The Quarterly Journal of St. Philaret’s Institute

These interviews discuss the relationship between practice and theoretical reflection on Church mission and catechization. The process of shaping the methodology and conceptual apparatus for mission and catechesis, as well as their study, is a fairly recent phenomenon within the Orthodox Church and therefore begs further development and scientific reflection. The interviews present the experience of catechists who have been involved in the churching of adults for several decades, as well as the reflections of researchers into the history and theory of missiology and catechetics as scholarly disciplines. Catechetics as a subject of study is related to the fundamental principles of catechesis, which it describes and reveals. Catechesis is closely related to liturgy because, on the one hand, liturgical texts and rites preserve the order of the early Christian practice of catechesis and, on the other hand, the modern practice of catechizing newcomers to the Church poses new tasks in terms of Liturgics. One example is the current need to liturgically denote the introduction of the “already baptized” but “not-yet-churched” into the church assembly. Missiology is now seen not as a description of the Church’s or her individual representatives’ missionary activity, but as a reflection on the fundamental principles of missio Dei, according to which the subject of missionary activity is a loving God Himself who desires salvation for His creation.