Modern Europe Church History

The traditional Orthodox missionary method was based on the Byzantine missionary practice and its most ideal example - the mission of Saint Cyril and Methodius in Moravia. This method includes the spread of literacy, translation, and indigenization (encouraging the development of theology in accordance with local culture, as well as forming the local clergy that should eventually take over the administration of the newly-formed ecclesial community). This is why Saint Cyril and Methodius' mission might be termed inculturation, which is a modern missiological term that describes the respect toward and the Christianization of the local culture, without the enforcement of the cultural norms of the Church that sent the missionary. Nevertheless, the traditional Byzantine missionary method has gradually adopted the features of imposition and spiritual colonialism, thus producing meager results in the modern Orthodox Church's mission. Instead of traditionalist imposition of the Byzantine heritage, which has always presupposed the dialogue between the "superior" Byzantine and "inferior" barbarian cultures, the Church must go back to its original missionary methods that resulted in the Christianization of Hellenism. Such an approach is necessary due to the virtually de-Christianized postmodern culture in formally Christian countries, but also due to the great degree of cultural development of the nations that receive the word of the Gospel today.

The paper sketches the general picture of literature written far from home in the late 20 th and early 21 st century. Noting three waves of Bulgarian writers living abroad and the dynamics of their work, the author focuses on the reception of this kind of literature at home-demonized and mythologized, rejected and perceived as forbidden fruit, and political analysis. The language used in such literature is also scrutinized from the point of view of the exoticism of a Bulgarian text published in a foreign context, or the legitimization of a text originally published in a foreign language. The author illustrates his observation with the reception of the work of a number of Bulgarian émigré writers.

96 Hogy milyen nagy volt bennem a keserűség (ti. a náci megszállás miatt, I.G.), azt a legjobban talán az a kis jegyzet mutatja, amelyet ezen a napon szolgálati naplómba írtam: »A mai naptól kezdve a hivatalos használat kötelezettségein kívül a Wolf családi név helyett az Ordass családi nevet használom.«" ORDASS 1985, 148. 97 Egy ízben a teljes püspöki karnál tiltakozott, amikor megtudta, hogy Virágh Gyula kiskunhalasi helyettes lelkész zsidó származásúak elkobzott ingatlanjait próbálta gyülekezete számára megszerezni. EOL DOLL, 2. doboz, 2. dosszié, Nagy idők kis tükre, Budapest-Kelenföld, 14. oldal.

Reading Behind the Lines
Hungarian Lutheran Bishop Lajos Ordass’s Work and Network Based on His Personal Diaries from 1948 (The paper is in Hungarian)

Bishop Lajos Ordass is an exceptionally dominant figure of the 20th century Hungarian Lutheran Church History. In the memory of the Lutheran Church he is the symbol of that confessing and anti-opportunistic behaviour which consistently refused the demand of the totalitarian bolshevik dictatorship to force the churches to serve their political aims.
The origin of remembering Ordass as the ’symbol of withstand’ goes back to the events of his life in 1948. In this year the more and more dictatorial power decided to eliminate the extensive church school network by nationalizing them. They wanted to force the churches to ’voluntarily’ support this goal. Among the Lutheran church leaders Lajos Ordass represented most singificantly the opinion that the church should not give her schools voluntarily to the state, so if the state wanted to obtain them they should take them by force. He was threatened by the power to resign but since he was unwilling, he was arrested and based on false accusations he was sentenced to two years imprisonment.
These events of 1948 had a major effect on his further life and on his growing significance both at home and abroad. Therefore their academic examination is of capital importance in order to understand his historical role and memory today. This is the reason for choosing Lajos Ordass’s 1948 notes for analysis out of the many volumes of his diaries. This is such an exceptional historical source which, like most of the diaries, was written at the same time as the events took place. This makes it possible for us to observe the bishop’s worries, fears, plans, hopes and their changes as the events flow.
By thoroughly analysing the bishop’s 1948 diary we aim to discover and interpret the bishop’s network, personality, motivations and way of thinking from the most authentic source. We would like to draw a more complex, detailed picture of him that is closer to the real historical figure than the bishop’s idealized and heroized image in the collective memory. We would like to show that his life and acts were as affected by his own age, possibilities and the the lack of knowledge regarding the future consequences as any other people’s.

Nella seconda metà del XX secolo il confronto con il regime comunista segna in maniera fondamentale la storia della Chiesa cattolica nell’Europa centro-orientale.

La Chiesa, che assume una posizione di netto rifiuto del comunismo, nei fatti realizza tuttavia una strategia e una tattica diversificate a seconda dei periodi e dei paesi, in considerazione dei vari gruppi intraecclesiastici. Infatti la Santa Sede, e in particolare i vescovi e i sacerdoti della zona, dovevano necessariamente prendere in considerazione non solo gli aspetti dottrinali, ma anche quelli pastorali.

Questa raccolta di studi intende tra l’altro sottolineare che, per scoprire e conoscere a fondo il passato recente della Chiesa, si deve analizzare la realtà quotidiana e la specificità dei rapporti tra Chiesa e Stato nel contesto centro-europeo, senza tralasciare però i criteri della Chiesa universale, ossia quella di Roma.

Comentario histórico-espiritual sobre los conversos al catolicismo (desde el siglo I al siglo XXI, en 7 etapas históricas). Bibliografía española sobre conversos al catolicismo. Buen humor. "Conversilandia": el continente o el país (figurado) de los conversos al catolicismo.

The story of Orthodox Christianity's relationship with the West plays a pivotal role in the construction of Orthodox identity. That story took a decisive turn in the 20th century. Suddenly, Orthodox thinkers, particularly those from the former Russian Empire, found themselves living in foreign lands and looking at Orthodoxy through the other end of the looking glass - the West. It was from there that Orthodox theologians were faced with the greatest challenge to their collective religious identity: What did it mean to be Eastern Orthodox outside of the East?

This is an English version of the article “L’avenir de la « diaspora » orthodoxe”, Contacts 65:243 (Julliet-Septembre 2013), 477-497. The study examines the  grounds and the challenges for the future of Orthodoxy in the West after the fall of Communism and in the face of jurisdictional division and tension.