www.byzcath.org Forums News & Events Church News Greece to be evangelized by Christians

Greece needs conversion to Christianity since 98% of the population is Greek Orthodox, which is not a Christian religion. So, during the Olympics Christians will evangelize the population so they can know Jesus Christ.

See here: http://www.jesusjournal.com/articles/publish/article_532.html

I believe Greece has laws against proselytism- so I believe anyone attempting this will be deported but quick!

Oh yes, here is the Christians that will convert Greece: http://www.hmnet.org.gr/

More from the article:

Macris's mission is going to make a hilarious movie.

I wonder if the Greek government is taking volunteers for a brute squad?

You and Ilya?

Dear djs:

Touche! I deserved that.

Yours,

kl

I heard a guy called Diak was the ecclesiastical bouncer around here...

Dear Diak:

Hey, man - OrthoJerk deserved it!

Yours,

kl (a former smarkach himself)

Ya Pan Smarkach, duzhe priyemno!

Vsia pryyemnist' po moyi storoni!

In all seriousness the evangelical Protestants are in an all-out assult on Orthodox and Catholic countries.

We discussed on the forum several months (or was it years? ) ago a specific class and guidance at a Baptist college to teach students how to approach and proselytize in Russia and Ukraine.

I thought it was interesting in one of the links Johan gave that the statement was made that although Greece had Christianity in its heritage, few "had a personal relationship with Christ" and then attempted to display the statistics of the number of Evangelicals as the number of Christians in Greece. Vewy twicky, wabbit.

Friends,

I know that the version of Christianity presented by the Protestants is wacky, but I also know many former Greek Orthodox who have come to this country and converted to that brand of wackiness. One is even a medical doctor. So, why are Orthodox so susceptible to such silliness? Are they poorly catechized? Is the ease of the Protestant groups a serious lure to Orthodox people? Are most Orthodox in Greece only "cafeteria" Orthodox?

Or to look at it another way, if Protestantism is a serious challenge to Orthodoxy in Greece can't their evangelism make the Orthodox stronger? Can muscles really build without being challenged?

Dan Lauffer

Dan,

I don't think Orthodoxy is very different from Roman Catholicism in this respect. If we look at what has happened on some places in Latin America, namely in Central America and Brazil, we can see that the Protestants have gained much ground, especially the Pentecostals. I tend to think it is because the people are poorly catechized, the Protestant communities are smaller and perhaps more intimate and as such offer more personal contact. It seems that in any country that has anything like a State Church with (even semi-) official status things are like this.

I think it remains for the local Church to respond more aggressively. Also, the notion that these people need to be evangelized, while misdirected, is noble. Probably nothing good will come of it but something could. Let's see.

Tony makes some good points.

Even in the Hispanic barrios in the US one can find an explosion in the number of Iglesia Bautistas and like. This is not by any means a phenomena limited to Greece. Western Europe, South America, etc., all Roman Catholic strongholds are under the same sort of evangelical assault.

And I believe no good can come from apostasy from an Apostolic faith nor from pressure to do so. I think many if not most of these evangelicals do not deep down really consider Orthodox or Roman Catholics to be what they consider to be "Christians".