Orthodoxy and Humanitarianism: Realities, Resources, and Future Research

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Notes

1. The full conference program for Orthodox Christianity and Humanitarianism: Ideas and Action, May 7–8, 2015, is available at http://humanitarianism.goarch.org/colloquium-program.

2. Through Near East Relief, Protestant missionaries and aid workers rescued orphans, fed and clothed the starving, evacuated Armenians for resettlement in the West, and helped stabilize the remnant communities. For a survey of Near East Relief by its organizer, the American Protestant missionary leader James Barton, see Barton (1930). In light of the anniversary of the Armenian genocide, researchers are turning their attention to Near East Relief (O'Neil 2015).

3. Obviously, these two topics do not exhaust the ways in which Orthodox humanitarianism engages World Christianity today. Other urgent topics for research include the relationship between Orthodoxy and migration, and church-based humanitarian infrastructures functioning in contexts of crisis such as Syria, Iraq, and Turkish refugee camps.

4. This call ultimately culminated in the founding of the World Council of Churches in 1948.

5. Some of the recent missional energy of US Orthodoxy stems from the influence of activistic Protestant models. This factor is not without controversy, but it is understandable given prominent conversions from Protestantism to Orthodoxy, and the influence of Protestant mission models in American Christianity.

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Notes on contributors

Dana L. Robert

Dana L. Robert is the Truman Collins Professor of World Christianity and History of Mission, and Director of the Center for Global Christianity and Mission, at the Boston University School of Theology. Among her many publications is Christian Mission: How Christianity Became a World Religion (Wiley-Blackwell, 2009, seventh printing). Since 2010, she has been the ecumenical representative on the board of the Missions Institute of Orthodox Christianity.