Historical Background

   Anastasios Yannoulatos was born November 4, 1929 to a pious Orthodox family in Greece. Raised in the faith, he actively participated in the church during his formative years. His first  interest was in mathematics and throughout his teenage years Yannoulatos considered pursuing a career in this science. His views changed with the coming of World War II. During the war years, Yannoulatos began to experience his faith in a very personal way. He witnessed much suffering and disaster from the war and could only make sense of the chaos by delving deeper into his faith. For the world and for his own country to recover from the evil of both the Second World War, as well as the ensuing Greek Civil War, Yannoulatos understood the urgent need for a message of  eternal peace, the peace that comes only through Jesus Christ.
   This experience led Yannoulatos to abandon his interest in other disciplines and to pursue  theology. So fervent was his desire that he has said, “It was not enough for me to give something to God, I had to be given totally to Him. I wanted to live with my whole being in Christ”. Thus, in 1947, he entered the Theological School of the University of Athens. He graduated with highest honors in 1951.
   Following two years of service in the Army, Yannoulatos joined the brotherhood of “ZOE,” a religious organization focused on the spiritual renewal of the church in Greece. Yannoulatos’s personal responsibilities included missions to the youth of his country. He became the leader of  student movements and teenage camps and strove to make the Orthodox faith real and concrete to  his young charges. Through these experiences, Yannoulatos discovered the impact such outreach programs had on the church at large. He realized that without such missionary outreach the church  loses its focus and ultimately diminishes.
    During these years, Yannoulatos also participated in an international Orthodox youth movement called Syndesmos. He served as its general secretary during 1958-61, and then as vice-president in 1964-78. Here he met other young leaders with a similar zeal for proclaiming the gospel. Together they began to realize how Christ could never be satisfied with proclaiming the gospel simply within the church. His original command was to go to “all nations”. Thus missions  are not merely internal, but external as well. The Great Commission of the past is a great responsibility for the present. Yannoulatos wrote at the time: “Church without mission is a contradiction in terms… If the Church is indifferent to the apostolic work with which she has been entrusted, she denies herself, contradicts herself and her essence, and is a traitor in the warfare in which she is engaged. A static Church which lacks vision  and a constant endeavor to proclaim the Gospel to the oikoumene could hardly be recognized as  the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church to whom the Lord entrusted the continuation of His Work.”