Metropolitan Jonah sends address to Russian missionary conference
Earlier this year, His Beatitude, Metropolitan Jonah, had been invited to be a speaker at the fourth Church-Wide Conference of Diocesan Missionaries of the Russian Orthodox Church—the first such gathering to be held in eight years—taking place in Moscow November 16-18, 2010. As he was unable to accept this invitation, since the dates coincide with the fall session of the Holy Synod of Bishops of the Orthodox Church in America, Metropolitan Jonah was asked to submit a written address addressed to conference participants.
The conference opened in Moscow on Tuesday, November 16, with the address of His Holiness, Patriarch Kirill of Moscow. The text of Metropolitan Jonah’s address was read later that day. Immediately after it was read, the text was posted at www.patriarchia.ru/db/text/1320051.html and elsewhere, in Russian translation.
Conference participants include several hierarchs and specialists in numerous missionary fields, along with clergy and laity attending as diocesan representatives. The conference was organized by the Department of Missions of the Russian Orthodox Church headed by His Eminence, Archbishop John of Belgorod and Stary Oskol.
Address of Metropolitan Jonah
Fourth Church-Wide Conference of Diocesan Missionaries of the Russian Orthodox Church
November 16, 2010
His Holiness Kirill, Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus
His Eminence John, Archbishop of Belgorod and Stary Oskol
Participants in the Fourth Church-Wide Conference of Diocesan
Missionaries of the Russian Orthodox Church
Your Holiness, Your Eminence, Divinely-Inspired Archpastors,
Dear Fathers, Brothers and Sisters:
It is with joy that I send heartfelt greetings to all of you gathered to reflect on missionary activity, which is so important for the Holy Orthodox Church. I pray that your efforts in this work, which is commanded by God, will be successful, bearing much good fruit. The Lord Jesus Christ told His disciples: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you: and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. Amen” (Mt. 28:19-20). This commandment of the Lord was given to all Christians.
Hearing this divine call, zealous missionaries of the Russian Orthodox Church including Saint Herman of Alaska, Saint Innocent (Veniaminov), Metropolitan of Moscow, Saint Tikhon, Patriarch of All Russia and others devoted themselves selflessly to preaching the Word of God in distant North America. The seeds they planted have grown into the Autocephalous Orthodox Church in America, formerly a daughter and now a sister of the Russian Church alongside all the Local Orthodox Churches. Among the missionaries on the North American continent, the feats of Saint Innocent were remarkably diverse. The young priest John Veniaminov immediately began evangelizing the local population when he arrived in Alaska. He built a school and church for the natives with his own hands. He learned their language, created an alphabet for it and strove to immerse himself into their lifestyle in order to transfigure their culture into a Christian way of life without eradicating the centuries-old customs and traditions of the natives that were not in conflict with Orthodox faith and piety. Saint Innocent repeated this over and over again during the decades of his pastoral and archpastoral missionary service among the many peoples of Alaska and eastern Siberia. He was keenly aware of missionary needs in the places where he served and creatively undertook missionary labors appropriate to each situation. The result and legacy of the groundbreaking missionary work of Saint Innocent and other missionaries in North America is today the multiethnic Orthodox Church in America, which spiritually nourishes the faithful of North America. Many of them come to Orthodoxy, finding in the Orthodox Church an unbroken link with authentic Holy Tradition as inherited from Christ Himself and His first disciples.
We rejoice in the current revival of the Russian Orthodox Church. After the decades of vicious persecution endured by the Russian Church, her strong missionary activity in recent years has resulted in the opening of thousands of churches, monasteries, educational institutions and a wide range of other churchly ministries that comfort and spiritually nourish many souls bringing them to salvation in Christ. We are also pleased to witness the resumption of Church-wide missionary conferences as were held before the Russian Revolution in 1917 to promote study and discussion, giving direction to the Church’s missionary work.
The 1917 Russian Missionary Conference was presided by Metropolitan Platon (Rozhdestvensky) of Tiflis (now Tbilisi), Exarch of the Caucasus. Just three years earlier, he had returned from America, after serving seven years as Archbishop of North America , where he continued and built on the missionary legacy of his eminent predecessors, Saints Innocent and Tikhon. Later, Metropolitan Platon ended his earthly life in America, once again leading the American Church, imbuing her with the spirit of conciliarity from the All-Russian Church Council of 1917-18, where he had been a leading participant, and further fortifying the local and missionary character of the American Church. At the missionary conference in 1917, Metropolitan Platon said, “We now have freedom. But it will only be good if Russia is Orthodox - Holy Russia. The cross of a missionary is martyrdom - the Lord calls us to martyrdom.”
As is clearly evident, the missionary activities and the missionary vision of the Russian and American Churches are connected in many ways. It is my hope that in the future it will be possible to organize joint conferences or other collaboration between our churches in missionary work.
I pray fervently that your conference will be inspired by the Holy Spirit, granting all of you all the strength and fortitude to bear the missionary cross of martyrdom, of which Metropolitan Platon spoke, so that, through the prayers of our holy missionary saints and with the discernment of such missionaries as Saint Innocent, the missionary witness of the Russian Orthodox Church would faithfully bear the Good News of the Gospel for the salvation of all.
With love in Christ,
+ Jonah
Archbishop of Washington
Metropolitan of All America and Canada