www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall The Fall Of Orthodoxy

Shlomo Lkoolkhoon,
In today's New York Times they gave stats, that showed that Orthodoxy (Eastern and Oriental) has fallen over 50% as a percentage of Christians in the world from 1900-2000. Here are the overall numbers:

Orthodox -53.85%
Catholic -1.18%
Protestants -17.47%
Anglicans -34.83%
Independents +112.00%
Others +600.00%

The raw numbers are as follows:

Orthodox were 22.1% are 10.2%
Catholic were 50.8% are 50.2%
Protestants were 19.6% are 16.2%
Anglicans were 5.8% are 3.8%
Independents were 1.5% are 18.3%
Others were 0.2% are 1.2%

For us Easterns both Catholic and Orthodox we really need to think about getting out of our Nationalist bubbles and start evangelizing.

Poosh BaShlomo Lkoolkhoon,
Yuhannon

Y_

Your conclusion is inexcapable.

How did they distinguish between Independent and Other?

Dan Lauffer

Shlomo Dan,
Independents are the Baptists, Pentecostals and the like. Others are the Jehovah Witnesses, Mormons, et al.

Poosh BaShlomo,
Yuhannon

We must remember that the Orthodox population suffered genocides like those of Croatia in WWII, and that of Stalin, who murdered millions of Russian Orthodox Christians.

After WWII, nations under communism had a serious decrease in their population (most of them were Orthodox).

This explains the reason why Orthodoxy has lost people.

Slomo Mexican,
You are correct, but that also brings up the question "are Eastern European Countries 'fair game' for evangelization".

A couple of points come to mind:

1. If a large portion of the population of a country or region are not Christians then should not any Church be able to preach to them?

2. Does the Eastern Orthodox Church (especially the Russian Orthodox Church) practice a double standard when they critize the Catholic Church for establishing dioceses in Russia for the native Catholic population. But in turn establish eparchies within traditional Catholic lands?

Poosh BaShlomo,
Yuhannon

And let us remember that our wonderful Christ hating allies of over 50 years, the Turks, have accounted for the murders of over 4 million Orthodox Christians in the 20th Century.

Dear Friends:

It might not be trite to reiterate here that the "New Frontier" for serious evangelization is Asia: from Mongolia down to China and India through Southwest and Southeast Asia, where 2/3 of the world's population of more than 6 billion, or roughly 4 billion souls, are waiting just to hear the Word of God!

Today, one's zeal for evangelization must now be accompanied by funding, infrastructures, and missionaries, not necessarily in that order.

Saddly, if my observations are correct, the various Orthodox Churches are not adequately equipped with the foregoing "tools" of evangelization.

I think some jurisdictions have contented themselves by "harvesting souls from fields already planted with Christian seeds by others," not unlike the legions of Protestant sects prowling in the otherwise ancient Christian nations of Europe, like Russia and other parts of Eastern Europe, and in Asia, particularly in the Philippines, where 83% of the population are (Roman) Catholics.

The ever expanding reach of Islam certainly contributes to this dilemma, a veritable roadblock many Christian Churches are unable to hurdle. The Republic of East Timor come to my mind where the entire Catholic populace had to endure a civil war against the rest of Muslim Indonesia to create their own Christian country.

Evangelism comes with a heavy price. The (Roman) Catholic Church has "World Mission Sunday" (this year on October 19) for as long as I can remember when each parish, worldwide, takes a second collection during each Mass representing the much needed contribution, however small, to the global missionary efforts of the Catholic Church.

Unless world Orthodoxy takes the cue from her "sister" Church, she will always lag behind, even behind those obiquitous Protestant denominations, who now more than double the number of Orthodox.

AmdG

Dear Amado,

But ultimately it is quality not quantity that counts.

RC stats often include only baptismal records.

It matters not that many of those could be, today, communist guerrillas in Latin America.

Alex

Dear Alex:

Your oft-repeated "quality over quantity" line does not hold water in this subject of evangelization, which ALWAYS admits "numbers" as the gauge.

Preaching the gospels is not about Roman Catholicism; it's about delivering the message of Christ! If one wishes to be baptized Roman Catholic, so much the better!

Evaluating the "quality" of a baptized Christian, or a Roman Catholic for that matter, comes thereafter! Before that, you MUST convince one to join. (How can you conclude either way for the one million or so new-born infants who are baptized as Roman Catholics in the U.S. annually?)

Your line of argument belongs to Churches which have dwindling membership or otherwise stagnant! :p

AmdG

Dear Amado,

Well, as has been said, the Churches in formally Orthodox countries have gone through a bit of a bad spell in history, to say the least . . .

It takes time to recover.

If we think that Russian Orthodoxy is accepted everywhere in Russia now - we should think again.

Many government officials give that Church the rebuff and refuse to let them participate in national days etc.

And the only way the West has responded to the Orthodox Church in its plight is by sending missionaries of every known denomination to confuse and divide the people.

That is very much like what the crusaders (a misnomer - they should be called "sword-bearers") did way back in the time of my ancestor, St Alexander Nevsky.

The West would do better to try and missionize North America and Western Europe, their own backyards, before demonstrating pharisaism in bringing Christ to the "unchurched" Eastern masses.

The challenge for Western missionaries is right here and now - not in Russia or elsewhere.

Let's see you guys do a better job at home!

Alex

Alex,

"Let's see you guys do a better job at home!"

Don't you mean "US" guys? Or don't you live in North America?

Dan Lauffer

Shlomo Alex,
Are you telling us you are immigrating? If so I wish you well in Eastern Europe.

Seriously now, if the only way that the Eastern Orthodox Churches can evangilize is to suppress and terrorize other Christian groups then they are in a sad state. What you are calling for is something that all that call themselves Christians should oppose, that the non-Christians of a certain country or region are the EXCLUSIVE property of a certain Church.

If the price of unity is exclusivity over preaching to non-Christians in certain areas then your price is to high, and I would reject it as an un-Christian Union.

My Church has gone through a lot also, but we are not whining. We are winning new members by showing the TRUTH OF CHRIST as we understand it.

Poosh BaShlomo,
Yuhannon

What is often forgotten is the low birthrate in many Christian areas compared to Muslim countries.

Dear Dan,

What I am saying is that 'evangelizing' is often a North American term for attacking Particular Churches and dividing their people.

If you don't accept that, I can't help that.

I do my best to evangelize Protestants and other "believers on the Lord Jesus" and those who don't.

But for all our bible-thumping here in North America, what we have is an anti-Christian social ethos.

Rather than go preaching to other countries, let's Christianize this place, our own backyard first, shall we?

And yes, I'm opposed to Western missionaries going into Eastern countries to establish their religious businesses.

Instead, we should be helping the home churches there.

Cultural considerations come to play here as well as religious, vertical ones.

That's all.

Alex

Dear Poosh,

I'm sorry you have taken such a position.

I don't agree with it and oppose it strenuously.

Cultural factors are important to the spread of Christianity and this is why our Lord told His Apostles to make disciples of "all nations" referring to the cultural unit of human organization.

The reason the Anglican Church is so well thought of in Oriental Church lands is because it assisted the HOME CHURCH of those countries without trying to divide and destroy it.

I would hope we can be united in advocating aid to the Mother Orthodox Churches of Eastern European and other lands to help them evangelize and spread the faith AND the Church that, before persecution broke out, was in those lands.

Perhaps they are not as democratically advanced as secular societies with separation of church and state as North Americans are.

But that is their world view and we need to respect it and work with it.

Otherwise, we will be part of the problem, contributing to religious strife and tension, rather than an aid to the solution there.

I have family members who were "evangelized" by Protestant evangelicals in Eastern Europe.

They joined because of offers of financial help and support from these "Christian missionaries of good will."

If attracting converts with money is our Western idea of evangelization, I believe our Lord will condemn us for promoting it.

Alex