Historical review
History of the Fellowship of Free Evangelical Churches in Greece
On 16 February 1891, in Korakiana, Corfu, the first child of the mayor Spyros Metallinos, Kostas, was born. This child was used by God to play an important role in upgrading the spiritual life of Greece by creating the Free Evangelical Church movement.
His father, a mayor, but unremunerated, raised him in great poverty. Kostas Metallinos himself said, "I grew up in an environment of deep poverty". Although he never bought books as a child, due to his family's indigence, he always passed his annual examinations with flying colours, which showed his diligence and high IQ. His natural gifts given by God were later used to create the Fellowship of Free Evangelical Churches.
In 1904 he enrolled in high school in the capital city of Corfu. His father had passed away, but his whole family and especially his uncle Christodoulos, despite his poverty, struggled to educate him. He describes his own psychology at that time, saying he had "an unquenchable thirst for scientific knowledge and all the doctrines and systems concerning man, the world and God in order to find the truth to serve it".
In 1908 he came to Athens and enrolled in the Department of Mathematics at the University of Athens. He quickly embraced the theory of evolution, materialism and unbelief. He was however consumed by a frenzy of hatred for the person of Christ. Influenced by the atheistic ideas of the nineteenth century, he tried to find arguments against Christianity by studying the New Testament. But instead of finding the arguments he was looking for, he met Jesus Christ in person!
Reading the New Testament, his heart broke and with tears in his eyes he said: "Oh, Jesus, I did not know you and that is why I fought you. I thank you because you accepted me too. I promise You that I will be completely Your own and serve You all my life...". That meeting was an earthquake and a milestone in his life. It was similar to the meeting of Saul (later to be known as the Apostle Paul) on the road to Damascus. From then on, K. Metallinos became a warm and sincere preacher of the truth of Christ - a mission, a vision, that lasted until the end of his life. The promise he made in his first prayer was kept by K. Metallinos for 50 years until he departed from this world from the camp of the Fellowship of the Free Evangelical Churches in Sounion at 8 p.m. on Tuesday, January 22, 1963, while he was lecturing to those engaged in the ministry of the word in the Free Evangelical Churches. His grave is in the First Cemetery of Athens.
In early 1911, as a student, K. Metallinos was invited to join a group of students who were studying the Bible. From this company, Vassilis Christofilos, known as “the teacher”, who was a classical scholar and his spiritual advisor, Yannis Dimopoulos and Kostas Kapsalis played a role in his later career and his work. All three were zealous in spiritual matters and were in the bosom of the Orthodox Church. Vassilis Christofilos was expelled from the religious Orthodox association "Anaplasis" because in analyzing the letter to the Romans he taught that memorial services have no place among Christians. The other two, together with Metallinos, were the firstfruits of the Free Evangelical Church of Greece. These gatherings continued in the halls of the Orthodox associations "Anaplasis", "Evangelismos" and elsewhere.
In 1911 he was appointed to the Court of Auditors where he faced the ridicule of his colleagues daily because of his testimony for Christ. He preached his first sermon in the church of St. Demetrius in Plaka. The success of his sermons prompted another priest to invite him to speak at the Church of St. Catherine in Plaka.
In September 1918, they established the congregational prayer meeting in the small group that met at Demopoulos's house. In March 1919 they established "Holy Communion" which in 1921 came to be celebrated every Sunday in accordance with the New Testament. In 1921, the collection plate started to be passed round in the small gathering in order that gospels and clothing might be sent to the Asia Minor front. In 1922 the publishing work was inaugurated. The first book to see the light of day is an extract from F. Godet's most extensive work in translation. In 1925 - 1934 the magazine "Logoi Zois" (Words of Life) is published. Within the first year of circulation, it reached 27,000 copies, distributed free of charge by young people. It received a great and warm reception to the point that the Patriarchate of Constantinople, the Patriarchate of Alexandria and the Theological School of Halki warmly congratulated the authors and requested that the magazine be sent regularly. However, by 1919, K. Metallinos had found that his addresses to the Orthodox Church were probably not having the right effect. He found this out when someone confessed to him that he had become a monk through his sermons! He stopped preaching in the Orthodox Churches and joined his group of friends. They met at the home of Yannis Dimopoulos (later the first minister of the Free Evangelical Church) until 1927. In 1928 the meeting moved to the house of Kostas Metallinos in Orpheus Street and progressed spiritually. In 1931 the Holy Synod forwarded to the Μinistry where K. Metallinos was serving the first official accusations that he was a heretic.
In 1934, Viken, who was a representative of the Baptist Church of Sweden, arranged to meet Metallinos and made him a proposal: "We will build you even in the very centre of Omonia Square the largest church in all the Balkans as long as you agree to put the inscription BAPTIST CHURCH OF SWEDEN high on the parapet of the church". The Swedes had learned that the small congregation had adopted adult baptism in the church rather than that of infants and believed that the group shared their convictions. K. Metallinos rejected the proposal immediately. But the congregation also resolved to reject the proposal of the Swedish brethren of the Baptist Church. It was clear that the newly founded small and poor church was not interested in buildings οr in dependence on others, because it was a genuine Greek movement.
In 1935 the magazine "Logoi Zois" ("Words of Life") ceased to be published and publications for the enlightenment of "intellectuals" and more generally studies of apologetic content began to be published. In 1938 the group was disbanded by the Metaxas government and a church was established under Law 1363. The congregation moved to the spacious hall at 18 Lykourgou Street in the centre of Athens.
In 1941 the Italians raided the hall in Lykourgou Street and the meeting continued in the building of the old Parliament in the form of speeches rather than a church. In 1943, the First Greek Evangelical Church granted the Korgialenios hall of the association for the dissemination of "Beneficial Books" in Akademias and Hippocrates Streets, where the Sunday schools were reopened. At the same time, for several weeks Metallinos gave a series of mid-week talks at the First Greek Evangelical Church of Athens on the subject of Revelation. In 1943 during World War II, the work of the children's camps began in various locations in Attica and continues to this day. In 1943 the four or eight-page "Research and Faith" was published at irregular intervals. On the 2nd April 1944, when the Italians left Greece the fellowship returned to 18D Lykourgou Street and held the "Lord's Supper" after an absence of 2 years and 2 months.
In April 1945, the first issue of the magazine "Salpisma" was published. At the same time Metallinos founded the "Hellenic Bible Institute" and the Bible School for the further education of the workers of the assemblies that had been formed, which, after some intermittent interruptions, is still in operation today. In 1946, because of the Heterodoxy Act of 1938, Metalinos invited other evangelical assemblies, which did not have exactly the same biblical views, to join together. They were the Evangelical Churches of Chania, Patras and Thessalonica. Thus representatives from all the churches came to Athens and created the FELLOWSHIP OF FREE EVANGELICAL CHURCHES. The idea for the name was given by Philip Manolikakis, son of Constantinos, and was enthusiastically accepted. Later they were informed that there are churches with this name in Europe and especially in Germany. In 1949 the "Fellowship of Free Evangelical Churches" along with the general synod of the Greek Evangelical Church created the PAN-HELLENIC UNION OF EVANGELICAL CHURCHES. This cooperation ended when in 1950 the views of Metallinos on the "kenosis of Jesus Christ" became known.
In 1950 Kostas Metallinos visited for the first time evangelical churches abroad and spiritual relationships were forged there. The FFEC became associated with the International Association of Free Evangelical Churches where it remains to this day. In addition to his sermons there, he had confidential conversations with the then director of the Bible School of the Free Evangelical Churches of Germany, Herbert Kviring. Kostas Metallinos's particular theological views were received with admiration. Indeed, they had so much appreciated his Christian activity and above all his personal faith that they confessed that Metallinos’s presence among them was a blessing, a breath of fresh air and grace unknown to them. Whenever he travelled in European countries, he met with a good reception from the local newspapers of the cities he visited, especially in Denmark and Sweden. Yet in Germany he seemed to leave a part of his heart on each visit. This was only natural because he spoke German and therefore his spiritual contact with German Christians was now warm and personal.
In 1950 the magazine "Logoi Zois" ("Words of Life") was republished and is still published today. After 1950 and during the migration stream, Greek Free Evangelical Churches were founded in Australia, America, Canada and Argentina. In 1953 the children's camps were established in a permanent location in Sounion, Attica, under the care of the Pontian Greek-American, Kyriakos Yfantidis. In 1954 the church moved to a privately owned site at 3 Alkiviadou Street. However, spiritual centres had already been created in the suburbs, such as in Lipasmata (since 1922), in N. Ionia (since 1923), in N. Smyrna and elsewhere, served by fellow-workers and students of Metallinos. Thus the "Fellowship of Free Evangelical Churches" was informally organized.
Kostas Metallinos is perhaps the rarest, perhaps the only example of a man who came to know the truth of Christ, not from missionaries, not from other believers, but by studying only the New Testament. The spiritual movement that was created is perhaps one of the few that was not influenced by anything that came before, but was literally created from scratch. Rather, more accurately, they were created by the activity of the Holy Spirit alone. The "Metallinos movement" that quickly began to emerge and grow stronger was completely "indigenous", genuine and exclusively Greek. The reformative changes that had been taking shape in the Christian Church of the West were not known to Metallinos, nor did they influence him when he first started out. Much later, when he became acquainted with them, it was natural that he should enter into friendship and co-operation with those who propounded them.
His vision, zeal and preaching of the Gospel throughout Greece created some 50 congregations that became part of the FELLOWSHIP OF FREE EVANGELICAL CHURCHES. From all the above-mentioned, you can easily conclude that the Free Evangelical Church sprang up through the attempt to reform the Orthodox Church and was formed gradually, acquiring the consciousness of a church based only on the word of God, according to Acts. 2:42 "They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and to prayer". It is certainly a continuation of the attempt to reform the Church in the time of the Isaurian (717 AD) without royal power and enforcement, not a continuation of the Protestant Reformation of the West.
After 1972 Greek Free Evangelical Churches were founded in Germany with the help and support of the "Mission für Sud-Οst-Europa". In 1978 the construction of the "Charis" guesthouse was completed in the area of Sounion and the Spiritual Centre of the Free Evangelical Churches (Evangelical Centre) was created, which hosts both Greek and international conferences to this day. Thus there was the realization of Metallinos's vision of the place becoming an international centre of Evangelism and edification.
After the law 4301/2014, in 2018, seven churches under the name of Free Evangelical Church as well as others with different names joined the Religious Legal Entities and left the "Society of Free Evangelical Churches".
The "Fellowship of Free Evangelical Churches" today has 45 congregations and churches in Greece. These churches, based exclusively on the Bible, have a uniform teaching today as compared to 1946. In 2020, their General Assembly expanded the Faith Chart which essentially constitutes their teaching and belief that coincide with the teaching of the founder of the Free Evangelical Churches, Kostas Metallinos. They maintain their independence within the framework of the Organization and Faith Chart of the Fellowship of Free Evangelical Churches and their legal independence as legal entities vis-à-vis the state. The legal entity association "The Society of Free Evangelical Churches of Greece" manages their legal functions if they wish and can represent them vis-à-vis the state. The legal entity association "ASSOCIATION OF MEMBERS OF FREE EVAΝGELICAL CHURCHES" founded by K. Metallinoς owns most of the properties.
Finally, the "FELLOWSHIP OF FREE EVANGELICAL CHURCHES" is an association of spiritual fellowships of churches of Christ, which operate in Greece and which have expanded abroad. It is based exclusively on the written word of God, the Bible, and is a purely Greek spiritual movement, which the Holy Spirit of God planted in our country. These churches are operated exclusively by indigenous Greeks, without the intervention of foreign missionaries or churches, and their purpose is to bring the clear message of the salvation of Jesus Christ to our country. They do not belong to the- Reformed churches which are based on Calvinism. The writings and opinions of the Fathers of the Orthodox, Catholic as well as the theologians of the Protestant Church are always strictly compared to ensure that they are in accordance with the Bible which the " Fellowship of Free Evangelical Churches" considers to be the only revelation of God to man, and are adopted only if they are identified with it.
The purpose of the "Fellowship of Free Evangelical Churches" is the mutual spiritual edification and advancement of the churches in the truth of Jesus Christ, the confession of Jesus Christ as their personal Saviour, Redeemer and Lord in the world, and the advocacy of Jesus Christ as their personal Saviour, Redeemer and Lord in the world.
i The historical data have been collected from the books 1. Epese o Dynatos (Gerasimos Zervopoulos) 2. The Roots of the Free Evangelical Church (M. Thavoritis) 3. Memories (S. Portinou, C. Fragopoulos) 4. History of the Free Evangelical Churches (An. Kavaka) 5. Salpisma magazine.