Orthodox Diaspora and Mission in South Africa

Abstract

The Orthodox diaspora has, paradoxically, spread Orthodox Christianity throughout the world, but has not contributed much to Orthodox mission. Even after the third or fourth generation of immigrants, church services are generally held in the language of the countries from which the immigrants came. This is certainly true of South Africa, where most of the Orthodox immigration has been from Greece and Cyprus, with smaller groups of Russians, Serbs, Bulgarians, Lebanese and Romanians. Though there were immigrants from these countries in southern Africa in the middle of the nineteenth century, it was only at the beginning of the twentieth century that Orthodox clergy arrived and churches were built, first in Cape Town and then in Johannesburg. It was only in the twenty-first century that clergy began to be ordained locally in any numbers. The churches therefore tended to be ethnic enclaves, and apathetic towards, or even opposed to, mission and outreach to other ethnic communities.