In May 2007 I had the privilege of team-teaching a course at the Evangelical Theological Seminary in Osijek, Croatia. ETS is one of the largest evangelical seminaries in Eastern Europe: it has drawn students from all the former Communist countries, as well as from North America, Africa, and the Far East. Students are well instructed in English in their initial year at ETS, and instruction can be given and readily understood by the students in English.

Prof. Dr. Peter Kuzmic upper level students

Prof. Dr. Peter Kuzmic is rector of ETS. A long-time and widely-respected evangelical leader from Eastern Europe, he also is the Eva B. and Paul E. Toms Distinguished Professor of World Missions and European Studies at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in South Hamilton, Massachusetts, where he spends several months a year. He invited me to join him in teaching a course on “Ecumenical Relationships with Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy” at ETS. It was a course taken by upper-level students {#2}in their third or fourth year (plus two students doing graduate studies). Some twenty-two students enrolled in the course, all of them from Southeastern Europe: two from Romania, another from Serbia, one from Bosnia, and the rest from Macedonia and Croatia.

The students were engaged and eager in the course, even though it came near the end of their academic year—and, like students everywhere, they were eager to have the year finished. It was stimulating to interact with them, since their experience of and prospects about ecumenical interactions were shaped by their experience as evangelicals in countries which are either overwhelmingly Catholic or Orthodox. Discussion about the challenges and opportunities of ecumenical interaction was intense and insightful, reflecting the range of opinions and concerns one might expect anywhere, but focused on the situations to be encountered in Eastern Europe.

We surveyed the early church’s ecumenical councils, the developments during the middle ages and through the Reformation, and then moved into more recent history—dealing with the explosion of denominations in the period since the Reformation, with the significant transitions inaugurated by the Second Vatican Council, and with the changed situation for Orthodoxy since the collapse of Communist domination. Dr. Kuzmic familiarized the students with the Lausanne Covenant and other elements of specifically evangelical movements in regard to ecumenism.

We took advantage of the opportunity to have direct interaction with major Orthodox and Catholic centers. We traveled to Belgrade and visited the Serbian Orthodox patriarchate, where we were given a guided tour of the patriarchal museum and library. Afterwards, we enjoyed lunch at the Orthodox seminary student union and toured the seminary. After his class finished, the ethics professor Br. David Petrovic (a Serbian Orthodox monk) spoke with our class and welcomed us warmly. Then we went to the Temple of St. Sava, which is currently under construction (and will continue to be, for a long time). When completed, it will be the second largest Orthodox church in the entire world (second only to Christ Cathedral in Moscow). The gleaming white external facade was brilliant in the afternoon light. Inside, the construction continues: we admired the magnificent marble columns, walls, and balconies. A temporary iconostasis allows for services to be conducted. No other iconography or frescoes graces the cathedral yet.

The new ETS building

The following day the class traveled to Djakovo, to the Roman Catholic cathedral and seminary there. Professor Chechatka gave us an engaging tour of the cathedral. It had been designed and its building was overseen by Bishop Josip Jurij Strossmayer, a major figure in both nineteenth-century Roman Catholicism and in the development of Croatian nationalism. The tour highlighted some of the striking distinctive features of the cathedral—among them the fresco of the twelve-year-old Christ holding forth among the elders of the temple in Jerusalem, in which the features of several of the elders are those of leading intellectual luminaries of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; the free-standing altar in the middle of the sanctuary, anticipating some of the changes inaugurated by the Second Vatican Council a century later; and a fresco depicting the peoples of the earth (not just the Magi) bringing their gifts to the feet of the infant Christ, held in the Virgin Mary’s arms. In the fresco the gift-bearers wear the distinctive dress of various Slavic peoples. Afterwards, we toured the library of the seminary and had a question-and-answer period in one of the seminary lecture halls.

ETS has a new, sophisticated building, with well-appointed classrooms, excellent computer capacities for the students, a fine library, and comfortable apartments to house visiting professors. The students are engaging and friendly, and other faculty members include some Eastern European scholars and two North American missionary couples (the Harpers from the Presbyterian Church U.S.A. and the Titus family from the Reformed Church in America). ETS recently approved plans for setting up further graduate programs, in order to assure a well-trained leadership for the evangelical movements in Eastern Europe without the danger of the “brain drain” that has too often resulted as gifted Eastern European scholars remained in the West after finishing their graduate programs.

I am grateful for the opportunity I had to teach this brief course and to contribute to the work of this significant institution. I told the students about CAREE, and Dr. Kuzmic offered positive comment about the work CAREE has done and continues to do in Eastern Europe.

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