'Evangelicals Are Helping ‘Destroy’ the Syrian Orthodox Church', says Antiochian Priest

"Instead of helping the ancient Antioch Church and its believers continue to survive and keep their 2,000-year-old Christian traditions alive, some evangelicals from the West are doing 'the opposite' and are coming to Syria to 'steal our faithful'.” — Archimandrite Alexi Chehadeh

I have written about this deplorable tendency towards mercenary proselytism on the part of many American Protestant and Evangelical Christians, many of whom do not consider 'Eastern' Christians to be authentic Christians:

• Islam's Hatred of Holy Icons — and what that means for Persecuted Eastern Christians

• Christians in the Middle East: Martyred by Muslims in their Homeland, Disdained by Christians in America

Evangelicals Are Helping ‘Destroy’ the Syrian Orthodox Church, Antiochian Priest Says (Interview)

by Samuel Smith, The Christian Post via Pravmir:

Archimandrite Alexi Chehadeh, the director-general of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate af Antioch and All the East's Department of Ecumenical Relations and Development, speaks at undisclosed location in the photo posted to Facebook on April 29, 2017. Photo: Photo: Facebook / دائرة العلاقات المسكونية والتنمية)

WASHINGTON — Evangelical Christians from the United States and other areas of the world are helping "destroy" the historic Antioch Church in Syria by offering poor, vulnerable orthodox Christians aid and assistance if they "convert" and start worshiping at evangelical house churches, a prominent Syrian priest asserted.

Archimandrite Alexi Chehadeh, director-general of the Greek Orthodox Church of Antioch’s Department of Ecumenical Relations and Development, traveled from the church’s headquarters in Damascus, Syria, to the U.S. capital last week to take part in the first-ever World Summit in Defense of Persecuted Christians hosted by the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association at the Mayflower Hotel.

Chehadeh sat down with The Christian Post to discuss the situation in Syria and the impact that Christians in the West are having when it comes to aiding the civil war-ridden country’s minority Christian population.

“For us personally, I didn’t see any help from the American church directly. Perhaps, [aid went] to our brothers and sisters in the Protestant Church or Baptist Church or other church denominations we have there. But for us, we didn’t receive any help from the Church in [America],” Chehadeh explained.

As many experts fear that Christianity in the region might one day become extinct, Chehadeh said that instead of helping the ancient Antioch Church and its believers continue to survive and keep their 2,000-year-old Christian traditions alive, some evangelicals from the West and wealthier areas in the Middle East are doing “the opposite” and are coming to Syria to “steal our faithful.”

“[They are] giving them some money to say ‘Come to my church. I will give you money or I will let you go to Europe or to U.S.,'” Chehadeh said. “So it is not a nice way, especially in this crisis, to come and to destroy the work of a church, which is for more than 2,000 years in the area...

Protestant Attempts to Influence the Coptic Orthodox Church

This is an essential article, which documents not only Protestant missions in Egypt, but also the condescending attitude towards Coptic and Orthodox Christians held by the vast majority of Protestants in America and the West. In spite of their good intentions, Protestants do not believe Eastern Orthodox are true Christians, thus they endlessly seek to proselytize believers from the most ancient Christian confessions.

Protestant Attempts to Influence the Coptic Orthodox Church 

Part  I – The first Protestant missions in Egypt 

by Fr Peter Farrington — The Glastonbury Review — #123, Feb. 2013

It would be a mistake to consider that any criticism of the influence of Protestant practices, teachings and spirituality within the Orthodox Church is due to a judgemental attitude towards the members of Protestant communities. On the contrary, apart from those Protestants whose actions are deliberately intended to subvert and undermine the Orthodox Faith and Tradition, this issue is one which is entirely to do with the Orthodox Church itself, and the concerns are with the responses of those who are formally Orthodox Christians to the attractions of a variety of Protestant cultures. “For the time is come that judgement must begin at the house of God”[1], as St Peter instructs us. What does this mean? Surely not that we should adopt a judgemental attitude towards one another, but that at all times the members of the Church must allow the life of the Church to be subject to the judgement of God, and that of the Holy Tradition which is entrusted to each generation. As St Paul commands those in every age, “Therefore, brethren, stand fast, and hold the traditions which you have been taught, whether by word, or our epistle”[2].

This paper is concerned with what it means to “stand fast and hold the traditions” which we have been taught, in an age when the members of the Church are liable to be influenced by a very wide range of alternative cultures and lifestyles, many of which are inimicable to the Orthodox Faith and Life. It will especially consider the first influence of Protestant missionaries in Egypt. For many past centuries, the faithful Christian members of the various Orthodox communities have lived out their Orthodox Faith in situations of relatively stable social and religious environments. There have been wars and rumours of wars, there have been periods of persecution, but generally speaking the culture of Egypt, or Syria, or Ethiopia, or any of the countries in which Orthodoxy had been established has changed slowly and such changes as have taken place have been accommodated in a more or less successful manner.

But over the last century and a half the Orthodox Churches have found themselves facing an increasing and even overwhelming tide of cultural and religious influences, and the Coptic Orthodox Patriarchate of Alexandria has not been immune from the pressures these influences have produced.