“Mission is Walking Across a Minefield”

On 19 May, 2024 at the Educational Centre of St. Fyodor’s Cathedral in St Petersburg, Fr Georgy Kochetkov, a Candidate of Theology and Founder of SFI, presented his book “Orthodox Missiology”.

The primary focus of the book (Moscow: SFI, 2024) is the goals, principles, fruits, and types and forms of mission, as well as requirements for missionaries and commonly made mistakes.

“Mission is walking across a minefield,” said the book’s author. “We answer for people before God. We must do everything we can for people, so they can make it all the way to God — so that their lives and their understanding of life radically change in all aspects.” 

“The task of the missionary is to break through the shield of unbelief not only with deep thought, volume of knowledge and high-quality culture — although knowledge and culture are also things we must share. But the primary spiritual need that people have is hidden in the quality of their lives, and it’s very important to help people understand that without God they will not achieve a good quality of life. To drive this thought home is unbelievably difficult. This is what these lectures were needed for”, noted Fr Georgy.

“Almost all extant books on missiology are of minimal use; they are not greatly relevant in most situations we face today and don’t keep up with the needs of our times, given that things are changing so very fast. I want to thank Fr Georgy and make a deep bow to him for this book. I enormously enjoyed reading it and believe that his recommendations, which were penned back in 1997, remain highly relevant in our times — especially for pastors and priests,” remarked Fr Nikolaj Svjatcheko, Chairman of the Mission Department for the Diocese of St. Petersburg.

“I read this book with enormous enjoyment and interest and can say that Fr Georgy writes not so much as a theologian but as a practical missionary: everything is clear, understandable, well systematized and structured. I would recommend that anyone who is interested in mission read this course, because there is a lot in terms of practical action that can be gleaned from it,” said Fr Aleksandr Ginkel, priest in charge of St Nicholas Church at the “Novaja Skandinavija” housing estate. Fr Aleksandr is also the author of a textbook called “Missiology”.

“What I see in ‘Orthodox Missiology’ is a new level in terms of detail,” remarked Fr Aleksandr Permjakov, a practicing missionary. “The more deeply we know mission, the greater the level of nuance we perceive, and by this we can trace our progress and the evolution of our knowledge in terms of missiology. This is very valuable. This book is based not only upon the author’s personal experience, but also upon the varied experience of his students.”

“‘Orthodox Missiology’ sparks dialogue about mission and specific prolegomena, formulating and posing various important questions for us. We need to work out the answers to these questions,” was an opinion shared by Igor Khmara, a senior lecturer from the Faculty of Philosophy, Religious Studies, and Pedagogics at the Russian Christian Academy of Humanities.

“The uniqueness of this book,” according to Yulia Balakshina, a PhD and professor at SFI and Herzen Russian State Pedagogical University who lead the St. Petersburg book presentation, “is that it describes various types of evidence that come directly out of practical experience. It is particularly worth noting evidence about mission in small groups, where the Spirit is at work in a particular way in that place where the Church itself is being created.”

The Chairman of St. Benjamin’s Orthodox Brotherhood, SFI publishing employee Anna Lepjokhina, shared her experience of reading through the book with a group of Christians — in community, together with mentors or clergy whose hearts desire the good of the Church and for those who are searching for God. 

Maria Dikareva, a specialist at SFI’s centre for mission and catechetics and an editor and senior teacher at SFI, spoke of how the idea for the book appeared. “When I began to read Fr Georgy’s lectures given back in far-off 1997, I felt enormously inspired by the living word and experience of his witness. The primary uniqueness of these lectures is that they are, on the one hand, based on the tradition of Orthodox mission, and on the other hand they reflect real-time fruitful experience. This places the accents at just exactly the right place, so that we can look at mission anew in our contemporary age and clearly see the problems we are up against.”

“Orthodox Missiology” can be bought in our internet shop or at the SFI bookstore at Spartakovskaya ulitsa 10/2, in Moscow.