MARATHON, Greece — “There is a habitation,

Built by the living God,

For all of every nation,

Who seek that grand abode.”

About 200 Christians of multiple nationalities — Russian, Ukrainian, Iranian and Israeli, to name a few — sang that verse of unity together, their citizenship on Earth far less important than a shared home in heaven. 

Some attendees drove 45 minutes. Others spent more than a day on planes and buses. 

They gathered in a city known for a particular distance — 26.2 miles. 

That’s how far the legendary messenger Pheidippides ran from here to Athens to announce the defeat of the Persians in the Battle of Marathon in 490 B.C. After the run, he collapsed and died. 

More than 2,500 years later, Christians gathered in Marathon, on the coast of the Aegean Sea, for the sixth Mediterranean Christian Conference sponsored by the Glyfada Church of Christ in Athens. 

Tim Burow, president of Sunset International Bible Institute in Lubbock, Texas, studied the multinational crowd.

“Every tribe and every nation, every tongue and every people, they are the ones that Jesus died for,” Burow said, referencing Revelation 5:9-10. “And what did Jesus make them into? Kings and priests. And they reign upon the Earth. They are not a defeated church.”

He talked about “all of the barriers that seem to exist in our world and might seem to get in the way.”

Christians are a diverse people who speak different languages, he added, and come from different cultures “where sometimes our national governments may not get along with one another.”

“In spite of all those things and in spite of the religious backgrounds that may exist where we come from,” Burow stressed, “when we are in Christ, you and I are one people.

“There is nothing that keeps me from loving you. And there is nothing that keeps you from loving me.”

A multipurpose, multicultural conference

Conference director Dino Roussos has a history of multicultural ministry. 

He is the senior minister of the Glyfada church, which hosts services in five languages — Greek, English, Russian, Farsi and Albanian — every Sunday. 

Some have come to Athens fleeing conflicts in their homelands, Roussos said, but all share in spiritual unity. 

“They want to hear the word of God in their own language and with their own people,” he said. “And that’s what we’re doing.”

The conference is simply one outreach to bring diverse Christians together.

“This conference has many purposes,” Russos said. “The first purpose is to evangelize those who never heard the Gospel of Christ. That’s why we also invited about 50 Ukrainian refugees who recently came to Greece that come to our church. 

“Another great purpose is for preachers and elders and church leaders who are many times isolated in the mission field to come here and find here a spiritual oasis in the desert of their lives and to be strengthened, built up.” 

The last purpose, Roussos said, is to minister to children — some of whom have lost homes to war or persecution.

What the church will be — and what it already is

Tim Yaeger, chief information officer for World Bible School, leads the conference’s children’s ministry. 

About half of the children each year are refugees, he said. The two largest displaced nationalities are Iranian and Ukrainian. 

He and his wife, Katie, take trauma into careful consideration when organizing activities. 

“In their life circumstances, they’re fleeing different types of persecution or war,” Tim Yaeger said. “Some of the kids from Ukraine were near where the bombings were happening.”

“We have to be careful with loud noises,” Katie Yaeger added. “If a balloon pops, they get very jittery.”

But the children’s fraught experiences did not seem to dampen the joy of coloring and crafts. 

Across language barriers and different backgrounds, they made friendships through shared art supplies. 

They saw potential playmates. 

The Yaegers saw Christ’s love. 

“I think it’s a representation of what the church will be like, what the church is,” Katie Yager said. “I love it. We see how Christ has worked in all these different people and all these different cultures.”

‘God is on his throne’

While the children played, the adults gathered upstairs to pray — in between speakers — for the world’s conflicts.

“We pray for salvation,” Burow said. “We pray for protection. We pray for deliverance from the current situation, and we pray for peace within our land. 

“We ask you, O Lord, that you would work through this conference in the hearts and the minds of those who have been displaced from their homes,” he added, “who have seen the tragedy of war and the difficulties of seeing the loss of their homes and family members.”

Afterward, multiple nationalities took turns singing hymns in their native languages before concluding with a shared fellowship song in English. 

Russians and Ukranians exchanged hugs. Iranians shook hands with Americans.  

“No matter what happens in this world, no matter what the barriers may be, God is on his throne,” Burow reminded the attendees. “In the midst of our diversity, God is still on the throne. Even when evil kings and rulers are in power on the Earth, God is on his throne. When wars take place on this Earth, God is on his throne.”

This piece is republished with permission from The Christian Chronicle. 

Audrey Jackson, a 2021 journalism graduate of Harding University in Searcy, Arkansas, is The Christian Chronicle’s managing editor.