"Evangelicals": the Challenge and the Danger (1990)

by Bishop Chrysostomos of Etna

 

 

The following comments are taken from a transcribed text of the recording of an informal but timely talk given to Orthodox college students last year by Bishop Chrysostomos in Portland, Oregon, sponsored by the St. Demetrios of Thessaloniki Old Calendar Greek Orthodox Mission.

 

A number of years ago, when I was Abbot of the St. Gregory Palamas Monastery, a modernist Orthodox Priest contacted our monastery (then located in Ohio). A devout believer, he had converted to Orthodoxy without fully understanding its tenets and traditions. As he read more about the Church and studied the Fathers from an Orthodox perspective, he found that his involvement in the Orthodox charismatic movement, various quasi-Orthodox evangelical groups, and a reductionist sort of spiritual life was not consistent with the traditional spirituality of the Orthodox Church. He came to see that the modernist innovations in the jurisdiction to which he had converted, moreover, were not differences in style or the method of approaching Orthodoxy, but deviations from Orthodox belief.

Father X, as I shall call him, eventually decided to embrace the Old Calendar and the fullness of Orthodox tradition and to work among his former associates as a "missionary to his own," as it were. He went to Greece with his wife, was received by our Synod as a Priest, and returned to America.

On their return to America, his wife was counselled by clergy and friends in their former jurisdiction not to support further her husband's entry into the Old Calendar movement. In her confusion, she contacted one of the extremist Old Calendarist groups. Its representatives also encouraged her not to follow her husband, on account of their opposition to our Synod's ecclesiological moderation. She was treated to a barrage of unedifying personal slander in support of this advice.

The tragic end to this story is that Father X chose to remain an Old Calendarist and his wife divorced him. He decided, thereupon, to spend several years in the novitiate under my direction and requested to be—and was—tonsured a monk. He later agreed to leave the brotherhood, at my request, and pursue a spiritual life elsewhere.

I still remember this individual with affection. As a victim of circumstances for which he was not wholly responsible, he will no doubt be judged with leniency for his "failures" and shortcomings. I can also tell this story with anonymity, since so many years have passed since it took place.

From Father X I learned much about the evangelical movement in the Orthodox Church in America. Many of those recruited by the movement, he pointed out, are modernist Orthodox desperately looking for a spiritual path not available in their innovative jurisdictions. Seeking correct belief expressed in a correct way of life—ironically enough, a traditional definition of Orthodoxy itself—, they find themselves attracted to the pietistic language and religious fervor that Orthodox evangelicals have borrowed from Christian fundamentalism and its various sects.

I thus came to understand the challenge of evangelical elements in the Orthodox Church. We true Orthodox must provide those who hunger for a deeper spiritual life with a vision of Orthodoxy as it is lived in full fidelity to Holy Tradition. Fasting, a rich monasticism, and a life built around the Mysteries of the Church—these we must restore as a witness to those who have been lured away by an "evangelical zeal" that appeals to souls who do not know the fullness of their Faith. Herein, to be sure, lies the challenge of evangelical Orthodoxy for us traditionalists.

I also learned from this Father X much about the dangers of evangelical Orthodoxy. He told me how he and others had learned to "speak in tongues" through a process of imitating various sounds. This "accomplishment" earned him recognition as someone of "spiritual stature." He admitted that he had "healed" individuals. Despite knowing that these were not true healings, he justified them as something that was harmless. Nonetheless, he admitted that his charismatic stunts also brought about feelings of a demonic kind.

I was told by Father X that not a few of the leaders of the evangelical groups with whom he associated —some of them subsequently received into at least one modernist Orthodox jurisdiction—used mind control techniques and even subtle physical threats to manipulate the lives of their followers. Marriages were at times broken up, household spending was controlled by the clergy, and tithing was enforced with absolute strictness. Seizing on certain Orthodox Patristic teachings appropriate for monks and not laymen, many clergymen, styling themselves as "spiritual Fathers," would require cult-like obedience from their parishioners, issuing their "blessings" for commonplace activities and decisions wholly within the domain of a layman's privileges and free choice.

Much of what this Priest told me has been confirmed by other sources. A chilling article about the cult-like practices attributed to the Evangelical Orthodox Church, for example, appeared in the student newspaper at the Santa Barbara campus of the University of California, near what were then the sect's headquarters. Professor Ronald M. Enroth has also authored an objective, though equally chilling, account of the controversies which beset the EOC for Christianity Today (August 7, 1981). Though this sect—established by former members of the Campus Crusade for Christ—is now part of the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese, allegations of rather un-Orthodox practices in some of their parishes still circulate. Innovative, non-Orthodox services, charismatic practices, a widespread rejection of many Orthodox doctrines, and an overemphasis on money matters are among these allegations.

We should note here that the dangers posed by the evangelical invasion of the Orthodox Church are not confined to a single modernist jurisdiction. Charismatic activities are part of the daily life of many modernist parishes, at times disguised as attempts to bring believers into a "relevant" encounter with the Church. Moreover, some Greek Pentecostal sects have developed entire programs for the infiltration of the Greek Archdiocese with "lay ministers." These individuals often take an active part in parishes, even to the point of communing frequently. (One such individual boldly told me: "It's just a symbol, so it can't hurt me. By showing everyone a piety they can understand, I help my witness.") In their attempts to "return the Holy Spirit to the Orthodox Church," many of these evangelical Orthodox are not so much interested in the traditional teachings of Orthodoxy as they are in using her claims to historical primacy to legitimate their non- Orthodox beliefs and practices.

The traditionalist Orthodox jurisdictions are also not untouched by the evangelical movement within the Orthodox Church. On the one hand, at least one traditionalist Church in America has several active charismatics among its clergy. While these clergy avoid attracting attention to their activities, they are nonetheless a force to be reckoned with, if only because they operate surreptitiously.

On the other hand, the more unsavory evangelical Orthodox leaders understand that Orthodox traditionalism, with its witness to genuine Orthodox piety, is a threat to the artificial, often hypocritical, and very lucrative spiritual life of the "born again" Orthodox. They thus use the most unscrupulous tactics to discredit Orthodox traditionalists— everything from declaring us legalists and Pharisees to accusing us, in a rather dishonest application of these same standards, of being "uncanonical" by virtue of our resistance to the erosion of Orthodox tradition so decidedly characterized by the phenomenon of "evangelical Orthodoxy."

Indeed, because of my open opposition to the evangelical Orthodox movement, a group of evangelical clergy in several different jurisdictions has attempted to discredit me by the circulation of a false rumor. Misrepresenting the case history with which I opened my present comments, they have accused me of recruiting a modernist Priest, breaking up his marriage, denying his Priesthood, and forcing him to become a monk. Needless to say, this is not an honest portrayal of the true circumstances.

Various other slanderous things have been said about me and Metropolitan Cyprian, and several unscrupulous evangelical spokesmen have told others that our Synod and the Bishops of the Russian Church Abroad do not recognize the validity of the Mysteries of the New Calendar Churches. Spreading misinformation and untruths, these unhealthy advocates of evangelical Orthodoxy simply distort our moderate traditionalist witness at a time when the Church so badly needs a conservative response to some unfortunate modernist excesses. They thus expose to us yet another dimension of the dangers posed by their movement.

There is, finally, an even greater danger in evangelical Orthodoxy, a danger which accrues to any movement or group that claims its primacy by the exclusion of others (the "saved" as opposed to the "unsaved," the "elect" over and against the "lost," etc.). Such claims breed division and dissent. They foster the kind of hatred, competition, name-calling, character assassination, and slander to which I have referred above.

We Old Calendarists have seen the effects of exclusivity in the extremist elements in our movement—among those who have made the responsibility of resistance to errors in our Mother Churches an opportunity to declare everyone except their little sectarian groups un-Orthodox. They have attacked us moderate Old Calendarists with the same tactics—indeed with the same rumors, at times!— employed by the evangelical Orthodox extremists. They have caused division, discord, and confusion.

The personal attacks against me and others by these extremist Orthodox elements—whether fanatic Old Calendarists or evangelical Orthodox—are of little significance. I do not imagine myself or the very tiny missions which I oversee in this country to be important to the Church. I do not pretend that any such thing is true. Nor are very many single individuals, save for an elect few, or individual jurisdictions really pivotal to the Church's witness. However, the danger which the misguided fervor of those who attack us poses for the Church at large is not insignificant.

We must at every moment be on the look-out for this danger, since it eats away at the core of the Church's teachings about humility. It frustrates those who wish to transcend persons and the mundane and to serve the Church in a spiritual way. It interrupts the peace in which the Church must ultimately lie, that we might come to that passionlessness that leads to sanctity: the very goal of Christian living. Indeed it makes of the positive struggle and peaceful warfare of the spirit something akin to the negative and dark warfare of the flesh and all that is earthly.

The initial challenge of the evangelical movement we can no doubt clearly see, for if we are not blinded by the pride which besets the movement itself, we will feel great empathy for the simple believers who seek after Orthodoxy within these misguided circles. We will even find it in our hearts to seek after the misguided leaders of this movement, that they might see the errors of their ways and drink of the truly refreshing water of genuine Orthodoxy.

The deeper challenge, that of confronting the dangerous forces that hold these simple believers in bondage, is not an easy one to face. The few older Priests who initially warned their modernist Hierarchs about receiving the evangelical Orthodox courted the displeasure of their superiors. We moderate traditionalists, or Old Calendarists, who have been relegated to the backwaters of Orthodoxy, are a good example of what happens when one speaks the truth. Anyone who speaks out will eventually suffer what we suffer. This challenge we must meet, regardless of the consequences.

But we are also evidence of something else. Disenfranchised, attacked from all sides, spat upon, and despised, our influence, our voices, and the truth which we speak have a power wholly out of keeping with our circumstances and numbers. We are proof that the truth, even if it is spoken by a few people among millions, ultimately threatens and thus drowns out the loud voices of the millions who speak a lie. Let all of us, then, meet the challenge of the evangelical Orthodox directly and with the truth.

TV evangelists. What do they bring to mind? The hucksters who constitute the unsavory side of evangelical Christianity. Those who loudly proclaim themselves saved and who offer glib generalizations about the subtle truths of Christianity are not evangelists, bearers of the good news, but misguided individuals who have distorted the nature of Christianity.

Orthodox evangelicals are no different. Many of them, perhaps even some of the more dangerous leaders, may be sincere; however, they are preaching an Orthodoxy of innovation and convenience, an Orthodoxy of opinion, rather than tradition. The inevitable outcome of this process is pride, the sin and passions which come with pride, and an ultimate downfall.

Without doubt, many of the evangelical Orthodox who are operating "churches" within the Church will eventually break away from their Orthodox jurisdictions, taking with them a claim to "historical" Christianity and the authenticity of the Church where "Christians were first called Christians," as they are fond of noting. But they will leave with nothing. For we are not simply the Church of the place where Christians first called themselves Christians. We are the Church in which the first Christians still live and breathe, living through our preservation of Holy Tradition and breathing the immortal spirit of the Mysteries of Orthodox worship. We are the Church of that Place which lies beyond earthly places. And therein alone lies our authenticity. No artificial claim to historical legitimacy will survive the test of that authentic Christian spirit, any more than high-sounding pietistic language can ever ring more loudly than the silence of genuine inner spirituality.

I realize that my very personal words are controversial. However, I offer them not for the sake of controversy, but the truth.

 

Source: Orthodox Tradition, Vol. VII (1990), No. 3, pp. 4, 8.