Malkhaz Songulashvili
Editor’s note: The first part of this article was published in the previous issue of the East-West Church and Ministry Report 24 (Summer, 2016):1-4.
Overcoming Negative Evangelism
Upon gaining independence from Russian Baptists, the Georgian Evangelical Christian-Baptist Church (ECB) expressed complete disapproval of methods of evangelism that focused on a “negative message” that condemned traditional (Orthodox) religious practices, which was part of the legacy they had received from Russian Baptists. Accordingly, ECB leaders have sought to suppress the “negative message,” stressing that their church should be known for what it supports and affirms, rather than for what it is against. To avoid the influence of the past and to uphold the idea that evangelism is not a ministerial task alone, the ECB established schools of evangelism for laity in which the basics of a theology of missions are taught, the evangelistic experiences of participants are examined, and new patterns of sharing the gospel are demonstrated with the use of drama.
An understanding of the loving character of God became very prominent in the period of civil wars and enormous turmoil that followed the dissolution of the Soviet Union. In 1990 the southwestern part of Georgia, populated mainly by Muslim Georgians, experienced a landslide disaster that affected thousands of the population. The Georgian Orthodox Church immediately reacted, identifying the event with God’s punishment of Georgian Muslims who did not want to convert to Christianity.1 Such judgmental views on disasters are characteristic of Russian Orthodoxy as well. For instance, after the tragic earthquake in Haiti on 12 January 2010, Patriarch Kyrill showed no sympathy for the suffering, viewing Haiti’s troubles as a result of Haitians’ loss of moral standards. He said, “Haiti is a country of poverty, crime, hunger, drugs, corruption, and the loss of moral standards by the people.”2 Earlier, in 2005, Kyrill, as head of the Moscow Patriarchate’s Department of External Relations, had commented on the tsunami disaster in Thailand, linking the loss of life with punishment for sin.3 In contrast, the ECB has made clear that this punishment theory is not a part of the Christian message. Instead, the ECB organized services in memory of Georgian Muslim victims of the 1990 landslide, inviting intellectuals and others to such services. Georgian academics were given an opportunity to participate in such services, either passively by simply attending, or actively by delivering speeches in sympathy for the suffering. ECB leaders also gave special talks in university and various other academic settings about the core message of the Gospel, which were neither narrowly denominational nor confessional, that stressed a gospel of love instead of a gospel of punishment.
Summer Camp Evangelism
ECB summer camps and youth activities, organized regularly in Georgia since 1992, shared the gospel of love with children and youth from Baptist, Orthodox, and nonreligious families. The war in Chechnya and the influx of Chechen refugees into Georgia made an enormous impact on the ministry of the ECB. The challenge was to care for young Muslim children, sharing the love of Christ without offending the religious feelings of Chechen families. MuslimChristian summer camps proved very helpful for both Muslim and Christian children, since both sides started to realize that peaceful coexistence and sharing faith values with each other, without compromising their faith, was possible and enriching.
Evangelization of the Marginalized in Society
Soviet policy on physically and mentally handicapped people was clear: they had to be hidden away from the eyes of society by means of institutions placed in rural areas of the country. The large-scale economic hardship that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union and the civil wars that followed caused the partial closure of many of these institutions. The ECB was approached by the people in charge of these institutions, since the state was no longer able to provide for the disabled. After a few clergy visited these institutions, almost the entire ECB community became involved in looking after people in orphanages and mental asylums. Since these marginalized populations were considered society’s outcasts, no one cared whether they were evangelized. In particular, enthusiastic church youth visited these institutions, sharing the love of Christ with handicapped children. Within the framework of theological education, the question of disability was studied from a theological perspective.4 Residents were given biblical literature for children. The books would be read to them, since most of them were not able to read and write. Church youth also performed concerts in these institutions at Christmas, New Years, and Easter. Sometimes children and others were brought to the Baptist Peace Cathedral in Tbilisi to attend services and to participate as best they could. The ECB also developed an active prison ministry. Every Lenten season, churches publicize a prisoners’ week, with pastors urging the faithful to do something for those who have been confined behind prison walls. As a result of these activities, a small group of inmates became committed Christians in the Kutaisi Maximum Security Prison in western Georgia. Three prisoners were baptized in a very un-Baptist manner, by pouring water over their heads.
Gender Equality and Evangelism
One of the characteristics of new ECB evangelism has been affirmation of gender equality, with women as well as men involved in the proclamation of the Gospel and other ecclesial responsibilities. The Georgian ECB has been criticized by fellow East European and former Soviet Baptists for promoting the role of women in the church.5
In most former Soviet countries women have gained higher status in all spheres of social life—except religion. There have been female prime ministers, presidents, governors, and university presidents in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, the Baltic republics, and Georgia. However, leadership positions in most faith groups are still denied to women. The ECB Church seems to be the one exception, at least in the countries of the former Soviet Union. Women have always been most active in evangelism. They have been witnesses to their faith in their families, among their relatives, and with colleagues. They have been most instrumental in bringing up children with Christian values. The recognition of their special role in evangelism resulted in the natural promotion of women to high ecclesial positions by the ECB. The church now has a growing number of female clergy, deacons, presbyters, and one bishop.
Female ECB clergy have already started making their contribution to the work of evangelism in various parts of the country through summer schools and pilgrimages for women. These pilgrimages to various sacred and historical sites involve handling hardship, finding the beauty of relationships with fellow pilgrims, helping each other on the way by sharing water and meals at an open fire, and celebrating their relationship with God in silence, meditation, and the celebration of the Eucharist in the ruins of churches, on mountaintops, and in deserts.6 Pilgrimage is also considered the best way to get to know people and to understand others. One of the ECB pilgrimages in the mountains of Tusheti in eastern Georgia included four female ministerial students, one male minister, and two teenagers. At the end of the pilgrimage, the two teenagers asked for baptism and were baptized in a little alpine lake in the high mountains.
By emancipating women for full participation in the proclamation of the Gospel, the ECB emancipated the Gospel itself, because the Gospel could not possibly legitimize discrimination of any kind. As the ancient Georgian liturgical text for the ordination of female deacons (deaconesses) states, Since Christ “didst sanctify and equalize man and woman,”7 the ECB cannot discriminate, especially when it comes to the mandate of the Christian to proclaim the gospel. The Roman Catholic Church, which despite historical evidence of the ordination of women in medieval Europe, still refuses to ordain women or even to recognize that women are capable of ordination.8 However, the fact that in the Orthodox Church the question of women’s ordination remains open offers some flexibility for ECB female clergy to seek recognition of their ministry in majorityOrthodox Georgia.
Reaction varied to the 2008 consecration of Rusudan Gotziridze as a female ECB bishop. Some Orthodox and some Pentecostal women were upset by the consecration. Otherwise, the response was mostly positive. The consecration itself was attended by a number of theological students from the Orthodox theological seminary and a few Orthodox priests. Most were supportive of the ordination and excited about it. Orthodox theologian, Vasili Kobakhidze, in his congratulatory speech at the Baptist Peace Cathedral, maintained, Today, by consecrating the first woman bishop, the Baptist Church of Georgia has made a historic statement in the East. By consecrating Rusudan Gotziridze as a bishop, the Baptist Church declared that man and woman are equal in the eyes of God, and women should not be considered as the “source of evil and sin” any more.9
The 1994 Orthodox Christmas Epistle Attack on “Foreign Cults”
Following Georgian independence, the ECB enjoyed its liberty along with other churches and religious groups in Georgia. It was no longer persecuted or controlled by the state. The catholicos patriarch’s Christmas message in 1994, however, signaled otherwise. The Christmas epistle stated that “foreign cults (Roman Catholics, Baptists, Salvationists, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Hare Krishnas) are taking advantage of economic hardship in Georgia and are buying the souls of the Georgian people.”10 The Baptist leadership, headed by Reverend Guram Kumelashvili, immediately met with the patriarch and was assured that the Christmas epistle was a regrettable mistake. The leader of the Salvation Army in Georgia, Captain R.E. Lee, was not even allowed to meet the patriarch. As an alternative, he wrote a lengthy letter stating that the Salvation Army was invited to work in Georgia by both the patriarch and the Georgian government following the civil wars in Georgia. Captain Lee wrote,
I accepted your offer of friendship and reassurance in your office, when you encouraged us to do more than give out aid. Listening to you say that you wanted us to win souls as well, I felt honored to be a part of the Christian community which you lead….We would not have come to Georgia without your backing and that of the government….[I]f there is an official position change on your part, we need to be notified.11
The patriarch’s Christmas letter deserves some attention. Why were Roman Catholics, Baptists, and Salvationists identified with cults? Why were Baptists and Roman Catholics identified with foreigners, after having endured suffering under the Communists along with the Orthodox? If the Salvation Army was really invited by the Orthodox Church to give aid and “win souls,” as is stated in Captain Lee’s letter, then why did the patriarch now object?
The patriarch’s letter reflects the reality of the influx of Western parachurch organizations and fundamentalist missionaries in Russia and in the rest of the former Soviet Union, rather than in Georgia. His letter mimics what Moscow Patriarch Alexii II had already written in 1991 when he expressed his dismay at the “massive influx” of foreign missionaries who came to Russia to make converts.12 Two years later, in 1993, the Moscow Patriarchate made more specific charges against “foreign proselytizing faiths,” which now included Roman Catholics, mainline Protestants, and Evangelicals, alongside various types of religious mavericks and totalitarian cults.13
The Georgian Patriarchate also repeated the charges against foreign proselytizing groups in relation to Georgia. The truth of the matter was that, because of the political instability and civil wars in the early 1990s, there were hardly any foreign groups working in Georgia. The period of civil war was followed by a time of religious violence in the midto late 1990s when it was simply not safe for nonOrthodox to be involved in evangelism. The campaign against foreign sects in Georgia copied that in Russia, even though the religious reality was different from that which prevailed in Russia. Yet this campaign was supported by pro-Russian forces in the church as a means of confronting the growing influence of Western and European civilization in Georgia.
Religious Nationalism and the Perceived Threat of “Foreign Sects”
In Georgia there were no Western religious supermarkets available where people could freely choose their religion. In Georgia, rather, the space once occupied by Soviet ideology was replaced with religious nationalism. Unfortunately, in the 1990s, the religio-political situation did not offer the opportunity for religious liberty in Georgia, which could possibly have stimulated renewal and reforms in the Georgian Orthodox Church, as a custodian of Georgian culture.
On 5 April 1995, at the synod of the Georgian Orthodox Church chaired by the catholicos patriarch, discussion of proselytizing groups was summarized in the meeting’s minutes as follows: Some representatives of foreign ideologies and religious sects take advantage of the difficult situation in our country and hide themselves behind the mask of democracy. They coarsely interfere in the spiritual life of our population and by this they inflict great damage on our people. Some humanitarian (organizations), while giving out humanitarian aid, proselytize, that is recruit the faithful into foreign faiths. Because of such influences there are a lot of family conflicts and splits. There are cases where couples are divorced and some murders have also taken place.14
This statement refers again to the Russian experience of the influx of the parachurch organizations, mainly from North America, who were involved in proselytizing Russian Orthodox. The only humanitarian groups that were involved in relief work in Georgia were the Salvation Army and Caritas, a Roman Catholic humanitarian organization. The ECB was involved in humanitarian aid activity with the help of the Baptist World Alliance. But none of the aid received by the ECB was used for any kind of proselytizing activity. During the war in Abkhazia, medicines were delivered by a large American aircraft, which the ECB distributed to the state-owned hospital. The statement about large-scale conflicts leading even to murder in simply a fantasy.
Five months later, on 18-19 September 1995, the Expanded Church Council of the Georgian Orthodox Church maintained, “The danger from the invasion by various sects is real, not only for the church but for the state as well. Their activity should be controlled by law.” The call to use the law to control “foreign religious sects” was not an original idea produced by the Georgian Patriarchate. These “foreign sects” in Georgia were in reality respected churches (Roman Catholics, Baptists) that did not come to the country with the opening up of the borders after the breakup of the Soviet Union, but were churches that had endured the oppression and persecution of the Communist regime along with the Orthodox. The idea was to use state law to gain religious hegemony. However, instead of introducing negative, restrictive legislation for non-Orthodox, the government signed the Constitutional Agreement with the church in 2001, which positively granted status in law to the Orthodox Church with numerous privileges, but which also gave recognition to Catholics, Baptists, and other “traditional” faiths.15
Nevertheless, competition from non-Orthodox churches provoked the Orthodox Church into doing what it should have been doing all along, confirming one of scholar Rodney Stark’s key points regarding religious competition overcoming the laziness of monopoly churches. 16 The Orthodox Expanded Church Council stated that “the missionary activity of the Church should be extended, which first and foremost should be expressed in establishing parish schools in every parish.” At the council, “it was pointed out that it is necessary for the clergy to develop closer relations with the people, especially now, when the strengthening of foreign religions has been felt.” 17
The campaign against non-Orthodox Christian churches and other religious groups, starting with the 1994 Christmas Epistle and continuing throughout the decade, posed a serious challenge to ECB ministry in Georgia. The question of the legitimacy of the ministry of the ECB was at stake. It had to prove that its mandate to evangelize was valid and that its evangelistic activity could not be identified as proselytism.
Notes:
- “Disaster in Ajara,” The Grace, No. 3 (1990).
- Alexander Kyril, “People of Haiti Deserved the Earthquake,” Grani.ru, 18 December 2002; www.grani. ru/Society/Religion/m.17346.html.
- Kyril, “People of Haiti Deserved the Earthquake.”
- A. Kavtaradze, “Human Dignity and the Disabled Children,” diploma work (Tbilisi: School of Elijah, 2006).
- Rubik Pailevonian, A. Shumilin, and Yuri Apatov, “Letter to the Leadership of the Union and Ministers of Evangelical Christian Baptist Churches of Georgia,” Christian Newspaper (Moscow) 7 (No. 82, 2005).
- The Gareji Desert, where there have been monastic caves since the sixth century, has been particularly popular among the ECB.
- For a Georgian version of the Liturgy of St. James and ordination/consecration rites, see K.S. Kekelidze, Old Georgian Archieraticon (Tiflis: 1912), 63; For the first translation of the text in English, see Frederick C. Conybeare and John Oliver Wardrop, “The Georgian Version of the Liturgy of St. James,” La Revue de l’Orient Chréetien 19 (1914). For some fragments with modern English orthography, see Paul F. Bradshaw, Ordination Rites of the Ancient Churches of East and West (New York: Pueblo, 1990), 166-73.
- Gary Macy, The Hidden History of Women’s Ordination: Female Clergy in the Medieval West (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008). See also Sara Butler, The Catholic Priesthood and Women: A Guide to the Teaching of the Church (Chicago: Hillenbrand Books, 2007).
- Rusudan Gotziridze, “Ordained Women: Reflections,” unpublished paper in Georgian, Tbilisi, 2010, Archives of the EBC of Georgia.
- Ilia II, “Christmas epistle,” Literaruruli Sakartvelo, 7 January 1994.
- R.E. Lee to Patriarch Ilia II, 25 January 1994, Archives of the Evangelical Baptist Church of Georgia.
- Mark Elliott and Anita Deyneka, “Protestant Missionaries in the Former Soviet Union,” Emory International Law Review 12 (1998), 413.
- Harold .J. Berman, “Freedom of Religion in Russia: An Amicus Brief for the Defendant,” Emory International Law Review 12 (1998), 313.
- “Decisions of the Synod,” “The Republic of Georgia,” 7 April 1995, 3. Also in The Grace, April 1995, 1.
- The Constitutional Agreement between the Georgian Autocephalous Apostolic Orthodox Church and the State (Thilisi, 2001).
- Rodney Stark, The Rise of Christianity: A Sociologist Reconsiders History (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996).
- “The Expanded Council of the Georgian Orthodox Church,” 3.
Edited excerpts reprinted with permission by Baylor University Press from Malkhaz Songulashvili, Evangelical Christian Baptists of Georgia: The History and Transformation of a Free Church Tradition (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2015).
Editor’s Note: The concluding portion of this article will be published in the next issue of the East-West Church and Ministry Report.
Malkhaz Songulashvili is Associate Professor of Comparative Theology at Ilia State University, Tbilisi, Georgia, and Metropolitan Bishop of Tbilisi of the Evangelical Baptist Church of Georgia.