Bishop Themi of Sierra Leone is an unlikely hierarch. His astounding spiritual transformation, which mirrors such dramatic conversion accounts as those found in scripture and commemorated in the hagiography of the Church, is certainly what most captures the attention of his many admirers. His unfolding life’s journey is an inspiration for our confused and broken world; his missionary example is a beacon of hope and a testament to the Holy Spirit’s penchant for eschewing all that is rote and conventional. But on the evening of December 5th, in conversation with an old friend, Fr. John Chryssavgis, Bishop Themi did not speak primarily of himself or his remarkable story. Instead, he invited us to witness the “reality” of Africa through the tearful but resilient faces of his beloved flock in Sierra Leone. In conveying this unsettling imagery and sharing candidly the difficulties faced by Orthodox missionaries in Africa, he also challenged us with another “reality”—an inescapable choice between two opposing attitudes towards the suffering of others: one leading to the self-delusion of indifference, and the other to the salvific clarity of the Cross.
Trained as a biblical scholar and linguist, Bishop Themi appreciates the literary significance of the “Great Commission” in Matthew 28. To him, these words at the Ascension should be read as Christ’s final testament and a summation of His incarnate work. We must consequently treat them as an unconditional injunction to whomever would wish to emulate the life of Christ and bear the title, “Christian.” In his own life, Bishop Themi has not only gone forth and made disciples among the nations—first in Kenya and now in Sierra Leone—but he has especially heeded the final line of that passage, Christ’s parting statement: “I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” It seems this assurance has informed Bishop Themi’s missionary approach in a twofold manner. In one sense, he encouraged us to always seek Christ and venture to find Him, particularly in those among us who are experiencing great suffering. He shared forthrightly that he left the relative comfort of Kenya for Sierra Leone in pursuit of “Christ crucified.” He warned us to take seriously the practical demands presented in the judgment scene in Matthew 25. In no uncertain terms, Christ identifies Himself with those who are hungry, thirsty, lonely, naked, sick, and imprisoned, and He acknowledges the righteousness of those who attended to Him unknowingly through their love and charity directed towards “the least” among us. More than a moralizing imperative to perform good deeds or a checklist for personal salvation, this set of exchanges at the judgment seat constitutes a Christological statement. It affirms Christ’s participation in our human suffering and discloses how we might draw near to Him and participate in His divinity; not by the merit of our magnanimous efforts, but by the humble recognition that He is always in our midst.
In a second and closely related sense, Bishop Themi urged us always to bear Christ in our deeds and to put aside the baggage of our egos. As Christians bound to the Great Commission, we cannot be “ecclesiastical colonialists” inflexibly wedded to our tightly-held identities, views, and opinions—whether we find ourselves spreading the faith in Africa or our neighborhoods. Of course, this requires great discernment and a realistic grasp of the contexts we find ourselves within. It necessitates the rhetorical versatility of a St. Paul and the concentrated study of the Sts. Cyril and Methodius; a tall task, indeed. But we know what is seemingly impossible for us is made possible in Christ. The multi-dimensional challenge presented by translating a Byzantine style of worship to sub-Saharan Africa is one such “impossibility” Bishop Themi addressed. Just as heavy clerical vestments do not adapt well to the humid heat of equatorial Africa, spontaneous expressions of praise through song and dance do not naturally find their place in the meticulous formalism of Orthodox liturgy. The pervasiveness of traditional superstition and the continued practice of witchcraft in Sierra Leone present another roadblock to imparting true faith. Missionaries must confront these difficulties not out of the insufficiency of their endowments but in the boldness of the knowledge of Christ, who defeated the elemental spirits of this world and poured out upon it instead His Holy Spirit, “that whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”
There is certainly no Orthodox manual for conducting mission work; the experience is truly a “baptism by fire” according to Bishop Themi. What a fitting choice of words given that it is the Spirit of Pentecost he seems eager to cultivate among his flock. Through slight adjustments to the services and a warm embrace of indigenous forms of piety, Bishop Themi is fostering a kind of cultural xenoglossy as witnessed in Acts 2—the Church is coming to “speak” in a manner that can be understood by all. He repeatedly reminded us that confessing to be the “One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church” is not a boastful claim for the Orthodox but a standard of self-appraisal. Perhaps it is because we have traditionally proclaimed this inheritance from a polemical and defensive standpoint rather than one of openness and understanding that we have largely failed to live up to our missionary potential. As Bishop Themi noted, Orthodoxy is growing today only in Latin America and Africa. These gains are largely attributable to the recency of our missionary efforts there; the “sticking power” of Orthodoxy in these new settings remains an open question. Yet as an Alexandrian by birth and a lover of Africa and its people, Bishop Themi was keen to highlight the often-overlooked history of Orthodoxy in Africa. While the mission work itself is fresh, the legacy it draws upon is ancient and venerable. With time, he is even hopeful that a truly African rite of Eastern Orthodoxy will emerge organically from the rediscovery of this legacy and the proliferation of new missionary endeavors.
A recurring theme throughout the wide-ranging conversation shared by Bishop Themi and Fr. John was the alluring power of faces and the kind of vision necessary to recognize Christ in them unconditionally. I have always been intrigued by how frequently the Gospels apply the language of sight to the realities of spiritual life. We tend today to draw a hard distinction between a material world which is seen with our eyes and a spiritual world (if we acknowledge one at all) that remains hidden from our natural sight. But as Christians, followers of the Incarnate Word of God, such a distinction is not only untenable for us but is blasphemous. From the short film clips of life in Sierra Leone we were shown as bookends to the conversation, a single transition made this point abundantly clear: the face of a crying child faded gently into an icon of the infant Christ and the Panagia. Could there be a more illuminating expression of the identification of Christ and His Mother with the total suffering of humanity, and the serene and silently reassuring manner in which they bear that suffering for us, reaching out in merciful love to relieve us of its burden? I would argue this is the iconographic vision upon which the Church’s social ministry is founded. It is a treasure we ought to be sharing with the world at every opportunity. It is the antidote to the poison of indifference.
Bishop Themi has credited Mother Theresa and St. Francis of Assisi, among many others, for inspiring his ministry. I think it is fitting to draw connections as well to a different “Mother” and another “Francis” who similarly decry the corrupting influence of indifference. In her essay, “On the Imitation of the Mother of God,” St. Maria Skobtsova—”Mother Maria” of Paris—speaks of the Cross as a “two-edged sword” that simultaneously crucified Christ and pierced the heart of His Mother. The crosses we bear as Christians cannot be the private, one-sided affairs we tend to envision. They must be “cross-swords”—struggles that cut both ways, crucifying those who personally endure them and piercing the hearts of those who endeavor to practice self-emptying love. To deny this reality, to maintain an attitude of indifference towards the suffering of others, breeds what Mother Maria considers frankly to be “sins against the Cross of God.” In a recent book, Let Us Dream, Pope Francis similarly challenges the culture of “so-what” that has developed in response to the intensification of global calamity. He reminds us that Christ-like mercy “is not just seeing and being moved but responding with action” to the crises before us. When we choose to remain indifferent, we shut out the Holy Spirit, “closing us to the possibilities that God is waiting to offer us, possibilities that overflow our mental schemes and categories.” Like Bishop Themi, Pope Francis draws inspiration and hope from Matthew 28. In these difficult times, he writes: “It is fine to tremble a little. Fear of the mission can be a sign of the Holy Spirit. We feel, at once, both inadequate to the task and called to it. There is warmth in our hearts that reassures us that the Lord is asking us to follow Him.”
It is evident that Bishop Themi boldly pursues the “cross-sword” and vehemently opposes the “so-what” of indifference. He accepts the mission to which he has been called in full knowledge of his colorful past and personal inadequacy, assured only that Christ is with us to the end of the age. It is rare to encounter a person who so thoroughly embodies the glorious paradox of genuine repentance and embraces the transfiguring mystery of grace as he does. In bearing the Gospel to new lands, he revitalizes the apostolic spirit for us where it has grown tragically staid and stale. His missionary zeal most obviously models the “Apostle to the Nations” himself, St. Paul. And much like the church in Corinth, we have a surplus of teachers today in the West, but we do not have many fathers who have begotten us through their witness to both the pain of the Cross and the glory of the Resurrection. In my estimation, Bishop Themi is one such father. Without saying so much himself, his actions and example cry out to all who will listen: “Imitate me.”
Author: Benjamin Malian, First Year Master of Theological Studies (MTS), Hellenic College Holy Cross School of Theology