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**scoundtrack** · 12-19-2009, 07:49 AM

Has anyone been keeping track of the growth of Protestantism in traditionally Orthodox countries post-communism? It is not just the result of Western colonialism, but of Christians who felt that the Orthodox Church was complicit with the Soviet regime, and that having the church as a state religion was no better for faith.

This question is misplaced. The numbers of Westerners--at any rate in the US--who find in the Orthodox Church the Church they have always been looking for is far greater than the number of those in traditionally Orthodox countries who move to a Protestant denomination or to Catholicism. I don't think the Church's complicity with the Soviet regime has anything to do with that: the fall of Communism was followed by a wave of baptism into the Russian Church. After decades of atheism, it is the role of the Church, and the Church only, to re-gather her flock and re-instill the Spirit in them.

12-19-2009, 07:49 AM	#13
scoundtrack Join Date Oct 2005 Posts 469 Senior Member	Has anyone been keeping track of the growth of Protestantism in traditionally Orthodox countries post-communism? It is not just the result of Western colonialism, but of Christians who felt that the Orthodox Church was complicit with the Soviet regime, and that having the church as a state religion was no better for faith. This question is misplaced. The numbers of Westerners--at any rate in the US--who find in the Orthodox Church the Church they have always been looking for is far greater than the number of those in traditionally Orthodox countries who move to a Protestant denomination or to Catholicism. I don't think the Church's complicity with the Soviet regime has anything to do with that: the fall of Communism was followed by a wave of baptism into the Russian Church. After decades of atheism, it is the role of the Church, and the Church only, to re-gather her flock and re-instill the Spirit in them.
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