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orthodox mission
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Comments
In another article by the same author, he compared the use of English language with Ethnic identity. (He only include the Eastern Orthodox. So Coptic is not in there). The statistics are very interesting. Nationally all EO jurisdiction use 73% English in the liturgy and 81% English in sermons. I would assume the Coptic Church will be in the very low numbers since Coptic and Arabic are used in liturgical services and Arabic is used quite often in sermons. Unsurprisingly, the jurisdictions with the most English usage also have the lowest ethnic identity. This proves my claim that the increased usage of the vernacular creates an island of solitude against the mother land.
This study also measured a few other things: the usage of language with the size of the parish, the strength of ethnical identity and the relationship of ethnic identity with religious commitment. Churches with small parishes use a lot of English. As the Church gets larger, the usage of English drops. If our goal is to be Christ-focused - bringing the most number of people to salvation in Christ, the usage of the vernacular actually creates the opposite effect.
In addition, the stronger the ethnic identity (by this we mean "the desire to preserve ethnic heritage and identity), the less people regularly attend church. So use of the vernacular is important to maintain church attendance. But it doesn't mean the church would be Christ-focused. If anything, it means the church would be individual-focused, catering to the individual's desire to attend a church with familiarity.
If however, you adjust for familiarity, you get a different result. In the Pew Group's "US Religious Knowledge Survey", the group with the highest general knowledge scored highest in religious knowledge. In other words, the better educated you are in many fields, the more you know the bible and religion. Turns out Atheists and Jews scored the highest on religious knowledge. Now if you adjust for religious commitment, luke-warm atheist score the same as luke-warm Christians. Converts score better than cradle Christians. The point I want to make is that those with the highest religious commitment have the most religious knowledge in their specific domain. On questions related to world religions, there is no difference associated with religious commitment. In other words, the use of the vernacular that likely creates higher attendance - when the use of language is adjusted - does not make you more religiously educated. Higher general education makes you religiously smart.
I can't stress religious education enough. Most Catholics in the Pew Study mistakingly answered that the Catholic catechesis teaches that the Eucharist is not the real presence of Christ, but a partial appearance of Christ. Atheists and Jews got this question write while Catholics and Protestants got this wrong. The same is true for religious music and language. In another study I am researching, 70% of Catholic songs are originally Protestant and no one thinks this is a problem. Conversely, most Protestants fail to recognize that many of their popular hymns are originally Catholic. When religious education fails, everything is upside down (Isaiah 5:20, Hosea 4:6).
Higher educated Protestants and atheists are returning to the Catholic and Orthodox Church, while lower educated Christians, according to the Pew study, convert out of Orthodoxy and Catholicism for marriage and a search for a church "they fit in with". If we want a Christ-focused church, then we have to raise the level of education in general which in turn raises the level of religious education which in turn creates Christ-focused Christians. Rather than creating a Church that has many vernacular speaking Copts attending church that want to blur the difference between Protestantism and Orthodoxy (which is ecclesiastical suicide), let's focus on higher education (which includes cultural education). Rather than worrying about which language to use, let's spend the effort teaching people about the Trinity, the incarnation, christology, mariology, soteriology, patristics, history, asceticism, monasticism, etc.
In summary, ethnic identity and vernacular language usage are very complex issues. It is counter-intuitive to claim one position must be correct and the other is "ecclesiastical suicide". It seems to me that every church is a mission church that should focus on bringing Christ through education and discipline, not familiar passing fads and popularity contests.
It's no surprise that there are contradictory implications within Fr Michael's work, as it is a summary of a mission conference where there were 2 contradictory opinions: the Orthodox opinion of the LA priests and the relativistic perspective of the famous 'mission' priests who operate without a diocesan bishop.
Also, I strongly disagree with your stance on the use of the vernacular. There is no 'motherland', as Christ has sanctified the whole earth through His Incarnation. It has been the consistent practice of the Orthodox Church to use the vernacular of the land it is in. To do otherwise is to break with Orthodox Tradition.
Great questions, Cyril.
http://tasbeha.org/community/discussion/15186/lessen-arabic-influence-in-north-american-orthodox-churches/
Also this one
http://tasbeha.org/community/discussion/15149/coptic-orthodox-bishops-of-north-america-issue-statement-on-standardizedenglish-liturgical-responses/
Cyril wrote, "I like the mention of education. Especially about soteriology...because what we understand about salvation probably shapes our understanding and methods of mission. [Is mission about getting people into heaven? Is mission about love? is mission about fear of hell? is mission about fear of us not 'knowing or doing' God's will? is mission about affirming our success? is mission about building bigger churches? is mission about maintaining a strong Egyptian presence? is mission about making sure we're secure as a community? is mission about activity and statistics? Is mission about wealth? is mission about theosis?]"
There are too many questions and points raised here to give a coherent answer without writing a book. It is sufficient to say that each person will have a different position on all these questions. It is not a discussion of what mission should be, rather it is a discussion of what we are doing now and why is or is it not working.
"Perhaps theological education it is very important and very much needed at the present but I'm not sure theological education alone suffices...especially if one does not see, pray, encounter and live what is read and taught."
It is not theological education that is needed per se. It is general education and a general understanding of individual discipline. If one does not see, pray, encounter and live what is read and taught now, why would anything be different in a mission church or anywhere else? You identified the problem as the individual. Why seek a solution that changes ecclesiastical methodology when the problem is not the Church? The underlying problem is not the current method of services but the individual's lack of discipline. Put this on a global scale and we find the same thing. The problem is not what is done since it works and has worked for thousands of years. The problem is the need to get things done easy, the way I want it, hand delivered, hiding modernity or personal preference under a veil of intellectualism and broad disagreement.
"So an important question might be: at this point in time, does our Church communicate liturgical theology well?"
Yes. It always has communicated liturgical theology. It is just not dummied down as most people want it to be.
"Do we bless the world or demonize it?"
Liturgical language proves we bless the world. People just want to interpret a Church's attachment to one culture over another as a demonizing event. It is not.
"Do we offer life and do so abundantly or do we seek to proselytize and expand or protect our empires?"
What empires? Who is seeking to proselytize? All I see is the Church offering life in the sacraments "so abundantly" even when the world doesn't deserve Christ. But again, the trend is to ignore the reality of the Church and make it into something else so we can propagate an agenda.
"Do we pray our liturgies with beauty?"
Yes, in my opinion. But the definition of beauty is every changing. So there will never be a universal answer to this question.
"Are our long hymns communicating theology in their tunes or in their words?"
Yes. But people want to dummy it down to catchy phrases and Disney tunes for their convenience. Are we discussing mission churches or a dislike of hymns. These are two different issues that pro-exclusive missionary activists muddy the waters with this conflation.
"Even if the words are in English or Coptic or Spanish are those hymns packed with theological reflection or a one line of simple exposition?"
Maybe a one line exposition can turn into hundreds of words explaining the meaning of the one line. Case in point: Amen Alleluia. You call it a simple exposition. I see a really long explanation in Kiahk packed with theological and pious reflection to explain these two words.
"Do we draw on the liturgical cycle and liturgical calendar for theological reflection?"
Yes and why not. Do you want me to quote books from the fathers about this? Again, why is the liturgical cycle a stumbling block for Christ? It never has in the entire history of the Church, except those who just want to "modernize" the Church.
"Are we praying and understanding and living the liturgy with legalism and rigor, nationalism and ethnic pride, pietism and emotionalism, or as repentant, deified and loving Orthodox liturgical theologians?"
Why are you creating a false dichotomy? We currently pray a living liturgy with rites and piety, pride and humility, intellectual philosophy and emotional outpouring, repentant at all times, joyous at all times, hopeful at all times, as a theologian and poor in spirit all at once.
"Does our Church actively teach Theosis and do we immerse people in that life as Orthodox Christians?"
Yes. Individuals may not. But the Church has actively taught theosis and immersed themselves in Christ. This is the definition of monasticism.
The phrase is not self evident or very reflective in terms of theological poetry. But I'm not a theologian or a person who is particularly humble or prayerful to perceive the depth of the phrase on its own or from the "theology" of the tunes.
Sure someone can reflect on it and write commentary on its use in the context of a particular liturgical prayer or feast, but to create a 500 page commentary on two words is the sort of theologizing that has to occur in order to effectively gloss and interpret things that should be transmitted directly in the liturgical poetry.
One gives his beloved a rose and one also speaks to her in poetry and these things are all part of the movement of love and relationship. One does not give his beloved a rose and then tries to tell her what the symbolism of the rose is while giving it to her. He cant give the rose and tell her "this rose is supposed to symbolize my love for you, oh and I love you, I hope you get what im trying to say by giving you this rose."
One does not try to explain out what each word of his poem means, all the allusions all the references all the grammar of the sentences, rather he speaks it and it says what has to be said. His beloved doesn't have to go to a manual or a commentary to interpret the moment. He tells her "I love you" and it is communicated in his words, it what they mean and in how he says it, and what he does. He doesn't stand for 30 minutes singing just part of his poem and then tell his beloved to understand him based on the tune. (The metaphor is not perfect but I hope it makes sense ;p )
For example we tend to do the long hymns "because that's what should be done" but if we look at some of them, they can just be said or sung in a shorter form...but if theyre said shorter they sort of highlight how "simple" or reduced they are. If we're really speaking about theology we could pray that we one day get a St Romanos or St Gregory Narek in our Tradition to expand on the theological content of our hymns and the theological poetry. Perhaps we might even need something akin to what occurred in the Byzantine synthesis of the Liturgical prayers? One Byzantine friend once spoke about her tradition as drawing on the best liturgical recensions that were part of the Byzantine world.
So if we have a long hymn that doesn't have theological reflection then we might just be singing them for cultural memory...
But take for example e-parthenos:
"Today the Virgin cometh, cometh unto the cave, to give birth to the Word who was born before all ages, begotten in a manner that defies description. Rejoice therefore, oh universe if thou shouldst hear and glorify with the angels and the shepherds. Glorify Him who by His will shall become a new born babe and who is our God before all ages."
There's paradox, there's poetry, and it can be sung or said in short form and still have its theological punch.
When we discuss mission the topic circulates around language but I wonder if even language is enough? If we have long hymns in English and they're incomprehensible, or not done with beauty, or if they're offering a reduced theology (because we want to keep adhering to the tune or the way the tunes are structured and delivered) then perhaps we need to look deeply at our liturgy and how we live out liturgy in the world.
But such an effort needs to have specialists, musicologists, musicians and the people, and prayers and even contribution from the other Orthodox in America (for North American missions). It's very difficult to look beyond our borders, to not build bigger walls and be focused on self preservation and maintaining our empires (and both our missions and ethnocentric activities can be imperial exercises).
"One does not try to explain out what each word of his poem means, all the allusions all the references all the grammar of the sentences, rather he speaks it and it says what has to be said."
If beauty is also just a consequence of cultural conditioning then isn't that also asserting an individual preference? Ie. I see beauty in Coptic hymns or Western Hymns or Arabic musicology because it has a beauty which I identify with or which reminds me of a cultural milieu I am familiar with?
But is beauty just based on preferences and conditioning or is there a sense of beauty and the beautiful, the true and the good which is perceived regardless of culture (East or West)?
Another question is whether beauty is important in Orthodox mission?
"So the real God, the Living One, will never conform to our expectations, whether good or bad. God has promised to be there, in these sacramental liturgical realities, but it is He who comes, not our fabrication of Him. So it's very interesting, I have a personal note here...my work as a liturgist will only amount to something if I can get my students to be in Church no matter how bad, how uninspiring, and how dull the service is. In other words if Chirst has promised to be there, who am I to play hard to get? Continuing with the lover kind of dynamic. Now if you take that linear logic to it's linearly logical conclusion, you're going to end up with folks who say "no matter how we do it God's here." You know the "ex opere operato" approach which is the bane of all liturgizing.
So again it's a matter of balancing the two, in other words, we have to be convinced that something is happening there and it's my duty, my obligation, my salvation to be there whether it's very exciting or it's nice or not, and at the same time, those of us especially who are in the ministry who are doing the liturgical ministry have to serve, have to sing, have to act as if it were just the opposite. In other words as if it really did depend on me articulating every word, me producing the most beautiful sounds a member of the choir, me caring for the appointments in Church being as aesthetically marvelous as they can be, but at the end of the day, it is about Christ having promised to be there. And so us saying "it's not going to be too good today" but I'm there anyway. Why? because this is not just an emanation of my consciousness."
Fr. Peter Galadza in a talk entitled "Liturgy: Where the Holy One Seeks Us" http://www.ancientfaith.com/specials/searching_sacred/liturgy_where_the_holy_one_seeks_us_fr._peter_galadza
"The oldest of these reports, referring to the practice of the fifth century, is that of Abbot Pambo, who had sent his disciple from the monastery in the desert to Alexandria to sell some of the products of their manual labour. The disciple returned after sixteen days, having spent his nights in the vestibule of the Church of St. Mark, where he saw the ceremonies and heard the singing of the Troparia. The abbot, observing that the disciple was troubled by something, asked the reason. The young monk answered that he felt they wasted so many days in the desert singing neither Kanons nor Troparia such as he had heard at Alexandria. To these complaints the abbot answered in despair that he saw the time coming when the monks would abandon their rigid discipline pronounced by the Holy Spirit, and would give themselves over to songs and melodies. What kind of contrition, what kind of tears could result from the Troparia ... , when the monk stands in his church or his cell and raises his voice like the oxen? . . . `The monks did not emigrate into this desert in order to perform before God, and to give themselves airs, and to sing songs, and to compose tunes, and to shake their hands and move from one foot to the other,' but we should offer our prayers to God in great fear and trembling, with tears and sighings, in reverence and in the spirit of contrition with moderate voice."15
you said "We are not hear to pass microphones around for solo performances and esthetics. We are here to sing to God for forgiveness - not to amuse people - and this is the narrow road that leads to life."
Fantastic, very well said.. thanks a million
But perhaps you're pointing out the second class of "beauty", the beguiling kind that belongs to human greed, to meanness, to human sensuality detached from the deep and real feelings. The type of beauty that takes and abuses, conquers and entraps and dulls the will. But the beauty which Fr Peter seems to point towards is the beauty that elevates, that restores and reminds and remembers. That elevating kind of beauty is rich in poetry and in splendor...it's the arresting kind of beauty which I've been asking about and which I wonder if we've lost due to Islamic pressure....
Also I'm not sure we can suggest that the monastic life was adverse to beauty when the monasteries are often where rather beautiful and "decadent" art and liturgical pagentry is preserved in our tradition and in others.
Wasn't there also a story in the Lives that speaks about an old monk who beholds a naked beautiful woman, his peers all look away because their ascetic discipline demanded that they look away, but his ascetic condition permitted him to behold beauty and say aha even here is an icon of God. And thus he was able to bless and glorify in a rather "ascetical" way how God created such beauty. That's more difficult I think. Beauty and attention to aesthetics is not a departure from "ascetical struggle" but a very demanding and challenging ascetical practice. Liturgically, it's ascetical because "it's a matter of balancing the two, in other words, we have to be convinced that something is happening there and it's my duty, my obligation, my salvation to be there whether it's very exciting or it's nice or not, and at the same time, those of us especially who are in the ministry who are doing the liturgical ministry have to serve, have to sing, have to act as if it were just the opposite."
I would hope that beauty is part of liturgical asceticism...
Worship ought to be as beautiful as we can make it, for God gave Moses very demanding instructions for worship, with very expensive elements: gold, jewels, embroidery, and incense. These were extravagant requirements for people who were refugees, wandering in the desert and living in tents. But even then the beauty of worship was a priority. Beauty affects us in ways we barely recognize. It opens our hearts. God required, and deserves, the greatest beauty we can create. But in the midst of beautiful worship we don’t have to be stiff and self-conscious. Great beauty and natural, joyous behavior are not opposites; we experience how they go together when we attend a wedding reception, or a big family dinner on Christmas.
I still think physicality plays an important role, and the material manifestations of the beautiful are perpetual icons for us, which point to the beauty of love incarnate. So the attention to beauty becomes struggle and deliberate especially in the face of brokenness and despair and abuse. Often we are bombarded with the type of falleness that creates a sort of forgetting. Perhaps the attention to beauty is ascesis because it reminds, recalls and reveals beauty and preciousness, not only the idea of those things but iconic revelations of incarnate love that is good, true and beautiful.
The old couple may fade and wither, but their remembrance of beauty and their practice of beauty adorns them (or at least we hope it does). So they work on making things beautiful... The deliberate work he puts in the fixing of the porch, the time she takes making wana anaab, the way they hold each other, the way they speak, the laughter and the tears they share and are willing to share. They also have their pictures of their youth, they also have youth among them in their kids and grand kids, they're in the Kingdom just as they were in their Crowning, and they're always heading towards it too. We would hope that the old couple never give up on the beautiful things, that they never stop laboring with beauty or adorning their life with the incarnate expressions of love that that beauty reveals. We would hope that the old couple even be willing to fix the broken pictures and recognize where things have become mundane and deprived of beauty or goodness. Should one have Alzheimer's disease the easy thing would be to say, let's just do what we're used to, or let us just give the beloved the reduced bare essentials because that is sufficient enough... The more ascetical thing might be to bring the most beautiful and most creative aspect of their life to the other. The husband or wife might not remember, but we could not assume that love is there so we shall do nothing, and in the end it doesn't matter since they won't remember anyway. Rather the loving spouse labours as if all their love and life depended on it, because love is asceticism and revelatory.
That's a cumbersome metaphor for what I think Fr Peter is saying.
A side note on asceticism, I think we sometimes segregate monastic witness as something other than what we all encounter...and we also setup a sacred vs profane dichotomy. I also think that ascetic discipline is founded on beings in Communion. That communion cannot be isolation and it must be incarnate, the kind of love practiced which prepares one to lay down their life for another...or to reveal the life of the holy Trinity to another... Or help undo the weight or brokenness of ones life...or to cry and bleed with my brother...or affirm beauty even when it has faded...or give life even in the depths of Sheol. But those things can't occur in abstraction, and have to be lived out, practiced, preformed and exercised. Maybe that's also what Fr Peter is suggesting when he means the focus on beauty and attention to detail. It's that attention to beauty in liturgical practice which I think all Orthodox Churches struggle and need to hold in tension. That's often not easy and often very humbling...asking us to reject pride we might see in our wealth (we're the oldest, largest, the Church with the most youth, the most monastic, the most martyred, the more authentic to the 1st century, the most conservative etc) or in our poverty (we were the most persecuted, the most simple, we are sufficient on our own and with what we have, we are OK with what we have forgotten, etc).
Perhaps beauty and liturgical asceticism draw us out of ourselves and into the interiority of the other...
Maybe we can all pray for true and humble and awesome encounters of beauty, so that we may express, remember and reveal beauty in all things, and glorify the Holy Trinity.
Christ is Baptized in the Jordan!
Maybe aesthetics can always be present though? Maybe the two go hand in hand instead of opposite ends of the spectrum?
http://bcove.me/yzzcqdh7
Jenn Live at St John's Mission Part 2
http://bcove.me/k1vybvwc
Jenn Live at St John's Mission Part 3
http://bcove.me/iz3gxl8n
Jenn Live at St John's Mission Part 4
http://bcove.me/wnue8qql
Jenn Live at St John's Mission Part 5
http://bcove.me/hwo8r0jo
More at:
http://www.stjohnsmission.org/videosmedia/
"The mission is the only place that's open in the city of Toronto for the homeless during the winter months at five O'Clock in the morning. Dedicated staff and volunteers come here sometimes as early as four o'clock am to prepare the breakfast.
That morning I was able to spend some extra time at the breakfast program. And wandered from table to table speaking to some of the people who had come in.
I noticed that there was a man sitting by himself in the corner reading a newspaper and I went and say beside him. And he did not even acknowledge my presence. I hugged my cup of coffee, sipped it and hoped that he would strike up a conversation, which he did not seem to be interested.
When I was about to leave he looked up to me and greeted me. And I introduced myself and so I sat back at the table and we started to talk. It turned out that this man, John, was from Nunavut, which is the far North of Canada, near the arctic sea.
And we started talking about his life, how he grew up in a village and how life was up north before planes would bring in supplies and then the conversation took a deeper turn.
He talked to me about how he had been in a residential school, he assured me that his was pretty good compared to others.
As he said that I looked at his face and saw his eyes swell up with tears.
And then he started to speak to me about how eleven years ago he had come to Toronto. Obviously I assumed he was fleeing some pretty dark demons. And sure enough he said to me that when he first arrived in Toronto he was a man full of rage. He said to me, "you could not say anything to me without me attacking you."
"I was so angry," he said.
And he lived by himself in a rooming house. And then one day about nine years ago, he said to me, "I decided that I had had enough." And for two weeks, from morning to night, he consciously remembered all the events and the people that had caused him harm in his life. And he remembered them in the most excruciating details as he would relive them again in his mind.
And then he said, "at the end of each event, of each memory, I would say the 'Our Father' and then it was gone...the pain of that even was gone." And he said, "I did that and it took me two weeks from morning till night to do this work."
And he said to me, "ever since I have never felt anger and rage as I did before. I am now at peace in my heart."
He said to me, "No one told me to do that, no one helped me, and I didn't tell anyone."
"I'm telling you," he said, "because I can see that you are a priest."
"But otherwise," he said, "I did it on my own."
But then he stopped and said, "well…with His help."
And he pointed up, actually he was pointing up into the huge fresco Icon of the Trinity.
I was very struck by how this man, who was completely lost. God found him and grace was poured in his heart years before he came to us, nine years to be exact, before we met.
It taught me that truly that the grace of the Holy Spirit is not confined to walls and that the Holy Spirit can act in anyone's life as the Holy Spirit decides.
And there are two extremes in Orthodox mission work, one is the understanding that we bring God to people, that we bring Christ to people, that we are the ones who 'save' people. I find that Orthodox mission really begins by learning to discover that God is already present in people's lives and you begin by showing how God is already working in people's lives. You actually help people understand that Christ is already among them and you reveal to them the presence of Christ to them already present.
But in order to do that you can't go into a mission territory or mission work and talk. There's too much talking...we need to learn to listen. First listen and to listen a long time before we can begin to speak and say anything.
So there's one extreme that says, you know, that "we are it...without us nothing happens."
The other extreme is well obviously God is already present in this person's life and there is really no need for Church.
Those two extremes are not actually realistic and useful in Orthodox mission work.
It was important, I believe, for John to tell me his story, and it was also important for me to affirm, to say the Amen, to what he told me. To place what he experienced, what God had given him, to place that within the context of the Church, within the Body of Christ. To receive that story, that grace, that he held, that he lived, to give it its full place, its full meaning within the Body of Christ. And that he could not do alone. We need one another.
John keeps coming to the breakfast program and there has been a deep friendship that has grown between us without really saying much else, besides sharing a few cups of coffee together and a few tender moments."
Learning to Listen, Parables of Community, Jan 13, 2015: http://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/parables/learning_to_listen
http://audio.ancientfaith.com/parables/poc_2015-01-13.mp3
The Americas and Australasia Clergy Evangelism Seminar of 2015
https://web.archive.org/web/20150226141546/http://www.nynecopts.org/diocese-news/the-americas-and-australasia-clergy-evangelism-seminar-of-2015
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Press Contact: Rev. Father Michael Sorial [email protected]
The Americas and Australasia Clergy Evangelism Seminar of 2015: His Grace Bishop David Leads Clergy Seminar to Discuss the Future of Evangelism in the Americas and Australasia
Charlton, MA (February 12, 2015) – The Coptic Orthodox Clergy Evangelism Committee of the Americas and Australasia is pleased to announce the completion of its 2nd Annual Seminar. This event followed the 2014 inaugural meeting which took place in Titusville, Florida and was hosted by His Grace Bishop Youssef of the Diocese of the Southern United States of America. The inaugural meeting was attended by all of the Coptic Orthodox Diocesan Bishops and the Patriarchal Exarch of the Coptic Orthodox Church in North America in order to discuss the Church’s efforts in evangelism within the appropriate cultural context.
His Grace Bishop David presided over a meeting of seventeen clergy and academics from February 10 – 12 to discuss the future of evangelism and to explore the process of cultural integration. The committee focused on adherence to the “Coptic Orthodox Church in her faith, teachings, and practices,” and discussed the need to maintain this commitment in a manner that “is culturally integrated to her local community” (excerpts from the proposed Mission Statement) while exploring the theology and methodology of the “Church’s role in both preaching and teaching” (excerpt from the proposed Vision Statement). Particular emphasis was placed upon such topics as Methods of Evangelism, Praise and Hymnology, Effective Evangelism by Maintaining an Orthodox Faith and Tradition, and Networking.
Several recommendations will be presented to a committee of bishops established by the Holy Synod. Thereafter, resolutions will be issued and published upon review and approval of the recommendations.
About Coptic Orthodox Clergy Evangelism Committee of the Americas and Australasia
The Coptic Orthodox Clergy Evangelism Committee of the Americas and Australasia aims to raise awareness and unify an Orthodox Christian approach to evangelism in the Americas and Australasia that preserves an Orthodox theology, the practices and liturgical traditions of the Coptic Church, while seeking proper methods of cultural integration within a given host country.