Mission in Central and Eastern Europe

Corneliu Constanineanu

• Publisher: Regnum
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9781911372172
• eBook ISBN: 9781912343485
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Ministry

Central and Eastern Europe is one of the areas of the world that has undergone profound transformations during the 100 years delimited by the two Edinburgh gatherings that inspired the Regnum Edinburgh Centenary Series. It is the place in which Marxist ideology gave birth to the Communist hegemony that has impacted the European arena for over 50 years. But this is also the place where Christian churches experienced God's grace and provision, and even unexpected flourishing in some quarters. The present volume brings together significant contributions from over thirty theologians, missiologists and practitioners from this part of the world. The articles explore the complex missiological thinking and praxis of Central and Eastern Europe, highlight concrete missiological endeavours and pointing to the challenges and opportunities for mission in this part of the world. It also included relevant missiological documents that emerged in the area within the past 25 years.

PART ONE

CHRISTIANITY IN EASTERN EUROPE: A STORY OF PAIN, GLORY, PERSECUTION AND FREEDOM

Peter Kuzmič

East and West: Definitions and Boundaries

Europe is a complex and not easily definable continent. Geographically, it is the western peninsula, a part of the much larger land mass stretching between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans (Eurasia). When it is conventionally defined as the continent running ‘from the Atlantic to the Urals’, Russia, east of the Ural Mountains, is actually assigned to the continent of Asia. The present definition of Europe is based upon particular cultural, religious, economic and political factors and developments that gradually led to the well-known equation of Europe with Christendom. A contemporary of Martin Luther, the geographer Wachelus, published in 1537 a woodcut map of Europe as ‘The Queen Virgin’ that was to illustrate the unity and integrity of ‘Christian Europe’ as conceived by medieval Catholic ideology related to the concept of the ‘Holy Roman Empire’. Wachelus’ map shows Spain as the head of the virgin, Italy as its right arm, and Denmark the left; Germany, France and Switzerland are the breast; Poland, Hungary, ‘Illyricum’, Albania, Greece, Lithuania, Romania, Bulgaria and others are all identified on the (continental) virgin’s illustrious gown.¹

For the purposes of this chapter, the pertinent question is: what is ‘Eastern Europe?’ There is no standard definition because Europe’s political and geographic boundaries do not always match and have been subject to frequent fluctuation and multiple overlaps. The dilemmas and ambiguities of boundaries between Eastern and Western Europe can be illustrated at the very point of the arrival of the Christian message. Following the Jerusalem Council c. 48 CE, St Paul, the Apostle to the Nations, and his missionary team crossed over from Asia to Europe with the gospel of Jesus Christ, in response to an unusual vision of the ‘Macedonian call’ (Acts 16:93). Thus began the early church’s evangelization of the continent of Europe and the long process of the universalization of Christianity. At this point, however, it might be appropriate to ask whether this mission began in Western or Eastern Europe? Greek Macedonia is geographically and culturally considered to be part of ‘Southern/Eastern Europe’ and yet, as the working definition of this chapter will show, modem Greece, though Eastern Orthodox by religion, is by the very reconfiguration of European geo-political realities considered a western country.

The division of Europe into ‘Western’ and ‘Eastern’ is traceable back to the division between the western and eastern parts of the Roman Empire. Following the Middle Ages, the Ottoman line of division was imposed with the Turkish Muslim advance on Europe and its centuries-long subjugation of the Balkans. The East-West division is thus marked by several important and fluctuating boundary lines on the map of the diverse continent that is historically marked by numerous ethnic frontiers and cultural divides, along with traditional and modern political divisions.

Historically speaking, the most durable division of the continent is the thousand-years long religious ‘fault line’ separating Western Catholic (Latin-based, after sixteenth-century, including Protestant) Christianity, and Eastern Orthodox (Greek-based and later Slavonic) Christianity. Geographically, this line begins in the very north with the border between Finland and Russia and then moving south, separating the Baltic states (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania) from its recent ruler Russia, proceeding to draw the religious line of distinction along the border between Poland and its eastern neighbours, Belorussia and Ukraine. It continues south, separating Hungary and, somewhat less precisely, Transylvania from its larger modern home state of Romania, dividing Catholic Croatia from Orthodox Serbia within the former Yugoslav federation, to touch the Adriatic coast south of the religiously more complex Bosnia and Albania, assigning Montenegro and (the former Yugoslav Republic) Macedonia to the larger Slavic Orthodox world. To the east of the continent, there is no real or religiously definable boundary, but simply, geographically, the Ural Mountains and the Caspian Sea.

The term ‘Eastern Europe’, as it is generally used today, is actually a political concept based on the realities of the post-World War II division of the continent. Although there are considerable shared ethnic (Slavic nations) and religious (Orthodox-dominated lands) commonalities, the concept in no way indicates geographic or cultural unity. For our purposes here, ‘Eastern Europe’ denotes primarily that geographical area from the Elba River to the Ural Mountains that was until recently named the ‘Eastern Bloc’, which stood for the political entity consisting of the communist countries in Central, East Central and south-eastern Europe. This bloc of countries was until 1990 represented by its powerful political patron, the Soviet Union (USSR), and included Bulgaria, (former) Czechoslovakia, (former) German Democratic Republic (GDR), Hungary, Poland, Romania and, to some extent, Albania and (former) Yugoslavia. Under Soviet control and direction, they constituted a new entity in world politics as expressed by their economic and military unifying bodies (Comecon, Warsaw Pact). During the dangerous Cold War era of the twentieth century, this communist-dominated ‘Eastern Europe’ was considered the arch-enemy of the free western world and its brutally imposed ‘Iron Curtain’ division of Europe was powerfully symbolized by its physical expression in the Berlin Wall.

The countries of formerly communist-dominated Eastern Europe represent diverse cultural landscapes, which often had very little or nothing in common. It includes the homeland of the Reformation – Germany’s eastern part, which enjoyed Soviet-controlled ‘independent’ existence as the German Democratic Republic (GDR) from 1949 to 1990, as well as Catholic-dominated Poland and Czechoslovakia (now Czech Republic and Slovakia), while Hungary, Slovenia and Croatia were and continue to be regularly counted as ‘East’ European, even though as lands of ‘Mitteleuropa’ they despise that designation for cultural and religious reasons, considering themselves to be more western than eastern. Several of these also took pride in their history of the Habsburg tradition. Finally, there are the Balkan states of Albania, the ethnically related youngest and most vulnerable independent nation of Kosovo (2008), Montenegro (2005), Serbia, Romania and Bulgaria – the latter four largely Orthodox in religion, and all with shared experiences of centuries of Ottoman Turkish rule.

Consequently, Eastern Europe’s history and religious topography are characterized by an unusual variety conditioned by the intersections of competing historical forces and their attendant civilizations, cultures and faiths. The limited length of this chapter calls for only a broad sweep in our panoramic overview, as we contextually define ‘Eastern Europe’ using the modern political concept developed in the aftermath of World War II and problematized by the events of the ‘Great Transformation’ (1989).² Older Christian confessional divisions of Europe, the role of Islam, and their implications for and impact upon ‘new Europe’ – a continent currently undergoing comprehensive and intensive integrative processes prior to full membership in the European Union – will be explored.

Introducing and Assessing Eastern Christianity

With the collapse of communist totalitarian regimes and the opening of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, Orthodox churches of the East, especially the Russian Orthodox Church, once again became major players in the religious theatre of world communions. And yet they are still the least-known of the three major branches of world Christianity (i.e. Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Protestant). While not completely neglecting the better-known Catholic Church and various expressions of Protestant Christianity in Eastern Europe, this introduction will (especially for the benefit of western readers) pay more attention to the disproportionately neglected Eastern Orthodoxy. Due to the broader focus of this chapter, I will forgo any pretensions of being comprehensive in historical treatment, doctrinal expositions and contextual particularities. It is a picture painted with rather broad brush strokes, pointing out only those developments and features that help us understand the less familiar and yet crucial ecclesial characteristics, cultural habits and socio-political dimensions of the Orthodox churches of Eastern Europe today.³

Eastern Orthodoxy is the generally accepted designation referring to the majority of the self-governing (autocephalous) national Orthodox churches that are theologically defined as Chalcedonian (from the Council of Chalcedon, 451) so as to distinguish them from the (non-Chalcedonian) Oriental Orthodox churches (Coptic, Syrian, Armenian, Ethiopian, and other less numerous bodies). All Orthodox churches in Eastern Europe are Chalcedonian in their creed, and confess fidelity to the seven ecumenical councils beginning with Nicaea (325) as their norm. They became Eastern as a result of a long and complex process of estrangement from Rome-based western Christianity. The Eastern Orthodox, in a similar way and yet in competition with the Roman Catholic Church, claim a direct and unbroken continuity with the faith and authority of the apostles, and appeal to the tradition of the ‘undivided church’ which preceded the final break (‘Great Schism’) between Rome and Constantinople (‘New Rome’) in 1054.

The theological and cultural divide was reinforced when in 1204 western crusaders went on the rampage to slaughter, rape and mutilate the inhabitants, and then destroy and pillage the beautiful and wealthy city of Constantinople,⁴ the centre of Byzantium. The atrocities committed against Eastern Christians deepened the distrust, increased the enmity, and widened the chasm between the Western and Eastern Christendom. These painful historic memories have become germane again in the discussions about the present erosion of confidence between Orthodoxy and Catholicism, as well as in the context of current debates about increased animosity and perceived threats to Christian civilization due to the growth of Islam in Europe. I agree with one of the most learned and ecumenically open Orthodox bishops that ‘the crusades brought a result that was just the opposite of what they intended. These wars created for centuries a fear and a suspicion between Christians and Muslims. In the end, they mutilated and mortally wounded not Islam, but one of the most vital and flourishing cultures, the Christian Byzantine’.⁵ Attempts at reconciliation and reunion between Rome and Byzantium (prompted by renewed threats of Islamic expansionism) at the Councils of Lyons (1274) and Florence (1439) failed because of opposition from the Russian Orthodox and Greek monastic communities. Relations between the ‘First Rome’ and ‘Second Rome’ (Constantinople, the seat of the Ecumenical Patriarch) have improved considerably since 1965 when mutual excommunications of 1054 were solemnly lifted during a remarkable meeting of the Ecumenical Patriarch Athenagoras (otherwise known as a reconciler of churches) and Pope Paul VI. Relations with theologically and culturally even more estranged Protestant Christianity have improved in the twentieth century through their common membership and intensive co-operation in ecumenical bodies, particularly the World Council of Churches (WCC), which most of the national Orthodox churches joined in the 1960s, and the Conference of European Churches (CEC), which the Protestants and Orthodox jointly established in 1959.

The Orthodox Church is one and many at the same time, as it is a family of churches that share the same ancient faith, being in communion with each other while remaining independent in their administration in the context of their own nations. The majority of the countries of Eastern Europe are religiously shaped and dominated by Eastern Orthodox Christianity. The Slavic nations were first evangelized in the ninth century by Byzantine missionaries Cyril and Methodius (and their disciples) who, in both bridge-building and competitive ways, are venerated and claimed by both the Orthodox and Catholic churches.⁶ The most numerous attendants of the Eastern churches today are those of the Russian Orthodox Church (76 million). The following are approximate statistics of nomina...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• Foreword
• Mission in Central and Eastern Europe: Editorial Introduction
• Part One
• Part Two
• Part Three
• List of Contributors
• Back Cover