THE ORTHODOX MISSION IN AMERICA MICHAEL OLEKSA zyxwvu * zyxwvu If we could travel today along the route the disciples followed in their missionary journeys, “beginning at Jerusalem”, we would discover in each city and village Orthodox Christian churches, founded by the original apostles of Jesus Christ. We would find also the tombs of hundreds of mar- tyrs who suffered for the faith during ancient Roman persecutions, and of other martyrs who died during Arab, Persian, or Turkish oppression because of their determination to live and preach the Gospel. For most of twenty centuries, the Eastern Christians have lived under extremely dim- cult political conditions. This persecution has welded them into a com- mitted and easily identifiable community, like the “Old Israel”, but has seriously limited the freedom of the Orthodox to evangelize new territories. Whenever the Eastern Church was free to send missions to non-Christian nations, however, they were quite successful in converting pagan tribes to Christ. In the 800s Greek missionaries translated the Scriptures into slav- onic for the people of Eastern Europe, and brought Christianity to the Serbs, Bulgars, Moravians, and Russians, who in turn evangelized dozens of Central Asian and North American tribes during the next 900 years. The tremendous missionary work of the Eastern churches has hardly been recognized in the West because for nearly 1,000 years the two “halves” of Christendom have had very little contact with each other. Since the First World War much of this has changed. Millions of Southern and Eastern European and Middle Eastern Christians have left their tradi- tionally Orthodox countries in search of religious and political liberty in the West. After nearly ten centuries of oppression and isolation the Eastern Orthodox Church has become a “fact” of religious life in the West, espe- cially in America. This represents a great opportunity for the Orthodox to witness to their ancient faith in a free country, and for Christians, separated for so long, to get acquainted at last. Getting acquainted For the first thousand years A.D. the Christian Church was undivided. (It is true that in the 500s there was a major “split” over some theological terms, but modem ecumenical discussions have shown that this division was a misunderstanding aggravated by the “international politics” of the time.) There was one visible community to which all Christians belonged. They shared the same doctrines, the same sacraments, the same “style” of wor- ship. Because there was such complete unity these first centuries are for the Orthodox the most important period in Christian history. The Orthodox believe that the church zyxwv must be united, must be “one” and not two or six or * Father MICHAEL OLEKSA is Dean of the Three Saints Orthodox Church in Old Harbor, zy Alaska.