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Moving West Into EuropeAwake!—1994 | October 22
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One who had a missionary spirit, however, was a child born to Catholic parents in Britain near the end of the fourth century. Named Patrick, he is known for having taken the message of Christ to the western edge of Europe—to Ireland—where legend has it that he converted thousands of people and set up hundreds of churches.
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Moving West Into EuropeAwake!—1994 | October 22
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Missionaries in a Divided House
Separate missionary campaigns were conducted by the two branches of professed Christianity practiced in Rome and Constantinople. Their attempts to “Christianize” Bulgaria led to confusion typical of a religiously divided house. Bulgaria’s ruler, Boris I, converted to Greek Orthodoxy. Upon seeing, however, that Constantinople severely curtailed the independence of the Bulgarian church, he turned to the West, permitting German missionaries, representing Rome, to bring their version of Christianity. By 870 C.E., it was evident that the Western church was even more restrictive than the Eastern, so the Germans were expelled, and Bulgaria returned to the arms of Eastern Orthodoxy, where, religiously speaking, it has remained ever since.
At about the same time, Western missionaries were introducing “Christianity” to Hungary. Meanwhile, both strands of “Christianity” were finding support in Poland. According to The Encyclopedia of Religion, “the church of the Poles was generally under control of the West, while at the same time marked with significant Eastern influence.” Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia were also “caught between the rivalry of Western and Eastern forces, with all its ecclesiastical consequences.” And Finland, after it adopted “Christianity” in the late 11th and early 12th centuries, found itself in the same East-West tug-of-war.
During the ninth century, two brothers from a prominent Greek family in Thessalonica brought Byzantine “Christianity” to Slavic sections of Europe and Asia. Cyril, also called Constantine, and Methodius became known as the “apostles to the Slavs.”
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