The Quarterly Journal of St. Philaret’s Institute

The article substantiates the possibility of applying elements of the scientific methodological apparatus of modern pedagogy — the subject-object and subject-subject approaches — in missiology. Within the framework of theoretical missiology, their application for description of the three types of missionary consciousness, i. e., “theocentric”, “ecclesiocentric” and “anthropocentric” types, is illustrated. The “theocentric” type of missionary consciousness assumes that the subject of the mission is God and the object is the Church being saved from a sinful world. In the “ecclesiocentric” type, the Church itself becomes the subject, to whom God transfers His subjectivity in the cause of salvation and mission, and the whole world, called to salvation, becomes the object. “Anthropocentric” type of missionary consciousness implies the need for the interaction of two subjects — the saving God and the Church on the one hand, and the questioning presence of God and His salvation of man on the other. The article opens up the possibility of using the scientific apparatus of modern pedagogy in various branches of missiology, which, by means of subject-object and subject-subject approaches, allows us to distinguish between subject-object and subject-subject relations and to form appropriate paradigms of pedagogical and missiological practice.