An article originally published in
Missionalia, the journal of the Southern African Missiological Society.
“Most histories of Christian mission in Africa, even those that are ostensibly ecumenical or pan-Christian, make little or no mention of Orthodox Church missions in Africa.1
There are several possible reasons for this, among them a bias on the part of many mission historians in favour of missions that were established before 1950 (Fiedler 1995:92). Most, though not all, Orthodox missions in tropical Africa began after that date. Another possible reason is that even those Orthodox missions that began before 1950 were not regarded as “mainstream” by the established Roman Catholic and Protestant missions, because they were identified with African independent church movements, which at that time were regarded by the Western churches as a problem for mission rather than a form of mission. The identification of Orthodoxy with the struggle against colonialism was also an embarrassment at that time. One Kenyan, writing of such attitudes, referred to “those who in their calculated ignorance misinterpret African-Christian-Orthodoxy as ‘paganism’” (Lemopoulos 1993:123).
Much of what has been published in English has been fragmentary, dealing with a particular place or period. Orthodox mission in tropical Africa has had its ups and downs, and the situation has changed rapidly, so that descriptions of what was happening at times in the past may not apply today. Orthodox mission today is characterised by a huge variety. Just about every mission method ever found in any part of the world, at any time in Christian history, can be found here. The purpose of this article, therefore, is to try to give a broad survey of Orthodox mission in this part of the world. It is primarily historical and descriptive, rather than an analysis of the theology of mission. Obviously such a survey must be lacking in detail, but it should at least provide the context for interpreting other more specialised studies.
The Orthodox Church in Africa falls under the jurisdiction of the Pope and Patriarch of Alexandria and All Africa, and its history goes back to the first century. The tradition of the patriarchate is that it was established by St Mark in AD 62. In the first few centuries it was confined to North Eastern Africa. The North Western part was under the jurisdiction of the Pope of Rome. At first Christianity had only a rather precarious toe-hold on the African continent, but towards the end of the second century it became indigenous, and spread rapidly among the native Egyptian population (rather than the Graeco-Roman ruling class). The third and fourth centuries were marked by the ascendancy of Alexandrian Christianity. The churches of Alexandria, Antioch and Rome were the three most influential churches. In the fourth century Jerusalem and Constantinople were also recognised as patriarchates, and Constantinople, the new imperial capital, was given precedence over Alexandria. This led to a certain amount of rivalry, which tended to exacerbate some of the theological disputes in the following centuries.
It was in this period that the Patriarchate of Alexandria was the originator of two developments that influenced the entire Christian world for centuries to come. The first was the development of monasticism, which soon spread to other places, and became the main instrument of mission for over a thousand years.”- Read more here.
