12/10/2012
Svetlana Khmeleva
A missionary should first of all witness the good tidings of the gospel as it has been preserved by the Orthodox Church over the centuries—without change, without additions, without omissions. We have to look at our brothers (and we are all brothers, children of the one God, be we baptized or not) as at an icon, the image of God. We must respect the traditions by which people live, apply what is best of them. If tradition contradicts the spirit of Christianity, we have to explain this to people with love, without offending them.
