Missing from the Synod: a Sign of Hope

We have heard from the Archbishop of Canterbury, the President of the American Bible Society, the Patriach of Constantinople at the Synod on Evangelisation, well bless them but the dear old CofE in the West is dying visibly, the American Bible-belt is slipping and although I admire Bartholomew I there are less Orthodox Christians in Constantinople than most rural Greek diocese.

I haven't followed every intervention but most seem to be reflections on failure rather than success or thoughts on what we ought to do, rather than what actually works.

The one Church that is growing both numerically and in influence in Europe that doesn't seem to be given a high profile at the Synod is the Russian Orthodox. Alessio Schiesari presents a few statistics showing its recovery.

People are pretty disparaging about both the Patriarchate and the Patriarchate and his involvement with Putin but that should not overshadow the significance of the re-emergence of the Orthodox Church after 50 years of gosateizm which included a bloody destruction of the heirarchy, mass murder, mass deportations, imprisonment, torture, social ostracism, cultural destruction, state sponsored anti-religious education or re-eduction, in fact everything the State and local party officials could do to remove the Orthodox Church from the cultural and moral scene was done.

Glasnost came into being because Soviet Communism simply could no loger hold the Union together or hold onto power, it was shown to be bankrupt in every sense. Glasnost itself was really a vacuum, an act of dismantling, it covered the shrinking of the state but offered nothing. Whilst we heard of starving and freezing babushkas, alcholism, organised crime and corruption, family break-up, excessive wealth set against unemployment and poverty the Orthodox seemed to emerge, often literally from frozen wastes. With few clergy, badly catechised laity, few diocesan or parochial structures the Orthodox Church has emerged as one one of the most dynamic forces in Russia.

Its problems are similar to those we have in the West, the difference is that the Church sees itself as being "missionary". A Russian friend said, "For us, since the Revolution it has always been 'evangelise or die' but what the dark days taught us was the importance of a deeply rooted spirituality". In a world which was so bleak for the Orthodox Church it learnt to recognise signs of hope, the value of suffering and to discern what are false dawns.