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Where there is no law, but every man does what is right in his own eyes, there is the least of real liberty
Henry M. Robert

PROSELYTISM THE UKRAINIAN WAY

3 March, 1998 - 00:00

Not so long ago, the World Council of Churches, comprising over 300 Christian (including Eastern Orthodox) Churches from 100 countries, called on the Christians to restrain from proselytism, in other words, from converting adherents of other confessions.

Proselyte comes from the Greek proselytos, meaning a stranger, sojourner. In today's usage a proselyte is a member of a religious community converted from a different religion. Proselytism has become an acute problem, especially in Eastern Europe where the recent religious vacuum (resulting from totalitarian propaganda and official atheism) is being filled by a variety of traditional and nontraditional creeds that openly compete with one another. Ukraine is no exception, although here proselytism is somewhat different. It has two aspects. On the one hand, the Orthodox churches are all out to defend their "historic" territories against the newcomers. The latter includes any confessions, ranging from the Protestants (first mentioned in Ukraine in the sixteenth century) to the Roerichites. However, the severest competition is not among different confessions, but among the Orthodox churches, of which there are now four in Ukraine.

What causes this militant interdenominational proselytism? The economic factors are obvious, for the money donated by parishioners are the main source church finances. Then perhaps there is also the church's image as a great church, its prestige and influence. Suffice it to recall the political parties competition for believers, which is now going full blast.

Methods used in interdenominational proselytism have long surpassed the Christian context. There are cases when priests and parishes of one Orthodox Church are bought by another with promises to build a church building or just a village home, to arrange for a priest's promotion, or simply in return for $1,000 in cash ("for Church needs"). Some bishops venture unauthorized canvassing tours (strictly forbidden by the canons), traveling from one church to the next, accorded a VIP welcome always and everywhere. Even pronouncing an anathema on Patriarch Filaret was not so much a punishment meted out to a dissenter as a carefully planned maneuver made by a rival church to win over the clergy and adherents of the Kyiv Patriarchate.

Meanwhile the press is pouring oil on the fire with certain periodicals using the name of the Moscow Patriarch in the lower case and in plural. On the pages of some journals millions of Kyiv Patriarchate faithful find themselves doomed long before the Last Judgment. Some journalists are so heavily involved with a certain church they dare not appear at news conferences or other public events organized by any of the rival churches, fearing (with reason) that they would not be admitted. True, this does not impede information flow, as each church has its own well organized counterintelligence, such that practically every secret becomes known immediately to the interested party.

Precisely this practice was recently condemned by a special WCC document. Theologians and lawyers of world renown worked for eight years to define proselytism, trying to draw the line between "converting" and "professing the teachings of Christ" in order to define the traits of proselytism. These include unfair criticism or grotesque presentation of the doctrines, creeds, and practices of other churches without attempting a dialogue with them. Another inadmissible approach consists in presenting one's own church as the only true one, and proclaiming the moral or spiritual supremacy of one's church over all others. The WCC also strongly denounces methods such as material aid given in order to accomplish a conversion along with physical coercion or moral pressure on adherents of other churches.

All the above scenarios of proselytism (which is also condemned by the Orthodox community at large) are being actively played out in the ongoing inter-Christian conversion farce. However it turns out, it will never serve to enhance the Orthodox spirit in Ukraine.

 

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