Articles

Missionary work does not operate through immediate results or dramatic changes. It requires time, understanding, and respect for the culture and outlook of the people.

Orthodoxy does not come to abolish the traditions of peoples, but to complement them and to lead them toward a fuller understanding of the human person and of God. This is what occurred in the encounter between the Gospel and Greek culture, where the faith did not simply replace what had existed before, but entered into dialogue with it and brought its deepest truths to fulfilment.

In other parts of the world, particularly in Asia, the religious ideal is often identified with detachment or with freedom from the emotions. There, the Orthodox experience of joy and communion is presented as an entirely different perspective: it does not ignore the difficulties of life, but offers a way of living in which the human person is sustained through relationship, encounter, and the shared reality of the “we.”

Joy is not manufactured; it is born from the presence of God and from the life of the Church.

With His Eminence Metropolitan Constantine of Singapore and South Asia.