Rethinking Missio Dei among Evangelical Churches in an Eastern European Orthodox Context

Dr Ubeivolc’s book is an excellent introduction to mission theology and practice in the Eastern European Post-Soviet setting. Based on solid academic reflections and expert knowledge of the evangelistic practices of Christian churches encountering each other in mission, the book offers invaluable insights into the missiological conceptualizations and paradigms of mission engagement in a culturally Orthodox context. Grounded in the particular context of mission encounters in Moldova and in the erudite use of the overarching concept of missio Dei, the author explores resources of, and argues persuasively for, a holistic ecumenical cooperation in common gospel-witness to the transforming presence of God in the contemporary social and spiritual realities of life. I commend this richly textured work to academics and scholars-practitioners seeking to understand mission in times of momentous transition in Eastern Europe.

Parush R. Parushev

Senior Research Fellow,

International Baptist Theological Study Centre,

Amsterdam, Netherlands

The concept of missio Dei has not been well known in the context of the former Soviet Union. Vladimir Ubeivolc has presented it here not only as a key concept for mission, but also as a central point at which the evangelical and orthodox dialogue can take place. As mission has often been a divisive issue between the different traditions, this research is a turning point and marks out a better way of understanding and appreciating each other in light of the mission of God. Opening this book, the reader will appreciate the perspective offered and the ground proposed for continuing what mission is and church in mission needs to be.

Peter Penner

Director of Advanced Studies, Professor for Mission and New Testament,

Haus Edelweiss Campus, TCM International Institute

Rethinking Missio Dei among Evangelical Churches in an Eastern European Orthodox Context

Vladimir Ubeivolc

© 2016 by Vladimir Ubeivolc

Published 2016 by Langham Monographs

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Contents

Cover

Abstract

Acknowledgments

Abbreviations

Introduction

Purpose and Motivations of the Current Dissertation

Situation in Moldova

Situation in the Union of Evangelical Christian Baptist Churches

Definition of the Basic Conceptual Apparatus

Overview of the Presented Dissertation

Expected Results

Part 1

The Evangelical Churches in an Orthodox Context in Moldova

Chapter 1 The Birth and Development of Evangelical Churches in Moldavian Orthodox Context

The Emergence of Christianity in the Territory of Moldova

The Growth of Evangelical Churches in Moldova in the Period (1918–1944)

The Growth of Evangelical Churches in the Soviet Period (1944–1991)

Conclusions

Chapter 2 Mission of Evangelical Churches in Moldova from the End of the Twentieth to the First Decade of the Twenty-First Century

Religious Situation after Collapse of the USSR Block

Evangelistic Crusades and Church Growth in Independent Moldova

Theological Reflections in the ECB Union

Conclusions

Chapter 3 Contemporary Relationships between Evangelicals and the Orthodox Church

The Orthodox Church in Moldova in the Early 21st Century

Proselytism and Foundations for Conflict between Evangelicals and the Orthodox Church

Evangelical-Orthodox Dialogue in Moldova in the Early 21st Century

Conclusions

Part 2

Missiological Paradigms and Their Connections with Churches in Moldova

Chapter 4 How Mission is Perceived by Evangelical Theologians

Managerial Missiology

Post-Imperial Missiology

An Anabaptist Missiology

Conclusions

Chapter 5 How Mission is Perceived by Orthodox Theologians

The Foundation and Content of Orthodox Mission

Kenosis as an Incarnated Method of Orthodox Mission

Theosis as the Final Goal of Orthodox Mission

Conclusions

Chapter 6 How Mission is Perceived in Ecumenical Circles

Missio Dei as an Ecumenical Paradigm

The Content of Missio Dei

The Goal of Missio Dei

Conclusions

Part 3

Perspectives for the Mission of Evangelical Churches in Moldova

Chapter 7 The Trinitarian Foundation for Mission

Mission of the Father

Mission of the Son

Mission of the Spirit

Conclusions

Chapter 8 Analytical and Synthetic Evaluation of the Missiological Paradigms

Distinctions and Similarities in Different Missiologies

Mission of the Church – Synthetic Dynamics for the Whole Church

Conclusions

Chapter 9 Holistic and Cooperative Approach in Mission

Biblical, Theological and Practical Aspects for Holistic Mission in Moldova

Mission as Dialogue and Common Witness

Conclusions

Conclusion

Bibliography

Primary Sources

Books and Monographs

Articles, Essays and Component Parts within Books

Theses and Dissertations

Electronic Sources

Interviews (in chronological order)

Web Sources

About Langham Partnership

Endnotes

Abstract

The main purpose of this research is to discover what God is doing among and through evangelical Christians in Moldova. The vast majority of the Moldavian population affiliate themselves with the Orthodox Church. The country is full of Christian symbols, people are aware of the name of Jesus Christ, and almost every settlement of the country has a visible Orthodox presence in church building and priest. At the same time, Moldavian Evangelical Christian Baptists (ECB) are very active in doing mission by church planting and preaching the gospel. The union of ECB from Moldova experienced significant church growth in the 1990s. The beginning of the twenty-first century shows very different results – decreasing numbers of church members and new believers. Many churches show signs of frustration and apathy, while applying the same missionary methods they were using ten to fifteen years ago. This dissertation tries to evaluate the missionary approaches in Moldova, and in harmony with that, to shape a missionary paradigm for evangelical churches.

The proposed dissertation consists of an introduction, three main parts and a conclusion. The first part describes the Evangelical churches in a Moldavian Orthodox context, talking about the birth and development of the Evangelical churches in Moldova, evaluating the mission of the Evangelical churches in Moldova during the last twenty years of Moldavian independency, and observing contemporary relations between Evangelicals and Orthodox communities in Moldova. The first part is primarily descriptive.

The second part helps to understand the current situation in Moldova, observing and evaluating the missiological paradigms, which are relevant to this country, such as Church Growth Movement, Lausanne Movement and Anabaptist Movement. It is important to understand the Orthodox view of mission, which is the dominant paradigm in the context of Eastern Europe. To fulfill the objective task of the evaluation of mission approaches, this part presents the ecumenical paradigm for mission, which is known as missio Dei. This missio Dei concept tries to reconcile Orthodox and Evangelical missiological perspectives, to build a bridge between them and to create a platform for further dialogue. The methodology is analytic.

The third part is synthetic in methodology. This part is about perspectives for the mission of Evangelical churches in Moldova, addressing evaluations of missionary paradigms that were proposed in the previous part. It suggests a theological and biblical foundation for Moldavian churches and points to a new missionary paradigm for Eastern European Evangelical churches from the missio Dei perspective.

Acknowledgments

This is one of the hardest tasks in a dissertation – to pay tribute to all the people who invested their time, support, money and souls during my studies. At the same time, this is a blessed task, because in writing acknowledgments, I was put into a situation where I spent a lot of time thinking about these people, praying for them and remembering them.

During the years of writing I was blessed by many people whom I knew before, and who believed in me and influenced me to continue after my masters level studies and who encouraged me to doctoral level work. I also met a lot of people whom I didn’t know before and they were a gift from God for me.

First of all I want to mention my father Ilia and especially my mother Nadejda, who are very simple people without higher education, but they are faithful to Christ following him in their daily lives. Because of their example, when I became a Christian I saw that a relationship with God was not just following rituals, but was a reality. When I evaluate my life, I can say that their following of Christ in daily life was an example for me.

Then I want to mention people who were not involved in my PhD studies, but who showed me the beauty of studies and the value of knowledge: they were my first teachers and instructors in my first theological institution – Fiodor Mocan, Semion Placinta, Valentina Belchiug and Dr Loreen Itterman. They played a key role in my spiritual formation and becoming a minister in the Evangelical church.

It is impossible not to mention my teachers who inculcated in me the skills of critical thinking and the beginning of analysis: Professor Dr Valerii Karpunin and Alexander Negrov from St Petersburg Christian University.

Closer to the first step in my PhD studies, the first person who influenced me was Dr Wesley Brown, who came to Chisinau to teach there and asked me, Would you like to continue your education at IBTS at doctoral program? In those days for me it was like a joke, like a dream, because I never thought that it might be possible. The second person who convinced me to make this step was Dr Peter Penner, who in those day was one of the course leaders at IBTS. We knew each other from St Petersburg and he was the one who helped me a lot in honing and sharpening my ideas and concentrating me on the particular area of interest. He was also my first supervisor at IBTS. I am sincerely thankful to him for his knowledge, open heart and the great impact he has had in my life.

Next step was to share this vision with colleagues from College of Theology and Education in Chisinau, where I worked as dean of the Christian Education Department. I was astonished that the administration of CTE immediately supported this idea and tried to do the best they could for my studies. I would like to mention the names of Dr Mihai Malancea (Academic dean), Serghey Namesnic (rector), Nina Teplitskaya, Serghey Germanov, Pavel Poperecnii, Victor Ormanji and others who supported me during these years. I should mention my student Denis Shuparski who helped me with the data collections.

A special word of recognition to my colleague from CTE, Dumitru Sevastian, with whom I started my studies at IBTS. Thanks for all the years of mutual support and encouragement. He was a helper who every time when he saw me asked, How are doing with your dissertation?

There is another team in Moldova, whom I want to thank for their part in my studies – NGO Beginning of Life, where I served as a president for the last 3 years, and where I learned what it means to do holistic mission in practice. Together with them we applied a number of ideas, which I got from my research. They showed me in daily ministry that mission is much more than I imagined before. A few of them were a special blessing for me, because they were people with whom I shared all ideas and insights which I realized from the books and research. I want to mention particularly Natalia Clapaniuc, Peter Litnevski, Roman Citac, Elia Kapakli, Benjamin Sazonov, but special word of thanks to Sergey Mikhailov, who was my student in the past, and then became my first examiner, asking hard questions about my conclusions and presuppositions. His questions helped me to shape my ideas more clearly.

Of course, there were people with whom I met only once, or I met them occasionally, but they were very open for conversations and discussions about my dissertation: Dr Bradley Nassif, Scott Archer, Steve Babbit, Dr Dennis Leggett, Dr Lauran Bethel, Sven-Gunar Liden and a few others.

A big portion of my dissertation is focused on the ecumenical dialogue, and I am very thankful to God for providing me a great opportunity to be a part of an ecumenical roundtable in Moldova – Moldavian Christian AID – which is focused on helping people in need. There are a few people who showed me that religious tolerance is not an unreachable ideal, but a living reality. We worked with them very hard – it was not easy – but we did it with Orthodox priests Frs. Ion Solonaru, Octavian Moshin, Pavel Valuta and Vasilii Ciobanu. A great blessing was to work with a chairman of this organization, Lilia Bulat, and also with a representative from the Moldavian Lutheran Church, Natalia Mozer.

I am very thankful to the leadership of the Evangelical Baptist Union from Moldova, to the former bishop Valeri Ghiletchi and current bishop Ion Miron, who helped me to understand better the vision and mission of Baptists churches in Moldova and to see their strengths and weaknesses.

It is impossible to overestimate the role of the IBTS community during my studies. It has created such an academic environment where I was accepted with my questions, struggles and insights. It was a blessing and pleasure to listen to presentations of my colleagues during the doctoral colloquia and to present different parts of my dissertation for their critical review. Words of recognition are directed to Dr Jim Pervis, Dr Tim Noble, Dr Andrew Kirk, Doc Dr Ivana Noble, Dr Keith Jones, Dr Greg Nichols, Dr Darell Jackson, Dr Hannes Wiher, Dr Valentin Kozhuharov (my second supervisor) and others. Special acknowledgments are to Dr Ian Randall, who helped me with the structure of this dissertation and to Nancy Lovely, who with great patience, care and love corrected my English grammar.

I want to mention two organizations whose support was crucial for my studies: the Overseas Council International supported me at the first stage of my research and Langham Partnership Program (John Stott Ministries) financially supported my studies for the last years. Colleagues such as Dr Ian Shaw and Dr Elaine Vaden showed not only academic interest in my studies but they were very interested in my ministry and family as well.

Dr Parush Parushev played a key role in my studies, being not just my first supervisor, but also the catalyst who encouraged me when my hands became weak. There were a few periods when I was so depressed by difficult situations in my life that I was ready to give up and to stop my research and writing. Dr Parushev used all his persuasion to convince me to go forward, to continue and to complete my work.

Finally, I would like to pay tribute to Yulia and Ana Ubeivolc, my wife and my daughter, who are the greatest blessing in my life. I am most grateful to them for their patience. But the word patience doesn’t describe our relationship and what they did for me. Even the words encouragement, influence and support are not strong enough to describe their role in my studies. They believed in me, they trusted me and they were sure that my PhD studies were not in vain – that I will use all my knowledge, all my skills which I received during my research for the work of the kingdom.

Abbreviations

Introduction

To rethink something means that there has been a particular experience or a piece of knowledge which should be evaluated and may be changed. Sometimes rethinking is the result of frustration or apathy. People realize that something is not working and something should be done to change the inauspicious environment. Not every rethinking is followed by change. Sometimes rethinking brings positive results and people understand that they are on the right track – that their methods are effective and they are satisfied.

To rethink God’s mission (missio Dei) means to become closer to achieving God’s purposes. People, churches, and nations cannot foresee God’s plans or be in control of God’s actions. The church can only discover what God is doing, consider its own calling and join God’s mission. The church’s responsibility is always to be attentive not only to God’s written Word (which has the highest standing among Eastern European Evangelicals), but to hear God’s voice from other sources – nature, society and personal revelation.

To hear God’s voice is not enough. It is also very important to be involved in God’s work, God’s mission and God’s actions. To rethink God’s mission among Evangelical churches in Moldova means to re-discover what God is doing among Evangelical churches in an Orthodox country saturated with Christian symbols, where almost all people have heard the name of Jesus Christ and with long history of Christian presence, and to discover the role of Evangelicals in such a country.

Purpose and Motivations of the Current Dissertation

The main purpose of this research is to discover what God is doing among evangelical Christians in Moldova, and in harmony with that, to shape a missionary paradigm for Evangelical churches, which will have a biblical foundation, relevant to contemporary society and will be done in unity with other Christians.

A few of the most important questions which I pursued were: Who are the Orthodox people? Are they the same Christians as Evangelicals but with just another style of worship? Or are they nominal cultural Christians, representatives of a dead church? Are they Christians, but weak, with a lot of pagan rituals and traditions? The first motivation is my family situation. I was born during the Soviet time, but was baptized as an infant in the Orthodox Church because my father wanted to do that. Two years later my mother was converted and baptized in an evangelical Baptist church, and from that time two worlds were represented in one family. Almost all the relatives from father’s side were Orthodox, and almost all the relatives from mother’s side were Baptists. It was not easy to make any faith decision in such circumstances.

The second motivation was connected with ministry in the Evangelical Church in independent Moldova. I met a number of people, who from their spoken words, believed in Jesus Christ, but they did not want to be betrayers of their Orthodox faith, even if they disagreed with it in many points. Many times in the past I tried to convince such people to leave the wrong church and join an Evangelical one. Every time I did this I felt that something was wrong in what I was saying, but I could not understand what it was that was wrong.

The third motivation appeared when I became a pastor in an evangelical Baptist church and instructor in a theological institution. Works of the church Fathers and contemporary Orthodox theologians amazed me with their deep search for God, their understanding of grace, and the role of Jesus Christ. I discovered that there are a lot of myths and prejudices about Orthodoxy among Evangelicals. Doing mission in Moldova, I have faced a lot of cases of real compassion from Orthodox people to those who are poor and oppressed, and at the same time I have seen a lot of examples of neutral positions from evangelical circles towards needy people. I found those attitudes and actions not only on the level of individuals, but also on the high level of leaders.

The last motivation was connected with frustration, which was shown by the leaders of the Evangelical Baptist Union regarding the effectiveness of its mission. A few times the declaration was made that we are no longer effective.[1] Church growth stopped at the end of the 1990s, and bishops and pastors did not know what to do. Evangelical Baptists discovered that their mission approach should be rethought, but at that time they did not know how and when. Because of all these reasons, I received the vision to rethink mission approaches in Moldova from an academic point of view – to revise them and to shape a new paradigm from the missio Dei perspective.[2]

Situation in Moldova

The history of evangelical Christianity in Moldova is only about 200 years long. During this time, Moldova became a part of Romania seven times, as well as part of the Russian Empire. It was a battleground in four terrible wars, survived a civil war, and was a land where migrants from Germany settled and at the same time served as a place of exile for political prisoners from Tsarist Russia. There was a time when its boundaries extended to the Black Sea and the Romanian Carpathians, and after that, narrowed to the territory between the rivers Prut and Dniester (today’s borders). German migrants, Bulgarians and Gagauz, Russians and Ukrainians all settled in this territory. Chisinau was known as one of the cities most favorable to the settlement of Jews. In the past, there were also wandering gypsy tribes in Moldova.

The territory, whose population has never exceeded 4.5 million inhabitants, was the most densely populated republic of the USSR.[3] Moldova has become the poorest country in Europe and more than 50 percent of the labor force has left the country in the last fifteen years to find work abroad, most of them illegally.[4] Because of that, more than 30 percent of the nation’s children are social orphans (parents leave their children with extended family, in orphanages, or with neighbors for years at a time to work abroad).[5] More than 100,000 people are victims of human trafficking.[6] UNAIDS suggests that up to 69,000 individuals are living with HIV/AIDS in Moldova.[7]

The vast majority of the population refers to itself today as belonging to the Orthodox Church,[8] despite the fact that Moldova has the greatest number of Evangelical Christian Baptists in Europe, considering the size of the population throughout the country. Approximately 700 missionaries, members of the Union of Evangelical Christian Baptists as well as of the Union of Christians of Evangelical Faith, moved out of Moldova between 1991 and 2006.[9] For the 1,200 settlements in the country, there are about 500[10] churches and groups of Evangelical Christian Baptists. At the same time, there are about 1,500 Orthodox parish churches.

From my point of view, the actual political and social situation in Moldova should be a part of the mission agenda for every Christian church in the country. Moldova has faced so many challenges for so many years causing people to feel hopeless. They are tired from the lack of stability; many of them don’t see any future for themselves and for their children. Because of that, people leave the country. Evangelical churches haven’t articulated their social position towards resolving the situation. Instead Evangelicals continue to be concerned about church growth and winning souls. There is no clear understanding about social participation of the church – is it a part of the church’s mission or not? There are a lot of good examples of social projects among Evangelical churches, but most of them do not work with each other, and local congregations are not aware about other groups who do similar projects in the country. All networks happen by accident, based on personal relations between leaders, instead of being intentional.

There is no mission platform, which could play a catalyst role for the local churches. Mission approaches are defined many times by the foreign partners, but not by deep theological analysis. From my understanding, missio Dei could play such a role, because it is based on the integral understanding of mission. It touches many aspects of social life, has a deep theological foundation, and can give an answer for Moldavian churches in self-identification of their mission focus. This study aims to determine the role of Evangelical churches and their mission in a country with a dominant Orthodox population and serious social problems.

Situation in the Union of Evangelical Christian Baptist Churches

The Evangelical Churches in Moldova represent very disparate groups; some of them involved in joint activities, others operating independently. In the territory of Moldova, according to official statistical data, the most numerous evangelical unions are the Union of Churches of Evangelical Christian Baptists (238 churches)[11] and the Union of Churches of the Evangelical Faith Christians-Pentecostals (27 churches).[12] There are also the independent associations ECB (3 churches) and the Council of ECB churches (no data). It is interesting to note that after the collapse of the USSR, in Moldova there was a unification of all the Pentecostal churches into one union. This is a rather unique association; there were no other Pentecostals or Baptists who united in one structural body in the former USSR. There is a union of Independent Charismatic Churches (18 churches), Independent Bible Churches (3 churches), and also the less numerous but socially active Moldovan Evangelical Lutheran Church (7 churches).[13] There is also a community of Presbyterians and several communities of Messianic Jews and the Salvation Army. In order to better elucidate the matter I would like to focus on those churches and unions that are either numerous or maintain an active dialogue with the Orthodox churches. Subsequently, I will refer only to the Moldovan Evangelical Lutheran Church as the most active in the dialogue, and to the Union of Churches of Evangelical Christian Baptists as well as to the Union of Churches of the Christians by Evangelical Faith (Pentecostals) as the most numerous, and therefore influential, evangelical associations in the country.

One of the main questions for the Moldavian Evangelicals is: What is the role of Evangelicals in a country with so many social issues and unresolved problems? Does the Evangelical presence change something in the country? Are there any connections between church growth and changes in society? I will work on a possible response to these questions and will try to find a link between the questions themselves.

Definition of the Basic Conceptual Apparatus

Missio Dei

The phrase "missio Dei" consists of two Latin terms. The first term missio is a Latin translation of the Greek word apostellō and has the meaning I send. The English language has received its word mission from this Latin term missio. The second term Dei is the Latin translation of the Greek word Theos, which in English means God. So, missio Dei means God’s mission. In Protestant missiological discussion especially since the 1950s, often in the English form ‘the mission of God’.[14]

In early church times, Irenaeus and Tertullian touched upon the question of sending the Son from God. Later Athanasius and the Cappadocian fathers developed the concept of sending the Son from the Father, and the Holy Spirit from the Father through the Son. But originally this concept was used by Augustine in Western discussions of the Trinity for the "sentness of God (the Son)" by the Father (John 3:17; 5:30; 11:42; 17:18).[15]

Evangelical Churches

When we talk about Evangelicals in Eastern Europe, we need to have in mind that the meaning of this word is used differently, for instance, in Germany and the USA. It is different even from Romania, where Cristini dupa Evangelia [Christians according to gospel] are closer to Russian Molokans.

When we use the term Eastern European Evangelical we think less about denominations or doctrines, but about the local church from a comprehensive perspective: style of worship, style of leadership, forms of discipline, etc. As L. Androviene and P. Parushev have written: This is about church as congregation.[16] Taking into consideration that our first target country is Moldova, the question becomes easier, because there are only two denominations, which are correlated to these criteria: Evangelical Christian Baptists and Christians by Evangelical Faith (Pentecostals). Pentecostals in Moldova are united in one structure under the umbrella of one union, but Baptists have more separations – union of the churches of ECBM, association of autonomous churches of ECBM, independent non-registered ECB, a few others who came out from the UCECBM, and established smaller associations or unions. Nevertheless, my main focus will be concentrated on the Union of Churches of Evangelical Christian Baptists. I was converted to Christ and baptized in one of the new churches, which is a part of this union, and was ordained there and for many years was a pastor in the same church and an instructor at the College of Theology and Education, which is affiliated with the same denomination. From time to time I will also address Pentecostals from Moldova, but only with one task – to compare methods, figures and strategies. I will not try to suggest my conclusions for Pentecostals, because I have been very limited in gathering resources from this union.

Eastern European Orthodox Context

When we talk about the Eastern European orthodox context from Moldavian point of view, we have in mind first of all Moldova’s closest neighbors – Romania, Ukraine and Russia. We need to underline that even if Ukraine is closer than Russia, the Russian Orthodox influence is much stronger in Moldova than the Ukrainian. One of the reasons for that is religious – a vast majority of Moldavian and Ukrainian Orthodox churches function under the Moscow Patriarchate. Of course, not all Orthodox churches submit themselves to Moscow, and in both countries there have been splits and separations. I will evaluate the Moldavian split in chapter 3. However, for 200 years Chisinau was influenced by Russia and was under Russian control.

There are many more cultural connections with Romania, because the official language in Moldova is the same as in Romania – contemporary Moldova and part of today’s Romania using the name of Moldova were parts of one country in the past. There are a lot of cultural common events today between these two countries. Romania has the same very influential Orthodox Church as Russia and the role of the church is very important in society.

At the same time, I can say that the situation in Bulgaria is very similar to Moldova and from time to time I will address the Bulgarian experience. The results of this thesis could be interesting also for Belorussia, Georgia and Armenia and to some extent in the Balkans.

Overview of the Presented Dissertation

The proposed dissertation consists of an introduction, three main parts and a conclusion. Each part contains three chapters, therefore there are nine chapters.

The first part describes the Evangelical churches in a Moldavian Orthodox context. The first chapter of this section talks about the birth and development of the Evangelical churches in Moldova, taking into consideration the general history of the country, connecting church history with the political situation around and in Moldova variously, when Moldova was a part of the Russian Empire, then a part of Romania and later a part of the USSR. During the last one hundred years Moldova moved from Russia to Romania, and back and forth, five times. Of course these moves affected both the Orthodox and Evangelical churches. The second chapter attempts to evaluate the mission of the Evangelical churches in Moldova during the last twenty years (years of Moldavian independency). Mission in Moldova is correlated with that in other post-Soviet countries, especially when we talk about the 1990s, right after the collapse of the Soviet Union. I see many more differences today, than I did from ten years ago. I observe evangelistic campaigns, which have been organized with support from some missionary agencies from the West, and their influence on Moldavian churches. I study almost all periodicals from 1991 until 2008 in UCECBM, looking for the values which were proclaimed and applied among Moldavian ECB. The third chapter is dedicated to contemporary relations between Evangelicals and Orthodox in Moldova. From the very beginning we need to look on the very complicated situation within the Orthodox Church, which is divided into two parts. This chapter tries to analyze the reasons for such a split and look on the role of Evangelicals in that situation. Later some space will be committed to the accusations concerning proselytism and the role of canonical territory in that. A platform for social actions was established, and information about this dialogue will be given. The first part is more descriptive with elements of analytical apparatus. This descriptive part is very important to understand the actual situation in Moldova and its neighboring countries.

The second part tries to help the reader understand the current situation in Moldova, observing and evaluating the missiological paradigms which are relevant to this country. Chapter 4 looks through three Evangelical approaches: the Church Growth Movement, the Lausanne Movement and the Anabaptist approach. The reason is to find real roots