Mark Oxbrow
Church Mission Society—First Steps in Eastern Europe
“There’s one from Bulgaria,” my secretary told me as she handed me the day’s post. It was the spring of 1990, and I was not aware that the Church Mission Society (CMS), for whom I then served as director for Britain, had ever had any contacts in Bulgaria in all of its 201-year history. In simple English, the letter I was holding told me, “The people of the village have come to our monastery for food and clothing. They are desperate. Can you help us?” The letter was signed by an Orthodox monk. I never did discover how he acquired my address in London.
The previous November, like most Westerners, I had watched in amazement as the Berlin Wall was converted into souvenir chips of spray-painted concrete, never thinking that this would have any implications for a 200-year-old Anglican mission agency committed to mission in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East, least of all that it would shape the next 20 years of my ministry. But that letter from Bulgaria was a Macedonian call and one we could not ignore as, over the next few months, The British and Foreign Bible Society, Scripture Union, and the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students all challenged CMS to “come over and join us.” But what could an old Anglican mission do in post-Soviet Europe?
Our lack of preparedness, our caution about entering into new commitments, and our need to reorient strategy, staffing, and resources, rather than becoming the bureaucratic minefield that often bedevils large institutions, actually gave us a distinct advantage. Rather than rushing in, all guns blazing, to “evangelize the communists,” we were forced to step back and take a full 18 months to study, reflect, and plan – with considerable prayer and spiritual struggle. With the assistance of a recent graduate in Russian and international affairs, Mr. Richard Nerurkar, as my research assistant, I began an amazing journey into the East of Europe, and more importantly, into Orthodoxy. East-Wst Churh & Ministry port • Spring 2014 • Vol. 22, o. 2 • Page 5 (continued on page 6)
Partnerships by Invitation
Very early on in this process we established the principles 1) that in each place we would seek first to work with the majority Christian community; 2) that we would only work in places where we were invited to do so; and 3) that our first joint mission venture in each place would be determined by the priorities of the local church. In most parts of the region this led us into relationships with Orthodox communities, but there were exceptions. In Czechoslovakia (as it then was) we engaged with Lutheran communities, and in the North Caucasus region of Russia, with Baptists and Pentecostals. Explaining to our Orthodox partners in St. Petersburg and Moscow that we also worked with Baptists in Dagestan and Pentecostals in Krasnodar was never easy, but also led to some important conversations. Similarly, working with both the Orthodox and eventually two separate Baptist communities in Georgia brought its challenges.
Anglican Advantages
One significant advantage we had as CMS in those early days was our Anglican identity. (This was before Anglicans--at least in Britain--ordained women and well before Anglican struggles over same-sex relationships.) In the 1990s, many Orthodox leaders regarded Anglicans as “safe” both theologically and strategically. By strategically I mean that at that time as now, unlike Roman Catholics, United Methodists, and many Evangelical groups, we Anglicans had no plans to establish our denomination across the Orthodox world. In fact, it was the stated policy and practice of CMS that when individuals came to faith in Christ as a result of our work, we would encourage them to join their local Christian community, be it Orthodox, Lutheran, Baptist, or whatever.
Being Anglican also helped us in another way. The Anglican diocese in Europe had for many years, in some cases right through the Cold War, maintained a chaplaincy presence, often a church closely associated with the British embassy, in several countries in the region. The Archbishop of Canterbury also had improving relationships with many Orthodox hierarchs and his office rapidly invited CMS into these relationships. My first visit to Romania was therefore facilitated by the Anglican chaplain there, and my first meeting with His Holiness Patriarch Ilia of Georgia was alongside the representative of the Archbishop of Canterbury. Anglicans also share an appreciation of ecclesiology, liturgy, and Trinitarian theology which is appreciated by Orthodox colleagues but is not too offensive to Baptists and Pentecostals.
Holistic and Diverse Ministry
So what were we able to do in those early years? Adopting the policy that our first missionary activity together should meet the felt needs of our partners, our first five years in post-Soviet Europe were characterized by a truly holistic approach to mission. With the Russian Orthodox Church we assisted with theological education and the development of religious education in schools, while in Ukraine the Orthodox Church sought our assistance in establishing a dialogue with academics on faith issues, the establishment of an apologetics journal, and the setting up of a mission institute. In Dagestan the priority was to help a new Baptist Church planted by students to acquire a safe place to meet and training for its leaders. In Georgia the Orthodox Church asked us to help its theological college and then to support its work in prisons and among disabled members of the community, while the Baptist church drew us into supporting Chechen refugees and engaging in medical outreach in the Islamic region of Adjaria. Drug rehabilitation work was a priority for Pentecostal leaders in southern Russia, while in Romania we sponsored the first hospital chaplains, and in Czechoslovakia we helped the Lutheran Church establish an embryonic mission agency. The list goes on. We could easily have faced the charge of a lack of focus in our missionary engagement, but in reality we had just one very clear strategy – to establish trusting relationships with partners which were based on a mutual appreciation of the different missional insights we both brought into our partnerships.
New Engagements with Orthodox
As time has passed some relationships have deepened and others have become more difficult, but the learning that took place within CMS, and for me personally, at that time, has shaped much of our ministry since. In particular, our engagement with Orthodox Churches in mission has challenged us to a more Trinitarian understanding of the Missio Dei (the Mission of God) and to an appreciation of the missional potential of liturgy as well as service and proclamation. One Orthodox student we worked with in the 1990s is now a metropolitan bishop, another a university teacher in Austria, and a third worker for the Russian Bible Society. A young Baptist we sponsored for training now trains others in a Bible college in central Russia, and a Georgian Orthodox partner now has a burden to reach out to Iranian Muslims. God’s mission goes on.
Canon Mark Oxbrow is International Director of Faith2Share, Oxford, United Kingdom.