[updated 9-10-98]
In North America, the first Orthodox missions and the first Christian Martyr-Saints were in in Alaska--a region missionized by monks of the Russian Orthodox Church--one of which missionaries later become a Primate in Moscow. Every Orthodox individual is a missionary, if only by setting an example for those one gets to know. As talents vary, so the missionary vocation varies. The talents of some send them to care for children or the homeless in their own country or abroad. Some build or staff hospitals in non-Orthodox regions. Some teach--as parents, as parish priests, as monastics, or as missionaries in non-Orthodox regions. Some teach in a more academic manner, either by seeking explanations (orally or in writing) for what is within the reach of finite reason to comprehend--the whys and wherefores of Orthodox belief and piety, i.e. their coherence or at least the history of how they have come to be--or by defending the Faith against its attackers. It comes will ill Grace from a believer with a given set of talents and opportunities to criticize those with other talents or opportunities, since the New Testament clearly teaches (e.g. 1 Cor. 12) that the Body of Christ contains many different members, some more honored perhaps than others, but all equally necessary to the functioning of the whole: "If the foot should say, 'I am not a hand, I am not of the Body,' . . . or if the ear should say, 'I am not an eye, I am not of the Body,' is it for all of that not of the Body?" Each has one's own calling, and that calling is partly a missionary calling to exhibit or teach the Faith to others. There is no rôle in Christ's Body for one member to put down the mode of missionizing that another member exercises. For, as St. Paul says, if the whole Body were an eye--where would the hearing be, and conversely? It would ill become an ascetic to put down a physician or an artist or a thinker seeking understanding of the Faith--as if Christ were not the REASON and WISDOM of God--just as it would ill-become a talented thinker or a painter of icons or a composer of hymns and anthems to put down a person who is a caretaker of the elderly, who is a devoted parent, or who is a healer. Of course, such things occur often enough; but they are contrary to the phronema of Holy Scripture and the Orthodox way. No person can be all things; nor is any legitimate function dispensable. If all were simply teachers or physicians, where would the priests and parents be found? If all were monks, where would the parents of future generations come from? St. Paul rejected all such nonsense. Let each propagate the Faith with the talents one is endowed with and not despise the talents that others have--which the former may well lack.
ORTHODOX CHRISTIAN MISSION CENTER
(St. Augustine, FL 32085-4319)
ORTHODOX CHRISTIAN CENTER AND MISSION
ORTHODOX CHRISTIAN MISSION CENTER (Santa Barbara, CA)
CHRISTIAN ORTHODOX RADIO NETWORK
INTERNATIONAL ORTHODOX CHRISTIAN CHARITIES
ORTHODOX BENEVOLENT FUND [ROCOR], Rye, NH 03870-0743
VALAAM [Missionary] SOCIETY OF AMERICA, Chico, CA 95927-3858
ORTHODOX CHRISTIAN FELLOWSHIP; ORTHODOX PAGE
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