The cause of weakness of the Byzantine mission is the Greeks’ eschatological approach to Christianization. In their opinion, the whole world should be baptized from above. Earthly mission was appreciated only as a shadowy reflection of the divine. Greeks remembered well Christ’s prophecy that the Last Judgement would come as soon as the Gospel had been preached in all parts of the world. So, Byzantines felt it as a kind of arrogance to intervene into Heavenly designs. However, it was not the only reason why Byzantine mission was so weak. Byzantium did not understand Christianity without Roman Empire. Consequently, a country, which did not belong to Byzantium politically, remained to some extent «nonchristian» in the eyes of the Greeks. This is why their Christian mission was always a political one. This is why Byzantines invariably imposed on the neophytes all religious duties of imperial subjects. To some extent, it may be argued, Greeks did not even want to convert «barbarians», because there existed some danger that these «savages» will sully the shining beauty of the Orthodoxy. These feelings are obvious from the following example. Theophanes Continuatus, Byzantine chronicler of the 10>thcentury, describes the emperor Leo V converting pagan Bulgarians: «He delivered Christian faith to them, into which they had to convert with our help, and he deserved curse, because he was, by the God’s word, «casting pearls before swine». As we see, «barbarians» are not worthy of Christianity!
Somebody can say that the initial «internationalism» and «democratism» of Christian doctrine suffocated in the iron embrace of the isolationist Empire. Somebody else can put it in a different way: active mission presupposes active attitude towards life and Christian duties; in this sense mission is the invention of the Medieval West, whereas the Orthodox East followed the initial eschatological approach of the Early Church. Whatever explanation is more accurate, it is beyond doubt that missionary zeal, distinguishable in Cyril and Methodius, in Stephen of Sugdaia, in Theognoste and some other enthusiasts, was in Byzantium overcome by cultural snobbery and messianic imperialism. This is why Christian Orthodoxy lost to its spiritual rivals the Nile valley, the Middle East, Moravia, Croatia, Abkhazia, Hungary, Lithuania, Khazaria and, for the short time, even neighboring Bulgaria. Historical consequences of this cultural specifics of Byzantine Christianity are huge and lay beyond the scope of my monograph.