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July 16, 2004

Christians prepare to counsel and evangelize during Olympics

by Clive Leviev-Sawyer
Ecumenical News International

SOFIA, Bulgaria — It’s not only athletes who are preparing their starting blocks for the Olympic Games. When the world’s largest sporting spectacle starts in Athens on Aug. 13, Christians from around the world will be there, in some cases to provide counseling, and in others to evangelize.

      The ancient Olympics were banned as pagan rituals in the fourth century by Roman Emperor Theodosius, but many church and religious groups are planning to attend their modern equivalent in the Greek capital.

      Among the installations in the Olympic Village is a Religious Services Center, which will be used by a variety of churches and faith groups on a co-operative, time-sharing basis.

      Within Greece, where 98 per cent of the population is officially regarded as belonging to the Greek Orthodox Church, the denomination’s Holy Synod has appointed 20 priests to minister to the spiritual needs of athletes belonging to the Orthodox faith.

      And the Greek Bible Society is to hand out thousands of copies of Scripture during the games, which run to Aug. 29, the evangelical news agency, idea, reports. A booklet, “The Apostle Paul in Greece,” in Greek, English, French, German, Portuguese, Spanish, Russian, Korean, Chinese, Japanese and Arabic, is to be distributed by Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and Protestant volunteers. Twenty thousand New Testaments in English, and copies of the New Testament in modern Greek, will also be given out.

      At the same time, a team of 45 Protestant and Anglican ministers from all over the world has been recruited to serve in the Olympic Village according to the online newsletter of the Anglican Ministry in Athens.

      “Many of them have wide experience of sports chaplaincy in their own countries or in previous Olympics and other sporting events; all have agreed to come at their own expense,” the Anglican newsletter reported.

      Then there is Hellenic Ministries, a Greek-based Christian agency, which describes itself as a “sponsoring and support organization for men and women called to serve Jesus Christ throughout Greece, the Balkans and the Mediterranean world.”

      It is organizing Operation Gideon, which aims to “surround Greece with evangelistic teams on 80 Greek islands through prayer, literature distribution and proclamation evangelism.” It takes it name from Gideon, an Israelite warrior in the Bible whose courage defeated the ancient Midianites.

      A report by the Southern Baptist Convention’s Baptist Press said the U.S.-based Woman’s Missionary Union has planned three volunteer Olympic mission trips to Greece in August. Volunteers will work alongside the Greek Evangelical Church to conduct evangelism during the games.

      An organization called Athletes in Action, a sports ministry under the umbrella of Campus Crusade for Christ, has arranged for 60 staff chaplains from around the world to hold chapel services, prayer meetings, and Bible studies for contestants. The group has arranged security clearance so that the chaplains will have access to the competitors.

      “Our main responsibility will be to help bring the spiritual element to the mental and physical elements of being an athlete,” said Brooke Rollins, one of the participating chaplains. “Those are the essential elements of being a ‘total athlete.’”

      Rollins, a U.S. resident, who with his wife served as a missionary in Bulgaria from 1993 to 2001, said the athletes would be experiencing “pressure beyond what they’ve ever experienced.”

      Under Greek law, proselytizing is not allowed, and the Orthodox church is particularly wary of any attempts by Roman Catholics and Protestants to gain converts. However, said Hellenic Ministries’ James Macris, the government is currently taking little action to enforce the law against conversion.