Posted by Dean Calvert (dcalvert) on 3/2/2007, 5:23 pm, in reply to "When has Orthodoxy grown?" Hope everything is OK. We've missed you. The article is great - I particularly like this, "Yet cultural and linguistic diversity are the very situations in which Orthodox Christianity has always flourished..." and "If we view our Canadian situation with the eyes of saints like Cyril, Methodius, Innocent, Gregory the Great, and others, our best investment in eternity would be time spent in the heritage language classes of other cultures, such as the Chinese and Arabs, whose numbers swell in Canadian cities, and whose children fill our public schools. Our funds would flow toward the translation of liturgical texts, lives of the saints, and writings of holy elders into Urdu, Mandarin, and Vietnamese (and for our American neighbours, Spanish, which accounts for over forty percent of the first language of all American citizens)..." Ironic isn't it? The exact circumstances which exist, both in Canada and the US, are precisely the perfect environment for the Orthodox Church...if only we would return to the practices of the first 1500 years. There's an incredible amount of similarity - the problem is that the Church itself has changed...it is perhaps no longer able to thrive in that most perfect of environments. In the end - Fr. Geoffrey is right when he says "Of course, most Orthodox Christians in Canada will not pay attention to any of this, preferring to die a demographic death within their own nationalist ghetto. Yet a few will follow in the path of saints live Cyril, Methodius, Innocent, and Gregory the Great, and will grab the opportunity the Lord has presented to us. Regardless of the language or culture of a mission parish, it is in this - and only in this - that we find the true inheritance of Byzantium and Holy Russia: that outward-looking Christian love that recognizes its only real citizenship is a Heavenly one." We have a choice...and we will be judged. Great article... Best Regards,
Hi Leo,
Dean
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