This month my Window on the World column is a report from K.J. Stavrinides on the church in Greece.
Dr. Stavrinides serves as pastor of the Greek brethren.
By K.J. Stavrinides
In Greece and Cyprus, the visits I make are mainly to new prospective members.
Of the original half-dozen members who used to meet regularly in Athens before the doctrinal changes, only one man has continued in our fellowship. And of the half-dozen members who met in Cyprus, only one woman has remained.
The reasons were not always the doctrinal changes. Sometimes there were family pressures, and there have been instances in which some dissident publications undermined confidence in headquarters.
When I visit people who are totally new, I do not have to deal with preconceived ideas about law and grace or built-in concerns about ordinances and the ceremonial law.
This has enabled me to direct my attention to fundamental aspects of Christianity. The new visits I made in the last three years have produced more interest in the church than at any time before.
When we announce a Bible study, in Athens, we invite a total of 22 people from the Athens area. Of course, anyone is welcome to join us, and people have brought guests with them.
Some have simply walked in from the street. But our policy is to invite only those who show genuine interest and are likely to profit from the material that is presented.
In previous years, the small group that met in Athens heard presentations in English, from ministers who flew in from Britain. Now that I address the group in Greek, more people can attend.
Home visits also involve a broader circle--of parents, grandparents, neighbors and friends, who wish to participate in the discussion. Since we have some literature in Greek, I am often able to recommend articles they may like to request and study.
I regularly visit 35 people in Athens, another 30 across the country (in Thessaloniki, Kavalla, Berea, Naousa, Larisa, Corinth, Patras and Sparta), and five in Cyprus. Besides these, there are unexpected visits, which show interest in the work that is being done.
By far the greatest hurdle to cross, in Greece, is the suspicion of heresy. One needs wisdom in order to avoid even the slightest impression that he represents a religious sect.
This impression is easy to create. It is entailed in the very use of the term church. The Greek term ecclesia is often translated "church," which is not objectionable--so long as one does not make the mistake of proposing the converse, that the English term church is to be rendered, in modern Greek, as ecclesia.
These words have incompatible associations in their respective cultures, and the task of clarifying the distinction calls for historical information that cannot be imparted in the space of a visit.
The same kind of distinction is called for before one uses the terms minister, evangelist, pastor and service, otherwise a mistaken impression can mean the end of a promising association.
In one case, an adult woman requested a visit, but her father had formed such a negative view of the whole thing that he felt obligated to shield her. He told me on the telephone that, if I dared to make the hospital visit, he would be there waiting for me with an ax in his hands.
Of course, I made the visit, and I later found out that he was there too. I did not see him, and I do not know whether he was armed with an ax, but I was informed, later, that he created a commotion in the corner of the hall as I was leaving.
I can also share an instance that shows how people with good intentions can react, when they have made a mistaken evaluation of this church. The reader may appreciate the full account as a sample of what is often involved in first-time visits.
I left the northern part of Athens at 5:30 in the morning, and walked some 20 minutes to the electric-train station, as the train would take less time than the public bus.
The train was packed to capacity, but I managed to get on. Even though the doors were able to close, the train did not move. In the short time of two minutes, there was a lack of oxygen, and the odor of so many bodies packed in such a small space began to suffuse the air. Everyone was drenched with perspiration.
An announcement was made over the public-address system to the effect that a mechanical problem had developed and was being attended to. Three more minutes went by, and I was perspiring so much that I could not make a visit in such a state. The train, however, began to move.
At the next station, I stepped out and caught the return train. After one stop, I came out and walked the same distance of 20 minutes to where I was staying.
After a shower and a change of clothes, I walked the same 20 minutes to the station, for the third time, and entered a train that seemed even more packed than the earlier one. The bus would have been equally packed, but it is worse on corners.
The crowded conditions in this train made me decide to break the journey. In any case, I needed to make a telephone call to inform the gentleman that I would be late for the visit. He said that he would wait for me, irrespective of the time.
A taxi would have been more comfortable, but the budget was unusually tight on that particular trip and I needed to keep the costs down. After all, since I had to make daily visits for a month, the taxi bill would have been considerably high. Public transport was affordable, despite the inconvenience.
When I re-entered the train to continue the journey, there was a little more room, and one could breathe more freely. I arrived at the Port of Pireaus at 10:30 a.m., five hours later.
As I needed to go to a suburb, I had to walk some distance in order to catch the connecting bus. I caught the bus just before 11:30 a.m., and got off at about 12:15 p.m. The rest of the way had to be covered on foot, as no bus went in that direction. I arrived at the house at 1 p.m. and rang the door bell.
In high-rise buildings, one is often asked to identify himself, before the front door is opened to him.
The answer they gave me was that the person I was looking for would be back in an hour. So, I went to a coffee shop, ordered a snack and a cup of coffee, used the time to answer a couple of letters, and returned to ring the bell at 2:15 p.m.
They then told me that the person I wanted would not be back before 3 p.m., on account of an emergency that had arisen.
I went to an air-conditioned supermarket and returned at 3 p.m. This time, they told me that I should not be ringing the door bell in the middle of the day, when people were trying to get some sleep. I apologized and said that I would wait outside.
When I saw that he had not arrived by 4 p.m., I left. I had to walk, catch a bus, walk, catch a train, and walk once more.
I arrived at my room after dark and exhausted. There I found a telephone message from the man I had gone to see. The note said that he was sorry to let me know that he was at home all the time--at 1 p.m., 2:15 p.m. and 3 p.m. He even saw me waiting outside, but he was unable to do anything, on account of the pressure of relatives who had come to help him.
The note also said that he would drive into town in the evening and would be grateful if I could meet him at 9:30 p.m., at the McDonald's restaurant he specified in the note.
I put my feet up for a few minutes and then left again. I walked the 20 minutes to the station for the fifth time, caught the train, and I was there before 9:30 p.m.
I waited for half an hour, but he did not come. I ordered a cup of coffee and waited another half hour, but he did not come.
Once again, I left for home and arrived there around midnight. On that day, I had put in a total of 20 hours. I had walked a total of seven hours, and the rest of the time was spent in trains and buses or waiting in vain.
On yet another occasion, I traveled from Athens to Sparta (five hours by bus) to see a family that had been receiving the magazine for some time and had now requested a visit.
I saw that the magazine had been professionally bound in green covers with gold lettering, as an investment in the children's future. The children were 2 and 4 years old, and no one in the family spoke English.
I took the bus for the next stop in Corinth, and arrived at 11 p.m. I was so exhausted that I stopped at the first hotel I could find. The room was a dump--the worst that I had ever seen in my life. The showers were the best that I had seen anywhere on earth.
In the morning, I saw that my body was covered with mosquito bites, which I needed to explain to each person I visited.
In Corinth, my first visit was to a man from Romania. He was illegally in the country, working in house construction. Unfortunately he did not know enough Greek to communicate with me, and we had no other language in common.
We went to a restaurant where a Romanian friend of his would help as a translator, since he knew English. It turned out that the only English words that he knew were Coca Cola, Pepsi, ice cream and the like. We had to speak in Greek.
Even though they had no difficulty in communicating about everyday things in Greek, they lacked even the most basic vocabulary for the kind of discussion that we had begun. We had to postpone the visit.
In the city of Patras, I had planned a visit with four students of the university. Nine turned up, and others drifted in and out during the discussion.
The interest was considerable, but at a high level. Their questions were: What are the necessary preconditions for inspiration? What recognizable form did inspiration take in the Old Testament period? Was it the same in the New Testament, and does either set of conditions need to exist today? If divine truth is establishable, how does one go about establishing accuracy and relevance to the modern world?
The Greek work can be done only if there is knowledge, unrelenting attention to human and social sensitivities and a readiness to encounter hurdles at every turn. The significant truth is that progress is being made in all classes of society--among business executives, teachers, lawyers, architects, artists, bankers, ministers of religion, civil servants, students, prisoners, seniors and others.
The Greek work operates on faith with respect to finances. As to the social conditions, we do not pray that God will change the Greek world, because that is not a meaningful request. We pray that he will call people who can function within the parameters of the Greek society as it is.
More immediately, we need secretarial help. It would be a wonderful contribution to the Greek work if someone with the necessary computer skills and a knowledge of software programs were to accept the task of typing a Greek text into the computer so as to print out a presentable copy of an article that we can duplicate and distribute.
Sept. 16, 1997, WN, page 11
| WCG Home | Issues | Contents |
Copyright © Worldwide Church of God,1997