There are currently over 400 Orthodox faithful in the country of Pakistan. A native Pakistani, Fr John Tanveer, is their spiritual leader, being the only Orthodox priest in the country. The Orthodox Mission is under the omophorion of Metropolitan Nektarios of the Greek Orthodox Metropolitanate of Hong Kong and South East Asia. The Orthodox Mission in Pakistan was initiated by the Archbishop Nikitas in 2005 and was formalized upon the ordination of Fr John in November 2009 by Metropolitan Nektarios. The church is located in Lahore, however there is no physical church building. All liturgical services are held out of a small room in Fr John and Presbytera Rosy’s home where approximately 40‐50 faithful attend Divine Liturgy every Sunday.The above is excerpted from the webpage of the Orthodox Mission in Pakistan. I have added this site to the sidebar of my blog under the heading Mission to Islam. Anyone who knows me well knows that I have a deep attachment to and love for the people of India and Pakistan, both Hindus and Muslims, and that I have studied and experienced their religions as far as possible for a Christian.
The witness of Jesus Christ is still a light that shines on these people, revealing to them where their traditional beliefs end and where faith in the living God of the Bible begins. Though I am not with them there in body, some part of me is always in India, of which Pakistan is an essential part, being artificially divided by the demands of militant Islam from the subcontinent. Christ is in India through His Holy Church, and now in Pakistan too.
Pray, brethren, for all who confess Jesus Christ in South Asia, that they be preserved and that their testimony be true and bear fruit. It seems wherever Holy Church goes, it always looks the same. Visit their webpage, and read the rest of the story.
The image [above, left] depicts the Mughal emperor Jahangir with an image of Christ. The first three Mughal emperors, nominally Muslim, were attracted to and favored the Christian faith. Only with the fourth emperor, Aurangzeb, did a reaction begin, which subjected all India to a strict Islamic regime. Pakistan is the fruit of the Islamic presence in India.
What kind of experience have you had with Hinduism? I'm curious. I came across it many times and have been thinking about it recently.
ReplyDeleteIt is not easy to explain, especially in a comment, but I have had a fascination with India for as long as I can remember, but I cannot attribute it to any one thing, not the history, the language, the music, the culture or the religion. In fact, as to religion, I am both repelled by it and drawn to it: repelled because I know it is a fantasy of gigantic and sometimes beautiful proportions, and drawn to it, because much of what it believes and aspires to is exactly the same as what I do as a Christian.
ReplyDeleteI have studied and have become very familiar with the beliefs and many of the customs of Hinduism, and also of Islam, but hardly at all with Buddhism, which has lost its foothold in India for a thousand years. I find a lot of meaning in the Hindu religious myths and scriptures and can demonstrate how they lead into the Truth that is Christ, almost as a sort of old testament. But intellectual Hinduism, as intellectual Westernism, has the same difficulty in accepting Christ for who He is, not on any doctrinal grounds, for doctrine comes after spiritual rebirth, but because they cannot accept being born again (and I am not using this term in the popular sense, but in the Orthodox and biblical sense, 'being born from above'). Since they trust in themselves and their intellect more than in God and His wisdom, they prevent themselves from undergoing the very and only change that will bring them into the Presence and Friendship of the Divine Nature, the God who is One in the Holy Triad. In the case of Hinduism, their mind cannot let go of the similitude, Brahma-Vishnu-Shiva, so as to receive the Living God, Father-Son-Spirit. For them it is a kind of 'catch 22.' They think it is a no-win situation, so they are afraid to move.
Of all the forms of Christianity that I know about, Orthodoxy seems to be the best interface to non-Christian religions, opening to their adherents the possibility of real conversion to the real Christ, and not just the substitution of one religion for another.
The encounter of Christ God with the evolved and animistic pantheon of Hindu gods or the rigid, legalistic and formulaic monad of the Muslim deity, when that encounter is really allowed to occur (not by missionaries forcing Christianity on pagan nations, but by followers of Jesus revealing Him to the nations as they walk among them doing what He does), can be described best in the words of the sixth ikos of the Akathistos Hymn of Romanos the melodist, ‘By shining in Egypt the light of truth, Thou didst dispel the darkness of falsehood; for its idols fell, O Saviour, unable to endure Thy strength; and those who were delivered from them cried to the Theotokos… Rejoice! …’