Khanya on Orthodoxy and ethnicity

Khanya has a thought provoking post on the part ethnicity plays in Orthodoxy. Given from the thoughts of a South African Orthodox believer, it is a unique and rather complete treatment of the subject.

A few years ago I went to a Greek Orthodox parish near me for a Paraklesis service and afterward to coffee fellowship. The group was entirely made up of older Greeks. Being a "xeno," I was welcomed in the first sentence of introductions and asked why I was there in the second. Then at a largely Ukrainian parish (again at fellowship) an older gentleman looked at my family and then at me and said, "Hmm.... I think you could be a Uky. Where are you from?" And at an OCA parish peopled by a lot of Russians my reason for coming to a vigil service was questioned not on why I chose to come, but what church I came from and whether my beliefs were sufficiently orthodox to escape summary judgement.

There is an odd relationship between the parishioner of an "ethnic" parish believing on the one hand that his Church is the best and on the other "protecting" it from outside influence. It is very much like believing you are being cared for in the very best of hospitals, but not wanting the riff-raff to ruin your medical stay.

“The Orthodox Church is not missionary, because its purpose is to preserve Greek culture.”

So said a parishioner of an Orthodox Church at tea after the Divine Liturgy in an Orthodox parish in Johannesburg a few years ago, and that seems to me to encapsulate the problems of “faith and ethnicity”, which is the theme of this month’s synchroblog.

I’ve headed my contribution “Christianity and ethnicity” because though many religions have ethnic links and ethnic problems, there are enough problems of ethnicity within Christianity to write several books about, without extending it to “faith” generally.

The idea that the purpose of the Orthodox Church is to preserve Greek culture is a fairly widespread one among members of the Greek diaspora, and is similar to the idea that its purpose is to preserve Serbian, Russian or Romanian culture among those of the diaspora from those countries as well. This is in part a historical thing. For many years, centuries, even, Orthodox Christianity was squeezed between Western and Islamic imperialisms into Eastern Europe and Russia. When the pressure eased somewhat, Orthodoxy spread outwards initially by people from that part of the world settling elsewhere. Most of the Orthodox churches in other parts of the world were established not by missionaries, but by ethnic communities, who saw the church as part of their ethnic identity, part of their link with “home”. So to this day, you cannot find the Orthodox Church in the Pretoria phone book. You can look under Orthodox or Church in vain. To find it, you would have to look under Hellenic Community, where the church is simply the religious aspect of the life of that community, along with the Boy Scouts, the Greek School and the soccer club. See the film My big fat Greek wedding to get the picture...

Complete article here.