"When spreading Christianity, the Orthodox Church does not have the habit of building on the foundations put up by others — establishing Christianity in places where it has already been preached. Yet other Christian communities often gather the crop where others sowed first, and they do not hesitate to seize “the sheep from the neighbor’s yard” with money and force. The Orthodox Church stays away from those methods which are sometimes permitted by missionaries of other confessions. She does not use unlawful means to convert people to Christianity, She does not strike bargains with the prejudices and passions of man, and She does not distort the purity of the evangelical Truth in order to acquire for Herself more members, since She is concerned not only about the number of the faithful, but also about the quality of their faith. But the most important fact is that the Orthodox Church conducts Her missionary work quietly, with humility and reverence, being conscious of the powerlessness of man and the strength of God. Missionaries of other confessions often do not mind to make noise, to make a din about their work. They meticulously record their heroic deeds so that the whole world might know of their actions and glorify them, and it is for this reason that they are much spoken about. But the Orthodox messengers of the Good News act differently. They undertake their holy endeavor not to gain glory for themselves from people, but to receive the mercy of God for themselves and salvation for others. They do not trumpet their own successes before the world, and they attribute them not to themselves but to the might of God.
...Can a Church that produces such selfless messengers of the Good News, who passed through the unreachable wilderness preaching Christ, and there gave their lives for the Faith of Christ — can a Church like this be accused of being lifeless, inactive, without a missionary spirit, and not concerned about spreading the Gospel?"
+ St Tikhon of Moscow, From the Homily Preached on the Sunday of Orthodoxy at the San Francisco Cathedral in the Spring of 1899
