Daniel was offered the position of charismatic youth spiritual advisor in a different area from where he lived in Java island, namely in the island of Sulawesi, by the newly installed Governor Willy Lasut of Manado, North Sulawesi Province, Indonesia. Governor Willy was an active Charismatic Christian and had met Daniel in a prayer meeting in Jakarta. In 1978, with the help of the governor, Daniel went to visit the largest Full Gospel Central Church in the world in order to learn how to start a prayer mountain in Manado following the pattern that existed in Korea.
During this visit Daniel met an American Baptist Missionary, Dr. Marlin Nelson of Seattle, Washington who led Daniel to study in an evangelical Protestant theological seminary, the “Asian Center for Theological Studies and Mission” (ACTS, which is an affiliate of Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, CA, USA) in Seoul, Korea. Dr Samuel Hugh Moffets from Princeton, NJ, a famous Asian Church Historian was its director. Daniel received a full scholarship to attend.
Meanwhile because of some political intrigues due to his religious activities, governor Willy Lasut was fired from his job and retired as the governor of Manado, giving Daniel little reason to return to Indonesia until he finished his academic work. Daniel plunged into his studies and continued on his original quest to find ancient expression of Christianity. At the start of 1983 and nearing graduation, Daniel found: The Orthodox Church by Timothy (Kallistos) Ware in a downtown Seoul bookstore. The book gave him a glimpse of the Eastern Church he had been seeking. After asking several people the exact location of the Orthodox Church in Korea, Daniel met the priest, and later made frequent visits to this Church. He borrowed Orthodox books from the Church library educating himself in Eastern Orthodoxy. Once he understood the teaching and theological tenets of the Orthodox faith, he decided that this was the Church he had been looking for.
Reasons for Becoming an Orthodox Christian
Politically, the Orthodox Church at least in Indonesia has never become the tool of colonialism. Culturally, there are many points of similarity between Orthodox practices and Islamic ones: the usage of prayer beads, the invocation of the Divine Name (the “Jesus Prayer” in Orthodoxy, the “Dzikir” in Islam), the prostrations in prayer, the fasting rituals, feasts, the hours of prayer, the orientation in prayer (Orthodoxy to the East, Islam –in Indonesia- to the West the direction of the Ka’bah in Mecca, the holiest shrine in Islam), etc.
The idea of “theosis” seemed to Daniel to be the answer for the Javanese yearning for “Manunggaling Kawulo lan Gusti” (the union between the servant/creature and the master/ creator) and that the Javanese Mystical Belief ’s teaching on the “Sangkan Paraning Dumadi” (“The Origin and Destination of Creatures”) has its answer in Christ as the Origin of everything that exists, because He is the Logos through whom God created everything (John 1:1-3).
Historically, the Orthodox Church has an unbroken continuity from the Apostolic time continuing through modern times without interruption. Orthodoxy does not recognize Reformation or counter-Reformation having nothing to reform or counter-reform preserving unchanging the apostolic teachings through the ages. This fact provided confidence to the young Daniel that the purity of the apostolic doctrines were kept, lived out and proclaimed by the Orthodox Church.
In the mind of young Daniel, these points of similarity between Orthodoxy and Indonesian culture would help greatly in his mission work in Indonesia, infusing the Gospel with a fresh start and approach. He believed that this was God’s answer to prayer. He had found ancient Eastern Christianity and a way to bring the Gospel within the context of the Indonesian cultural milieu. Daniel was joyful and elated at this discovery.
