). He Himself sends them to continue the work of the gospel, and gives them the Holy Spirit: “Peace be with you! just as the Father sent Me, [so] I send you. Having said this, he blew and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit” (John). Hence “apostle” “messenger” (from the Greek apostљllw to send, send). Christ Himself is the Father's Apostle on earth: “Holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our confession, Jesus Christ, who is faithful to Him who appointed Him” (Heb.). Likewise, Christ’s messengers in the world are apostles of God Himself: “Whoever receives you receives Me, and whoever receives Me receives Him who sent Me” (Matthew). After the Ascension of the Savior, Christians are called to the apostleship by the Holy Spirit: “In Antioch, in the church there there were certain prophets and teachers... When they served the Lord and fasted, the Holy Spirit said: “Set apart for Me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.” Then they, having fasted and prayed and laid their hands on them, sent them away” (Acts 13.1,2-3). 25

26 The theology of the mission “Apostleship” in a broad sense is to bring the light of Christ’s faith to a world mired in darkness, by illuminating one’s own life with this light and realizing it through external actions: “You are the light of the world. A city standing on top of a mountain cannot hide. And having lit a candle, they do not put it under a bushel, but on a lampstand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. Let your light shine before men, so that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven” (Matthew). “Apostleship” in the narrow sense is one of the vocations in church service aimed at spreading the Church in the world, and requires a person to have special charisma and abilities for homiletics. In this sense, “apostleship” is a special calling of God: “He appointed some apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some shepherds and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ” (Eph). The foundation of the institution of the apostles is rooted in the economic mission of the Son of God: “As the Father has sent me, I send you” (John 17.18). As Saint Clement of Rome writes: “The apostles were sent to preach the Gospel to us from the Lord Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ from God. Christ was sent from God, and the apostles from Christ; both were in order according to the will of God.” The apostles are a necessary link in preaching the Gospel to the world. A similar phenomenon is present in the experience of human reality. Any teacher of wisdom, founder of a philosophical school or religious leader, as a rule, is surrounded by his closest associates of students who share and most adequately perceive his ideas. They witness the active period of his life and, after the death of the teacher, spread his views. It is natural to expect that the Divine Teacher, carrying out His service in specific historical conditions, will have the same environment. At the same time, this natural phenomenon also has unique features due to the Divinity of its origin. Endowment with apostolic dignity is possible only through personal election, calling and ordination by God: “You did not choose Me, but I chose you and ordained you” (John); “Have I not chosen you twelve” (John 6.7). The Apostle Paul writes in 26

27 Mission as apostleship in the Epistle to the Galatians: “God, who chose me from my mother’s womb and called me by His grace... that I should preach the gospel” of the Son of God (Gal. 1.15). A similar formula serves as the introduction to some of his other messages (See: Rom. 1.1; Gal. 1.1; 1 Cor. 1.1; Col. 1.1; Acts; 13.2; 22.14). In such a calling main criterion true apostle of Christ. And, on the contrary, the unauthorized appropriation of apostolic right is characterized as “false apostleship” (2 Cor. 2.13); (Wed: “how to preach unless they are sent” (Rom)). Another indispensable condition for entering into apostolic dignity was the companionship of the Lord in His earthly life from Baptism to His Ascension, as well as the appearance to this follower of the risen Lord (Acts). But at the same time, the possibility of being called to the ranks of the apostles was not lost even after the Ascension of the Savior. “The spirit breathes where it will” (John 3.8). For God there can be no time limit on the gift of grace in any ministry. When the “chosen vessel” the Pharisee Saul appeared, capable of containing this grace, the impartial God did not in any way detract from him from the other, highest apostles and made him a witness of His appearance in the flesh. For the Apostle Paul himself there was no doubt about the equivalence in dignity of his apostleship with the ministry of the Twelve (Gal). The call to the apostleship was irreversible, and this ministry of witness extended throughout the life of the apostles until their death. But God’s action in relation to the apostles was not limited to election and calling. “Angels desire to penetrate” into the mysteries that they were to proclaim to the Universe (1 Pet. 1.12); Moreover, they were difficult for the human mind, damaged by the Fall. Even the death and Resurrection of Christ experienced by the apostles only partially revealed to them the meaning of God’s saving mission to the world. The Lord, after His Resurrection, “opened their minds” to the understanding of the Old Testament prophecies (Luke), but for a complete knowledge of the work of Christ and the mysteries of the coming Kingdom of God, there was a need for the opening of the inner eyes and enlightenment from the Divine Spirit, Who “searches all things, even the depths of God” ( 1 Cor. 2.10). The fullness of this knowledge, as well as the power to proclaim these mysteries to the world, were given at Pentecost. The Savior’s promises were fulfilled: “The Comforter, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things and 27

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In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. In Him was life, and life was the light of men. John 1:1,4 1 Again Jesus spoke to the people and said to them, “I am the light of the world; whoever follows Me will

April 16, 2017 Sunday sermon c. “Sonrak” Bishop Kim Gi-dong (John 21:15-18) God is love. He showed love to the world by sending the Word, and that is Jesus Christ (John 1:14). Our faith is to love Him.

Lesson 7 What the church does for the world In the last lesson we talked about the responsibility of believers towards each other. All believers are members of God's family. Christians have special bonds with each other.

Lesson 7 You Have a Helper By now you may be saying to yourself: It looks like the Christian life is too hard for me. I don't know if I can live like this. There is so much to do that even

Sermon Summary The Gospel of the Nativity I 1. What is Christmas? Gal 4:4 But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent His only begotten Son. Who was born of a woman, and was subject to the law. God has all the points

Lesson 7 Holy Spirit The disciples of Christ knew that their Teacher was leaving them. He Himself told them about this. At first they were not very pleased to hear this, and their hearts were depressed. They loved Jesus. For three years they

1 Odessa_Exaudi_2016 May 8 Eph.3:14-21. “That according to the riches of His glory He may grant you to be strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner man, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith” (Eph. 3:16,17). We often hear

Lesson 4 About the Holy Scriptures 25. WHEN ARE THE SACRED BOOKS WRITTEN? Holy books were written at different times. Some before the birth of Christ, and others after. 26. HOW ARE THE SACRED BOOKS DIVIDED? These two sections

Gospel of Matthew 110 Consider Him Who Endured Matthew 20:17-19 Matthew 16:21 From that time Jesus began to reveal to His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and high priests

International New Apostolic Church About ordination in the church From the beginning of its existence, the New Apostolic Church understands itself as a church of ordination. The following article clarifies our understanding of the order and explains

BAPTISM P. Will receive Baptism at today's service. And I ask parents, godparents and relatives to come out with the person being baptized to the font. P. Let us hear the words of our Lord Jesus Christ about the institution and power of the Holy

Approved for distribution by the Publishing Council of the Russian Orthodox Church IS 14-401-0079 M 31 Maslennikov, S.M. Reconciliation with Christ/Sergei Mikhailovich Maslennikov. M.: Siberian Blagozvonnitsa, 2014.

Can Christians now have eternal life and not lose it? Eternal life is “the gift of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” It is promised to those who believe in it. 25 And the promise which He promised us

O THE FIRST AND LAST RESURRECTION The Triune God created the first people Adam and Eve and breathed into man the breath of life. /Gen. 2:7/ God gave to all human flesh an eternal spirit. /Eccl. 12:7; Number 16:22/ In the beginning

March 15, 2015 Sunday Sermon by Ts. Seongrak Sermon: Bishop Kim Gi Dong My soul, be happy with the Holy Spirit! Those who call on the name of the Lord (Rom. 10:11-15) God the living Father. He revealed Himself to this world so that

Participation in the Supper Biblical approach or How to properly participate in the Supper 1 Cor 11:23-32 Luke 22:7-8 Now the day of unleavened bread came, on which the Passover [lamb] was to be slaughtered, 8 and [Jesus] sent Peter

Community of Faith Sermon Series Part 2 The One Life Ephesians 4:1-6 Therefore I, a prisoner of the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called, 2 with all humility and meekness and longsuffering,

The glory of the cross Phil 2:6-10 1 Cor 1:17-18 For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel, not with wisdom of speech, lest the cross of Christ should be made of no effect. 18 For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing,

Church of Galatia! verses about the Holy Spirit CHURCH OF GALATIAN! Christian verses about Serving God in the Holy Spirit, for all Churches of Pentecost, Amen! /Acts Chapter 10:38 Art./ God Anointed with Power and the Holy Spirit

Sermon Series on the Acts of the Apostles Part 30 Conversion of the Gentiles Acts 10:1-48 Acts 1:8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria

Series of Sermons on the Gospel of John Part 52 Blindness of the Seeing and Recovering of the Blind John 9:1-41 2 Corinthians 4:3-4 But if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, 4 to those who do not believe, who have God

Continuing to study the Word of God today, we will touch upon the question of what is rebirth or rebirth. Introduction Conversion and rebirth are inseparable; conversion is the act of moving from sin to Christ, rebirth

1 year 1 quarter WRESTLING keyword quarters. The Word of God is a weapon of battle. 1. The Word of God is a spiritual sword. 2. The power of the Word of God. God is the Winner in the struggle. 3. God's fight against sin. 4. God is the patron in struggle.

Gospel of Matthew 156 The Great Judgment Matthew 25:31-46 Matthew 25:31-33 When the Son of Man comes in His glory and all Matthew 25:37-40 Then the righteous will answer Him and say: Lord! when we saw You hungry,

The consecrated Council of Bishops, held in Moscow, in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior on February 2-5, 2013, addresses you all with the words of apostolic greeting: Grace to you and peace from God our Father

THE HOLY SPIRIT AND THE CHURCH Lesson 9, March 4, 2017 Trying to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one spirit, just as you are called to one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism. (Ephesians

Lesson 3 What is a church? Jesus said: I will build my church (Matthew 16:18). What did He mean by the word “church”? How did His disciples understand this word? You have already noticed that in this manual the word

July 26, 2015 Sunday Sermon by Ts. Seongrak Sermon: Senior Bishop Kim Gi Dong My soul, be happy with the Holy Spirit! Receive the crown (1 Thess. 2:17-20) God is the God of Glory. He loved this world and sent the Word,

THE WILL OF MAN AND GRACE IN SALVATION Church “Novogireevo” February 8, 2014 V.V. Old people Contents The condition of man Before the Fall After the Fall and before the rebirth After the rebirth God's salvation

Adopted by the pedagogical council Minutes of August 2016 I approve: School Director O.V. Caravan Order dated August 2016 Work program Subject of the ORKSE curriculum Fundamentals of Orthodox culture

Who is a Christian? Name Christian The name "Christian" (christianos) means "follower of Jesus" (Vine, Dictionary of New Testament Words, vol. 1, p. 191). It consists of the words "Christ" and the suffix "an", meaning

Glorified Perfection Practical Perfection Hebrews 6:1 “Therefore, leaving the first principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us press on to perfection” Hebrews 11:39-40 “And all these, which were testified to faith, did not receive what was promised,

Lesson 8 What the Church Does for God In the sixth lesson we talked about how Christians should help each other. In lesson seven we touched on the responsibilities of believers towards non-believers. Church

Series of sermons “The True Christian” The way to find peace 2 Cor 5:18-21 2 Cor 5:18-21 All this is from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ and gave us the ministry of the word of reconciliation. 20 So we are messengers

1 year 1 quarter BLESSING is the keyword of the quarter. 1. The Bible is a source of blessing. 2. Author and co-authors of the Bible. 3. The truth of God's Word. 4. God withholds blessings. 5. God's mercy and patience.

P/n Bible. Holy Scripture books The Law of God 1 The Law of God. For family and school. Compiled by Archpriest Saraphim Slobodskaya 53 2 The Law of God. Textbook for Sunday schools. 289 3 Instruction in the Law of God

Lesson Jesus 5 Christ Yes, of course, I believe in Jesus Christ, my new friend told me, He was a great prophet sent by God. He left many teachings for us to follow. This is wonderful,

Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. Question from a reader: “How do you understand these verses about calling on the name of the Lord? Do you have a practice in your congregations of calling on the name of the Lord? Alexander" Search for relevant

Lesson 5 Books of the New Testament At the time the New Testament was written, the world had changed a lot. The time of the prophets had passed, and most people were indifferent to spiritual matters. Just like the peoples of the Middle

Katherine Brown: Apostolic Ministry: We are all “messengers” And Jesus came near and said to them, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth.” Go therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy One

Christ in the book of Deuteronomy John 5:39-40 Search the Scriptures, that by them you may have eternal life; and they testify about Me. 40 But you do not want to come to Me that you may have life. Luke 24:44-45 And he said

December 31, 2014 Night service c. Seongrak sermon: Senior Bishop Kim Gi Dong My soul, revive the Church! Good and faithful servant (Matt. 25:14-30) God is the living Master. God created everything. That's why

FUNDAMENTALS OF FAITH LESSON 8 SACRAMENTS OF THE CHURCH The sacraments of the Church include water baptism and the Lord's Supper, which were instituted by the Lord Jesus himself, and which all disciples of Christ must perform. WATER

The Greatest Commandment of Jesus عيn صية عظم [ Russian Russian n ] Verification: Abu Muhammad Bulgaria 2010-1431 1 عيn صية عظم" باللغة لر سية "مر جعة: بو حممد چكلغا 2010 1431 2 Veli the greatest Commandment of Jesus, the Covenant which,