Without denying the importance of the other pre-conciliar documents, the one on mission is of extraordinary significance. Not only because the Church exists for the world, and not for herself, but also because it comes at a time that the entire world has enthusiastically received two similar mission statements: Pope Francis’ Apostolic Exhortation “Evangelii Gaudium”…
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The Mission of the Church in an Age of Modern Science and Pluralism
The document, “Mission of the Church in the World,” was released in preparation for the upcoming Holy and Great Council to be held in June (during the Feast of Pentecost) on Crete. This document relates to areas of great significance for problems in the world today—technology, war, discrimination and human dignity, globalization, the influence of…
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“Re-Christianizing” Russia
by John P. Burgess Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Orthodox Church has aspired to nothing less than “a second Christianization” of the Russian nation—a term that appears in its Missionary Concept of 2007. The Church has striven to revive Russia’s historic Orthodox identity by becoming, with state assistance, a comprehensive…
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Holy and Great Council, Orthodoxy and Modernity
Orthodoxy, Human Rights & Secularization
“The Mission of the Orthodox Church in Today’s World” offers a clear reaffirmation of the “dignity and majesty of the human person” (1.1) in Christian doctrine. Moreover, the exalted status of the human person is here grounded in its ultimate vocation to deification. While the human being is brought to perfection beyond this life in…
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Orthodoxy and Modernity, Public Life
Archbishop Iakovos, Martin Luther King Jr., and The Challenge of Selma
The third Monday in the month of January is set aside by Americans to honor the memory of Martin Luther King, Jr. King’s witness in life and death continues to call society to see every person as created in the image and likeness of God and worthy of equal treatment under the law. One of…
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What Orthodox Christianity Can Bring to American Christian Politics
Politics may make for strange bedfellows but the political alliances forged by many American Christians are worse than strange—they are ironic and self-contradictory. On the left, partisans draw on Christian teaching to pursue social justice, racial and gender equality, and responsibility for the environment. But in order to have a voice within the political left,…
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Public Orthodoxy is a publication of the Orthodox Christian Studies Center of Fordham University