Orthodox Mission #29

#29 • SEPTEMBER 2019

ORTHODOX MISSION QUARTERLY PUBLICATION OF THE ORTHODOX MISSIONARY FRATERNITY

orthodox mission

Founded in 1963 Honored by the Patriarchate of Alexandria July-September 2019 / Issue #29

Editor: Nostis Psarras

Ss. Missionaries Cyril and Methodius

Περιεχόμενα Τεύχους 04 06 10 14 17 19 21 24 26 31 34 38 42 45

Pacific Islands Ghana Congo Brazzaville Congo (DRC) - Kinshasa Congo (DRC) - Kananga Kenya - Nairobi Madagascar - Toliara Missionary Pastorate Tanzania - Arusha Uganda - Gulu Priest in Jamaica Visit to Madagascar Bishop Nectarios Kellis Fr. Chrysostomos Papasarantopoulos

You can give your love for the Orthodox Missions abroad via Paypal at paypal.me/ierapostoles by check or by deposit in our bank account:

ALPHA BANK • ΙΒΑΝ: GR93 0140 4050 4050 0200 2000 170 • BIC: CRBAGRAA Other bank accounts: omf.gr/ways-give/ An ofiicial receipt for your donation will be issued and mailed to you.

Authors are responsible for their own articles.

Owner:

Orthodox Missionary Fraternity 6, Mackenzie King st., Hagia Sophia sq.

546 22 Thessaloniki, Greece 2310 279910, fax. 2310 279902

https://orthodoxmission.org.gr communications @orthodoxmission.org.gr Registered Charitable Association Spiritual founder:  Fr. Chrysostomos Papasarantopoulos (1903-1972) Founding president:  Pantelis Bayas Great Benefactor:  Panagiotis Papademetracopoulos Honorary president: Patriarch Theodore II of Alexandria and all Africa

Board of Directors Charalampos Metallidis President Nostis Psarras Vice president Angeliki Arnaouti Secretary General Dimitrios Sotirkos Τreasurer Constantinos Metallidis Secretary Asst Zenobios Iatrou Treasurer Asst Evangelia Traikoudi Member Aikaterini Alexandrou Member

Prodromos Kalaitzidis Member

License

Distributed under Creative Commons BY-SA 4.0 license.

Similarly licensed works of the following authors were used in the respective pages:

4 Pierra Lesage 6 Stig Nygaard 14 Ray in Manila 17 David Minty 31 Marco Vech 34 Ricardo Mangual 35 Grassroots Groundswell 37 Starkej 44 Rod Waddington 46 Franck Vervial

To the Virgin Mary - Mother of God Forgiveness

The All-Holy Word of God ranks you first among all people.

No one can travel as far as To reach the heavenly halos -Holy borders of your All-Holiness on your high throne.

Here, we, the unworthy wayfarers, Lightless in dark lands of thinking Cultivate audacious presumption, Sowing seeds of pride in the spirit.

Every day we come across flags of power Fluttering on the barren hills of arrogance.

Shame does not accompany The moldy swamp of our sins, ’Cause it goes hand in hand with self-centeredness.

On the path of life, let us mentally bend down low To ant height; A constant course to humility, A lasting breath towards the spiritual breeze.

Maybe someday we will be made worthy to behold A glimpse of God-bearing light From the unique, radiant crystal Of your theometorical soul.

Let the sincere tears of forgiveness Roll like rivers over the Virgin Mary’s all-pure feet.

Nostis Psarras 3

PACIFIC ISLANDS

Greetings from Fiji islands

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Dear friends of the Mission, By grace of our Lord, we came to Greece on July 5th in the company of three children from the orphanage of the Holy Archdiocese of New Zealand in Fiji, namely Moses, Basil and Gabriel, so that they can study in the Patmiot Ecclesiastical School, in order to learn the Greek language and the Holy Scriptures and maybe become the first Fijian indigenous educated priests, if God wills.

The Holy Archdiocese of New Zealand carries on the significant missionary initiatives started in Fiji, Tonga and Samora by His Eminence bishop Amphilochios of Ganos and Chora, while he was the Archbishop of New Zealand.

Our Orthodox faith is accepted by the local community with zeal and our cooperation with the authorities is very good.

The newly illumined members of our Orthodox Church zealously attend the holy services, the catechism lessons and the church activities, while new catechumens want to get baptized, get wedded and partake the Holy Communion and the other sacraments celebrated in our churches.

The work that has already been done is very important, but the needs are constantly increasing. Five of our priests minister to the Mission, but there is need for more. Five holy churches have been constructed, while three more are under

construction.

Finally, the most important activity in our Mission is Saint Tabitha’s Orphanage in Fiji. There we offer our love and care to thirty children, orphan and indigent, from infancy to adolescence.

We plan to build a school for the education of our children and a local medical unit for their health care. Generally, the need for nursing the orphans in the region is great and the number of our orphange’s beneficiaries is expected to raise in the upcoming years. Our Archdiocese will need more means in order to deliver and help them.

Your contribution in our

missionary work, however small and negligible you may consider it to be, gives a great push to our endeavors for the evangelization of our new brothers in Christ and supports the melioration of their life conditions. The field is fertile and even the smallest cultivative care bears a lot of fruits.

We invite you to taste the joy of giving and participatin in the missionary work of our Holy Archdiocese and we request you to contribute, either through your physical participation and volunteering for the Mission for as long as you can, or through your distant financial support. † Myron of New Zealand

With our orphans in Fiji

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GHANA

Annual Clergy Seminar By the Grace of God and the blessings of His Beatitude Theodoros II, Pope and Patriarch of Alexandria and All Africa, the annual Clergy Seminar was held once again at the Holy Metropolis of Accra.

Our priests from the countries included in our Metropolis, mainly from Ghana and Ivory Coast, had the opportunity to come into contact for a week, from 22 to 29 July 2019, and in the context of the discussions, to provide solutions to issues that concern primarily the liturgical life and by extension, the social and humanitarian structures of the activities our Holy Metropolis engages in.

The Seminar was held at the St. Peter’s School in Larteh, Ghana.

Main speakers were Greek-American

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Protopresbyter Fr. Paul Giannakos and his American wife, presbytera Michelle.

The main topic of the seminar was parish ministry. Through the theological knowledge of the speakers and their experience in matters of parish organization, our priests were simply and practically informed of how they can raise the spiritual level of their Parish and how they can benefit the faithful through their discreet life and proper conduct.

Particular emphasis was given to the need and the moral responsibility we have for evangelizing people, as well as to the realization that what we take for granted in the Western world is not at all granted in the countries we are called to minister

in. And even though they accept our missionary presence, each country has its own peculiarities. Only under the spirit of peace can we offer our services. The Orthodox word should not be against the traditions of each place, but have an interactive and tolerant nature. Neither should there be zealotry or fanaticism in a place where peace is tried and plagued by contradictions and violence, but there should be a conciliatory spirit which will minimize - if not eliminate differences by avoiding conflict.

The Metropolis of Accra comprises four West African countries (Ghana, Ivory Coast, Mali, Burkina Faso). In some of them it is impossible to have a missionary

division. However, where we sadly think that there is spiritual darkness, we can discern a potential spark which can only be rekindled by prayer and God’s intervention, thus resulting in the miracle of faith.

How many African countries have come to know the Triune God? In how many countries has the Gospel of Christ been heard? How many countries immersed in the darkness of atheism, with the preaching of Missionaries encountered the truth of God and found themselves in the never setting and eternal, uncreated light, united with the Body of Christ?

This miracle is happening in Africa.

It is very easy to provide material goods meant to improve life here, but

HE Bishop Narcissus giving out food

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the main concern of all missionaries is the spiritual cultivation of the souls of men.

The priests of our Holy Metropolis are worthy of all praise.

They fight and struggle for every single soul. They pray and bless each and every believer. They settle in their field of ministry and sow the Word of God. They provide spiritual supplies and material support to every needy and suffering fellow human being. They are characterized by faith and dignity.

They create exemplary families.

They work for their living away from any kind of delight that can be scandalizing. They teach through their word and behavior. And all these happen because they have a liturgical life. They have sacramental

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and eucharistic experiences, which shape their way of life, that is, their deepest conscience. This is how they heal everyone who approaches them.

The parish is a haven for every neophyte and every believer. The priest is the one who will carry out all the activities of the parish, as directed by the bishop. It is he who will staff every domain with the right people who have the experience and ability to handle spiritual and liturgical ministry, from altar boys to priests and catechists. It is he who will highlight the role of Orthodoxy through the social structures of the parish, providing all that is necessary for education, health care, housing, and feeding the needy. It is he who will deal with the traditions

by creating and activating various local bodies and associations. It is he who will most zealously make the parish a Lighthouse that will lighten the place and bear witness to Christ and Orthodoxy.

All of us who serve God and minister to man know very well that it is only through prayer that we can accomplish the great work of the Evangelization of the Nations, as humble followers of the great Apostles and Missionaries, pleading: «Jesus Christ our Lord and God, stretch forth Thy hand and bless these lands which Thy right hand hath planted, making them an earthly Paradise, and those living there, Thy potential saints.

Protect and strengthen our

Prelate Theodore II, Pope and Patriarch of Alexandria and All Africa, so that he directs and guides us all in the path of Thy commandments and Heavenly Kingdom.

As for us, Thy unworthy servants whom Thou made Bishops, Elders, and Deacons, grant us strength, patience, wisdom, and prudence so that we can carry out our ministry, sowing seeds of heavenly peace into the hearts of those believing in Thy Name.

O Lord, Strengthen, Guide and Protect Thy faithful brothers and sisters from every evil influence and intention, so that we can all glorify Thy Most Holy Name unto the ages.

Amen». † Narcissus of Accra 9

CONGO BRAZZAVILLE

Pentecost in the Land of Pygmies «...Αnd when He divided the tongues of fire, He called all men into unity; and with one accord we glorify the All‐holy Spirit.» This hymn sounds like a sweet caress that brings back childhood memories, somewhere in our homeland, in the small picturesque chapel or in the beauteous parish church, but always in the One Church of Christ, the Church of great sacrifices and major wonders. Ode to the Holy Spirit! The feast of Pentecost is a celebration of the unity of the Church.

Following in the footsteps of the Apostles we left our homeland Greece, a blessed country bathed in the Grace of the Comforter, and we came to the other end of the world. We speak to you from afar,

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our voice an early Christian one, the voice of a recently founded Church.

We bow down before our blessed brother compatriots, who still speak the language of the ancient philosophers and the Holy Fathers, the people who received the Holy Enlightenment and accepted the Apostolic preaching from the very beginning. The fellow-elect Church of Congo-Brazzaville knows where to address, even if her voice comes from afar.

«We celebrate Pentecost and the coming of the Spirit, the appointed time of the promise and the fulfilment of hope ...» It is this great celebration of the Church’s manifestation to the world that we decided to co-celebrate with our

brothers who live far away from modern technological culture, the Orthodox Bantu from the city of Impfondo, and those of the tiny forest-dwelling Pygmies who have been baptized Orthodox. We arrived in the administrative district of Likwala, the poorest and most distant district of Congo-Brazzaville in the north of the country, bordering with Gabon, the Central African Republic and the former Zaire.

We walked a land that does not look like the blessed land of Greece, but which thirsts for the Grace of God! It is there that our unworthy hands laid the foundation stone for the first orthodox church in 2013, and four years later, despite the raging and persistent battle of the

malevolent devil, by the Grace of the Holy Spirit we were made worthy to inaugurate it. In this Church of Sts. Nicholas and John the Forerunner we performed the Mystery of the Holy Eucharist and the Vespers of Genuflexion, kneeling and rendering prayers and supplication to the Triune God on the great day of Pentecost. And according to the kontakion of the Feast, all together, Bantus, Pygmies and Greeks, speakers as well as bearers of different languages and cultures, “were called into unity”, to «glorify the All-holy Spirit with one accord».

This accord, this harmony of faith, grace and enlightenment, presupposes agreement on practicing love. Therefore, on the

Kneeling Vespers on Pentecost

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afternoon of the same bright day of Pentecost we could not but walk to the settlement of our Pygmy brothers, in the equatorial tropical forest of Africa.

Carefully traversing the rainforest with the dense vegetation, we reached the first houses: mud brick, supported by bamboo frame, with cane doors and palm thatch roofs. We were warmly welcomed by the oldest man of the tribe, who bowed respectfully and devoutly kissed the Bishop’s hand. This was a sign of respect and recognition of the tribe’s spiritual father, the Bishop. All the people were friendly and smiling and were carefully listening to the simple words about Pentecost. They opened their eyes wide on hearing that the Holy

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Spirit embraces, bestows grace, illuminates and protects every human being with a loving heart and a living faith! Indeed, what a striking contrast with their own spirits, the spirits of the forest, which, when challenged, spread punishment and death and demand bloody propitiation!

Next, they talked about the problems they face in their daily routines and accepted with great joy the little but valuable to them gifts that we offered them. Salt for preserving game meat, matches for lighting a fire, soap for personal hygiene, toothbrushes and toothpaste, antipyretic and analgesic drugs, candy for the children, who reveled in the unexpected gift!

Pentecost in the land of Pygmies.

Στο χωριό των Ορθόδοξων Πυγμαίων

We walked a land where demonic temptations are lurking to grab and devour immortal human souls, tarnish the divine breath instilled in them and drag them into the dark paths of Hades through sorcery, sacrifices, idols and abominable ceremonies. It is in such spiritually “stormy waters” that the Pentecostal tongues of the Holy Spirit spread the Light, «the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world «, gave strength and support, consolation and hope.

Currently, there are fifteen new Pygmy catechumens periodically taught the Orthodox faith by Fr. Timothy, waiting to be baptized.

The catechetical sessions are taking place in the forest, in a special hut used as the «Chapel» of the tribe.

«Αnd when He divided the tongues of fire, He called all men into unity”. It is this unity that we ask you to support, beloved brothers, and pray that the Lord and Creator of the Church consolidates the missionary struggle initiated by heroic Greek clergymen before us and continued by us, as our Holy Church mandates.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, become the bridges so that the Holy Spirit can also blow in the most inaccessible parts of this edge of the equator; so that our brothers here can chant in the local dialects of Lingala, Munukutumba or Pygmy, “We have found the true faith; We worship the undivided Trinity; For the same hath saved us.” Amen! † Panteleimon of Brazzaville and Gabon 13

CONGO (DRC) - Kinshasa

Doctors from Greece to Congo In the morning you see a child playing joyfully with other children, and in the evening you find out that the same child has died of a high fever. Many times poor indigenous people have no money to go to the doctor or buy the medication required to save their children, and they end up losing them. Other times we hear that somebody sold everything he owned in order to save his sick child or wife. Malaria is a major plague in the region, which kills many people; the tragic irony is that if it is early diagnosed, it can be treated with the right medications.

Poor indigenous Congolese people are constantly resorting to

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the court of the Holy Metropolis asking for financial help to see a doctor or buy medicine. The Metropolitan, with the little money he has from the charitable people who send him, is trying to do everything in his power to help.

In order to be able to deal with this situation more effectively, our Church started with the help of donors, the construction of a small hospital, a health care center, in Mont Ngafula, a poor commune of Kinshasa. It was named ÂŤOur Lady of Sumela - Saint PanteleimonÂť.

With hard work and a lot of effort the first floor has been completed; what is still missing is

the interior doors, which need to be constructed and fitted, and then its furnishings, fixtures and medical equipment. The Medical Center includes various departments, such as Outpatient Emergency, Obstetrics, Microbiology and Haematology, Ophthalmology, Dentistry, Ultrasound, and also patient ward rooms.

A praiseworthy effort was made by a Greek medical team this year, which came to Kinshasa on May 19, and stayed for a fortnight.

The team consisted of Mr. Nikolaos Constantinides, Neurosurgeon, Ms. Athena Pyrpasopoulos, GP-ID Specialist, Ms. Dionyssia Filaditakis, Psychiatrist, Ms. Maria Malogiannis, Technologist-Microbiologist and

Ms. Vassilikil Pangou, nurse. This team was joined by Mr. Prokopis Sangua, Doctor and Director at Kolwezi Hospital, which is run by the Holy Metropolis of Katanga.

Examination rooms were soon set up and the health care center started operating. As there were no doors, bed sheets were used instead. A large number of poor natives turned out, they were all examined and received medication free of charge. Here is a typical case of a father who had his child in his arms and was sitting outside his house very sad. The Metropolitan car was out for a job far away from the health care center. There the driver noticed both the father and the child, and asked the father:

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— “Why are you so sad?”

— “I have no money to take my child to the doctor”, he answered.

— Don’t you know that the health care center which the Orthodox Church is building has doctors who have come from Greece and examine people and provide medicine free of charge? Go there right now.

He took his child and went there. Indeed, the doctors examined it, gave it medication, and the child was saved. The smile came back to the poor father’s face.

The team of doctors visited the parishes of St. Barbara, the Holy Archangels, the Disabled, as well as the School of Theology,

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and practiced medicine there. They examined about a thousand natives and with the help of the Metropolis, they offered them free medicine.

The health care center was visited and blessed by His Beatitude the Pope and Patriarch of Alexandria and All Africa Theodoros II during his recent pastoral journey to the Congo in February this year.

He conducted the inaugural rite of Blessing and prayed for its completion and smooth operation.

Let us all pray that the money required for its completion will soon be found. If this happens, the poor natives will feel so relieved! † Nikiphoros of Kinshasa

Our Orthodox Medical Center in Kinshasa

CONGO (DRC) - Kananga

As Many of You as Have Been Baptized into Christ...

By the Grace of God, one hundred and ten people have been incorporated into our Holy Orthodox Church. Before converting to Orthodoxy, they belonged either to other Christian denominations or to traditional African religions of Kananga, Congo.

On Holy Saturday morning, the hymn» As many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ», sounded all over Kananga.

The Mission Baptistery was flooded with catechumens from Kananga as well as people who had arrived from distant villages, all dressed in white robes. Our heroic sisters from the Christian charities of Greece under the spiritual supervision of the «SOTIR» (Savior) Brotherhood

of Theologians duly prepared those who were to be baptized. Everything was ready, and the Bishop, Priests and Deacons, wearing their liturgical vestments, began the Holy Mystery. All the catechumens «with one mind and one voice» renounced Satan, and with their hands raised they joined Christ, accepting Him wholeheartedly as their only God and Savior.

During the Holy Mystery, I was looking at their happy faces, so full of reverence and devoutness while waiting to get into the baptismal font, knowing it was there they could destroy the old man and be spiritually reborn. Everything was done “decently and in order’, according to St. Paul the Apostle.

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With deep faith and a strong craving for the One and True God, people of all ages, young and old, came to the baptistery to put away the old sinful man and emerge from the holy water bright, shiny and regenerated. I saw mothers bring to the baptistery sick infants, almost newborn babies, for fear of the latter leaving this life without having received the Holy Mystery. Little children gladly got into the baptistery to receive Holy Illumination. Even elderly people, convinced that truth lies in Orthodoxy, after an adequate catechism abandoned their old beliefs, accepted Christ and eagerly decided to put on the white robe and be baptized.

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The hymn “asmany of you as have been baptized into Christ, have put on Christ� was sung by all the newly illumined of Kananga, who, with their hands joined entered the old St. Andrew Church to receive Holy Communion, the flesh and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. The heavens rejoiced that day, angels and saints and along with them the late holy elders Metropolitan Ignatius of Pentapolis, Fr. Chrysostomos Papasarantopoulos and Fr. Chariton Pnevmatikakis. The holy relics of the last two, hosted at the cemetery of Kananga, cast their blessings on our Kanangan brothers. †Theodosius of Kananga

Baptism by HE bishop Theodosius of Kananga

KENYA - Nairobi

Crowding for a Milk Serving Dear friends of the Mission, Like every week and throughout the year, I travel a lot, going on pastoral journeys from the one end of Kenya to the other. Besides the divine liturgies, which are conducted without fail in proper or makeshift churches, we visit our orphanages and of course, all our schools, Kindergartens as well as Primary and Middle Schools.

These days, due to the Memorial Saturday and the feasts of Pentecost and of the Holy Spirit, I performed three divine liturgies in different regions. Our main focus though lies on our orphanages, which host unprotected young

children. Naturally, these little angels are happier now since the Orthodox Church here in Kenya, under very difficult circumstances, has undertaken the difficult task of supporting and giving hope to the children who are deprived of their parents and have no other protection in order to survive. In the more distant schools, where poverty is soaring, we do our best to provide them with a serving of milk, which is all our slender means can afford.

We do this simple act of love to give some joy to these innocent souls, as they feel relieved and their hunger is somewhat diminished.

Our experiences regarding this 19

sad and, naturally, unacceptable but very real fact seem to be out of this world ... The image of little children crowding and waiting in long queues for a simple serving of powdered milk is so shocking! We live in the 21st century and perhaps many of us are under the impression that there are no hungry people today, particularly young children, which is by no means true.

These poor creatures expect us to offer them the minimum we have to help them survive. Providing them with this milk serving is one of our main priorities, since it is necessary for their survival, and we will do our best to continue supplying it by any means. However, considering our

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inadequate financial resources, how much is it humanly possible for us to do, how many people are we able to support, how many children are we able to save from hunger?

We therefore need strengthening and support from warm-hearted people who love and strive for the survival of these innocent human beings. We see these little angels very day. We are proud of them and hope that we will not lose them. With this bare minimum that we can provide to them, we believe we will manage to save them. Come along with us, support us, and help ensure that these little children will not sleep hungry... †Makarios of Nairobi

A glass of water for our pupils

MADAGASCAR - Toliara

Southern Madagascar sends out an SOS signal Everytime I listen the objection “But is this what the Mission stands for? Charities?” –and it is not rare–, I fee like something cracks inside me, something like what we vaguely call “the conscience”, which we, monks, willingly put to martyrdom. It is actually an act of martyrdom not to respond hotly to this question.

Not to go into arraying photos of emaciated kids or offer listings of diseases that for us have been a distant name from the interwar period, usually shining like badges in our vaccination records.

When I get this question, therefore, I answer: “No! This is

not what the Mission stands for, our work is the Divine Liturgy and getting as many people around the world as possible to share in it.” But, how do we perceive the world-saving incident of the Divine Liturgy? As a magical action, as a rapture into a different dimension, as a candescent Holy Table fringed by cyclopean walls impregnable by the reality of the world. For it would be only through such a perspective that we could cut off the fact of the Church from the fact of life. Only through such an understanding of a creaseless mission in the form of a sterile preaching can we 21

make the Divine Liturgy a magical act, through which on “through the prayers…” every problem is automatically solved. Only such a misapprehension of the real admission in the timeless of the Kingdom of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit converts it into something other-worldly, where the uncreated energies of God act in the geographical space between the Holy Table and the already shut doors.

For me, the Divine Liturgy is the great grafting; grafting this world onto the Truth of God, the testimony of the eternal present of the Kingdom in the fluid present of starvation and death that trembles before future, the

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truly candescent Holy Table, the beacon of the endless desert, the life-giving grave, the stanchion for the tired unworthy hands and the surface usually dampened by tear of despair. For me, the Divine Liturgy does not end with “through the prayers…”; rather then starts its real extension, the tributary of the lifegiving river of the Precious Body and the Precious Blood that ask us to do the obvious: to serve this foreigner as the One who serves us all, to glorify the Creator of the World through the ulcerated body of the leper, the blurry sight of the senior, the unrestrained bleeding of the mother betrayed by its body on birth.

To this Divine Liturgy, to this

The Chancellor Fr. Polycarpos distributing clean water

real sacrament, to this practical and unwritten gospel, I invite you to become Cyrenaeans, coming to the aid of a region where pain is eveyday life. Providing the antidoron of a medicine that is necessary for our clinic, where your love gives to more than 60 people daily the privilege of health. Supporting the efforts for the restoration of buildings, churches and dwellings in places tormented by wild typhoons every year, leaving hecatombs of dead people behind. Offering a glass of water in regions where mud puddles appear to be the only way of survival. Where the call for help

is more imperative than ever due to the extensive drought whose solution is a never-never land for the locals who make no more than 1,5 euros a day, when the cost of a drilling may reach 10,000 euros, since the groundwater reserves lie only in depths of more 300 meters.

In other words, I invite you to raise the cross of our brother for a little while, to let him breathe, dampen their lips, rest and then to walk along them till the end‌ With drops of sweat, we strive to plant hope in this barren land. †Prodromos of Toliara 23

Mission Pastorate Solemn liturgy / Mystery of purifying sanctification Peaceful coexistence / wings of angelic escort Risky course / unstoppable bravery Blooming Hope / spiritual fruits of joy Patriarchal blessing / peoples’ overflowing joy Oasis of Affection / amiable heart nest Dignified presence / sunny steps of life Drum beat welcome / Circle dance of Africans Closeness to the faithful / brothers’ emotional embrace Light-bearing soul / trampled humble grass Missionary struggle / tireless kneeling prayer Pure spirit / undefiled source of light Enthronement calendar date / October 9, 2004 Shepherd of Africa / heavens runner of tribes Conciliatory spirit / faith-illuminated knowledge Tracker of love / sweaty work of kindness Magnanimous speech / bright stalactites of intellect Sleepless time / travelled reverie Newly illumined Christians / fermented sun faith Gentle touch / fragrant breeze flower Painful night / children without another sunrise Bittered rose bay / without rose water of dawn Native history / shameless slave whipping Worthy pastorate / a divine road to eternity!

Nostis Psarras

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TANZANIA - Arusha

Is anyone here a doctor?

It was after the Blessing Service that we conducted for the new borehole drilled in Sasha Mambo village just outside the National Park of Ruaha when we were approached by the village President, who was holding a piece of paper.

We are used to the whole ritual since every time after a charitable activity of our church, we have the impulsive expressions of earnest gratitude of the simple-hearted indigenous people. This time, though, such expressions ended abruptly and what followed was requests ... The village President was reading from a paper, ÂŤThank you for the borehole , which people and animals were in so much need of (and he showed us the tracks of elephants that in a desperate

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attempt to find water, went out of the safari zone in search of water, and unwittingly trampled upon the corn fields of the poor inhabitants who were waiting patiently for so many months to reap the fruits of their toil and feed themselves).

Nevertheless, in our village we are in great need of a Medical Clinic.

Lots of mothers die in labor for lack of a doctor or a nurse, he continued this sad enumeration of their deficiencies, since due to complete lack of medicines and nursing staff, the number of orphaned from birth children in our village alone, amounts to twenty ... So please, bring a Clinic to our village.

When after a few months, I mentioned this incident to some spiritual brothers in the Metropolis

of Kalamaria, Thessaloniki, His Eminence Metropolitan Justin of Kalamaria, with whom we shared the same missionary interest since we were University students, approached me along with charismatic Elder Fr. Savas Kenanidis from the St. Nicholas parish of Aretsou, and promised me that they would undertake the erection of the Clinic at our Mission Center in Kindamali, Iringa. And their promise was fulfilled, and our Clinic was completed, and in May His Beatitude our Patriarch performed the inauguration service!

And then came you, my beloved brothers, and with your noble heart you provided us with both material

and moral support as always, and you gave us joy and hope with your promise to undertake the operational costs of our Clinic, which come to ₏2,000 monthly, as in its daily operation it will be serving hundreds of people, regardless of religion, and at the same time employing two doctors, two nurses and two doctor’s assistants.

Therefore, with this humble article I would like to congratulate and thank your blessed Fraternity, but also to urge all the readers of your magazine as well as the members of the Orthodox Missionary Fraternity of Thessaloniki to continue supporting our efforts to provide better medical healthcare services

Soup kitchen for our students

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to our brothers here in Central Tanzania, where our fellow humans are in desperate need of your help.

In our new polyclinic, we would very much appreciate the valuable services of volunteer physicians from Greece and elsewhere. They are most welcome to come here and help. Also it is imperative that information by qualified staff should be given to the indigenous people as regards the diseases plaguing the region and ways of prevention, because these diseases are not caused only because of poverty, but mainly due to people’s ignorance of infectious diseases and the way they are transmitted.

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We thank you wholeheartedly for your love, and ask for your prayers and support. Despite the economic hardship that plagues our country, we know that your merciful hearts are always with us and your brotherly presence supports our missionary steps in Central Tanzania. Offering help to our needy brothers, wherever they are, is a great thing to do. May our loving Lord grant you his infinite blessings and illuminate and guide our lives to God-pleasing acts.

With deep gratitude and love in Christ †Agathonikos of Arusha

The Feast of Saint Paisios in Arusha My Dear Brothers in Christ, I would like to contact you in order to share with all of you the great blessings of God we have experienced in the blessed field of Mission in Central Tanzania.

Last May we welcomed to our Diocese His Beatitude Pope and Patriarch of Alexandria and All Africa Theodoros II with feelings of great enthusiasm and joy. As part of his pastoral visit, the Patriarch laid the foundation stone of a new church in Masenge, a village in the Dabanga region, Southern Tanzania, in honor of the Holy Elder and Godbearing Father Paisios the Athonite and of our Holy Father St. Luke the Physician of Symferopol. This church, which is situated within a lush green forest at an altitude of

2,000 meters, is the fruit of your own love for the progress of the missionary work here, since all the expenses for its construction were covered by blessed members of your Fraternity.

On July 12, at the church under construction, the first Hierarchical Divine Liturgy was held on the day our Church commemorates the memory of Holy Elder Paisios. It was at the crack of dawn that we left our Mission Center in Kindamali, Iringa, in order to arrive at the unfinished church early enough to make the necessary preparations for the Divine Liturgy. Despite the adverse weather conditions and the low temperature ( 3 degrees Celsius due to the winter season), the faithful came to the Divine

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Liturgy to honor the Holy Elder and cast their personal material as well as spiritual problems upon him.

What gave us great joy though, was the attendance at the Liturgy by a teacher from the adjacent school along with his students. By the Grace of God, we are planning to drill a borehole in the school yard for the needs of the school children.

During the Divine Liturgy, when the sun rays were penetrating the dark clouds and warming the atmosphere, I thought to myself that the same thing happens in our relationship with Christ. When we are close to Him, our heart is

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warmed, when we walk on paths away from Him, it becomes cold and we are spiritually frigid. May our Lord, through the intercessions of Holy Elder Paisios the Athonite, come and warm our hearts so that we all work together for the salvation of our souls and the redemption of mankind. And then ... As Saint Paisios used to say, «The merciful Father listens to His diligent children and grants their requests!» Amen!

With sincere gratitude and paternal wishes † Agathonikos of Arusha

Faithful at the Saint Paisios church construction site

UGANDA - Gulu

Our Dreams for the Future Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, Greetings in the Lord from faraway Uganda and the Diocese of Gulu and Eastern Uganda.

With the help of God and the blessings of His Beatitude, we strive to establish a Coordination Center in the newly established Diocese of Gulu of Eastern and Northern Uganda, so that the work of Mission will have all the means and facilities required to rest the souls of people who thirst to learn the truth, long for the message of the Gospel and the Testimony of Orthodoxy.

The Episcopal Council has already been set up to coordinate and prioritize the projects that need to be implemented depending on the

needs of each region.

At the priestly gathering which took place on July 18, every priest presented the needs and problems of their own parish. Our struggle is very big and the road ahead long and difficult. Parishes should be better organized and new churches should be built to meet the needs of believers and catechists. As for the existing churches, where present, they should be repaired and smartened. There is also an urgent need for sacred vessels, holy vestments as well as Catechetical aids, from a simple small icon to books that will educate our priests and the faithful.

Naturally, the work is not limited to worship but also to social 31

structures which will alleviate people’s pain. The project of renovating the St. Laurentius Medical Clinic, the only one in the region, will provide medical care to the inhabitants and improve their access to treatment. This Medical Clinic is in urgent need of new equipment, but due to the cost, there is some delay in its implementation.

Moreover, it is imperative that we build schools in every parish so that our children do not have to travel long distances under difficult conditions, which for many people is the reason why they remain illiterate.

Our region is so poor that we do everything in our power to provide food and clothing to those who

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knock on the door of our Diocese.

That is why one of our main concerns and priorities is to buy some land in the fertile Parongo region of Northern Uganda, where land prices are still low, so that we can create a center where we are thinking of raising livestock and cultivating the land. This way, we believe we will be able to afford the operational expenses.

Furthermore, the need for drilling for drinking water is high.

Costs vary depending on the terrain and depth, but it is ironic that for a few thousand euro, human lives are lost as they are forced to drink contaminated surface water.

As the Bishop of this newly established Diocese, besides the diffi-

culties I am confronted with when getting around due to lack of a car, I have found myself in difficult situations, having to deal with human pain, poverty and ignorance. Day and night I turn my eyes to Heaven and ask for God’s help. At times of despair, though, a miracle happens.

A donation coming from you, the friends of Mission, gives us some relief and the courage to go on. For such kind gestures, we thank you wholeheartedly and remember you in the sacred services as fellow missionaries.

Until we are able to stand on our own feet, we accept any and all help. And rest assured that nothing goes to waste. Everything is wisely managed with the fear of God and abundant love for the fellow human

beings who will seek help.

In this newly established Diocese, I strive along with my Priests to keep our parishes alive with the slender means at our disposal.

We do not lose hope though. Our primary concern and desire is to preach the Gospel of Christ, cultivate the garden of every soul, and comfort everyone who comes to us.

In this great undertaking, we all feel the need to thank His Beatitude Pope and Patriarch of Alexandria and All Africa Theodore II, who is vigilant in tending the flock of God and prays for us all. He is rightly called the Patriarch of love and sacrifice, to the glory of the Triune God. †Silvestros of Gulu 33

Greek Orthodox Priest in Jamaica On July 16, 2019, with the blessings of His Eminence Metropolitan Athenagoras of Mexico and Central America, I left the USA on secondment from the Metropolis of New Jersey, and at my own expense, I landed in Jamaica to explore the possibility of establishing and developing the Orthodox Mission in this country under the regular ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the Metropolis of Mexico, which falls under the direct jurisdiction of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople.

My purpose here is to be permanently appointed as parish priest at St. Timothy’s first Orthodox parish in the capital city of Kingston while at the same time serving in other smaller cities, ministering to the needs of the Orthodox Christians 34

there, and also spread the Orthodox faith throughout the island.

Jamaica is an island of 11,000 square kilometers, that is, slightly larger than Crete, lying in the North Caribbean Sea, south of Cuba, with a population of 3 million people.

The vast majority comes from African slaves. It is an English-speaking country which gained independence from Great Britain in 1962.

The climate is tropical: very hot, very humid, and the environment is characterized by very dense vegetation, like a continuous jungle with many tropical trees. It is generally in a better state than Africa and many other poor countries, but it is also very expensive/the cost of living is extremely high, with prices ranging from twice as much to five as much

as in Greece, while salaries are lower. That is why the majority of the underprivileged live very poorly without being able to have access to most goods and services. However, there is no such problem as famine because there are fruit trees everywhere and one can simply reach out their hand and eat some food, even if that is limited to fruit. Most Jamaicans are religious, and there are all sorts of confessions. The predominant one though is the Protestant, due to the strong influence of the USA on them. The Orthodox Church not only does not exist, but it is completely unknown. The only “Orthodox” Church they know is the Ethiopian «Orthodox» Church,

which was made popular by the famous Jamaican Reggae musician Bob Marley, who was converted to it. Finally, here is where the religious movement of Rastafari originated and developed.

There are currently 2 tiny Orthodox communities, exclusively comprised of converted Jamaicans, one in the capital Kingston on the island’s south coast, and one in the north seaside town of Runaway Bay, numbering 9 adults and 5 children in total. They discovered Orthodoxy on their own by searching the web, and have been baptized since 2015. They know very little but are interested in learning. There are also a few people coming from

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Orthodox countries (7 Greeks and a few Slavs, Lebanese, and others).

Until recently, the two Orthodox communities, mainly that of Kingston, were served by two American priests from the US who visited the island for a few days several times a year. In Kingston the faithful have turned a family home into a chapel, where the sacred services are performed with meager means. When there is no priest, they gather on Sundays and conduct the Typika service. The first person to be baptized and the most active of all, Mr. Moses Myers from the northern community, maintains a group of online media friends. As regards myself, I conduct the Divine Litur-

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gy every Sunday and on major feast days, and the Services of Vespers and Matins the rest of the days. I have also started teaching a course on our Faith addressed to Orthodox and non-Orthodox people. In addition, I am trying to teach elementary Byzantine chant in English so as to help improve the liturgical level of chanting. Moreover, I have provided the communities with two tablets with full liturgical as well as chanting material in English.

Besides teaching, I prepare relevant texts, and later I am planning to videotape my lesson and upload it on a site along with other material. On Fridays and Saturdays I I conduct the Divine Liturgy at the

Fr. Socrates with our small community in Kingston

parish community in the north, where I also give classes and pay pastoral home visits. There are also some 20-30 heterodox people scattered throughout the country who are interested in learning about Orthodoxy. Finally, along with fervent prayer to the Lord, I have started the procedure for the official recognition of the Orthodox Church and myself from the State.

Undoubtedly, the Orthodox Church here is missionary by nature. I have almost started from scratch with very few believers,lacking in basic theological knowledge, without a church building, money, ecclesiastical supplies, books, salary or housing (I am currently being accommodated by the family that hosts the chapel). But with the help

of God and the faithful Mission friends around the world, everybody here hopes for the Orthodox Church in this new country not just to exist but to get into the heart of the community and the life of its inhabitants, conveying the true message of the Gospel as only our Church knows and understands it in depth.

My beloved brothers and sisters in Christ, having served in the Orthodox Mission in Sierra Leone for a short time and as a volunteer in Ecuador and Mexico, in Latin America, now, from this post, I am making an earnest appeal to all of you to help me with my work here through the Orthodox Missionary Fraternity, which is based in my hometown Thessaloniki.

Fr. Socrates Dimitriadis 37

Mission in Madagascar As the plane was approaching the airport of Madagascar’s capital, Antananarivo, I was thinking about how much the country had changed since my last visit. Nine years ago, when I came here, there was a lot of poverty, and I remember that every day up to 1,000 children would gather at Alasora Mission Center to get some milk and biscuits ...

Nothing had changed at the airport, but the streets were too busy. It took us five hours to get to Alasora while the last time I came it didn’t take more than an hour!

Thousands of cars, most of which old–technology vehicles, throng the small city streets and can hardly move around ... So you have a better 38 * See photo on the back cover

chance of observing the incredible jobs people do to survive. Some sell food (such as meat, bread, vegetables, fruit) or clothes, shoes, wood… and others sell phone cards and cell phones…

On a downhill road we met a family that was crushing stones into gravel... All its members were working... The grandfather, the grandmother, the son, the daughter-in-law...

The latter, named Tajine, had her baby in a basket next to her... It was just one month old and was sleeping despite the hammerings. One meter away was her four-year-old son Michael.

He also had a hammer and was breaking stones! He was working

as fast as everyone else. He didn’t stop even when a little piece of rock was thrown into his eye ... He didn’t cry at all, he simply pulled it out of his eye and kept hitting the stones with his hammer. I asked how much money they got and they told me that the salary for that job was 3,500 Malagasy Ariary, that is, less than a euro! Michael was not paid ... He just worked there because he had nowhere else to go ... In this beautiful country, with the highest biodiversity on the planet, 40% of the population is illiterate, 50% has no access to a water supply network and only a 15% is connected to a power grid... What luck could Michael possibly have?

His Eminence Metropolitan Ignatius of Madagascar informed us about the situation. Of the 25 million residents of Madagascar, only 25,000 are Orthodox Christians. Of the 110 parish churches, only 75 are built. There are still straw huts operating as churches...

The next day we woke up at 5.30 a.m. because we had to go to a remote village, 150 kilometers away from the capital of Madagascar.

I brushed my teeth with bottled water because the tap water was sometimes yellow and sometimes brown ... At the mission center from 6 in the morning- like every morning- the children had formed

HE bishop Ignatios distributes clothing

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At our Orthodox school a huge queue for milk and biscuits.

Among them were some mothers holding their babies in their arms.

It was raining and besides milk and cookies, the Greek volunteers distributed slippers to barefoot children.

In the street, people in haste carrying various things on their heads were rushing in different directions like ants. Some of them were loaded with woods, tree branches for lighting a fire and cooking, some others were carrying jerry cans of water and others huge pieces of meat from the nearby slaughterhouse ... A thin young man had a half pig vertically cut on his head ‌ Another one had a bunch of a big animal; the blood from the 40

meat was dripping on his body and from afar I saw a man drenched in blood running as if somebody was chasing him ... I asked Fr. Stephen about the animal that meat was coming from and he said that it was a zebu, a buffalo-like animal with a hump.

After crossing the ÂŤbombardedÂť roads of Antananarivo and continuing on a paved road for a while, our car entered a rough dirt road. It took us more than two hours to cover a distance of 35 kilometers.

In Abu Imanana village we were anxiously awaited by the inhabitants. They had gathered in the yard of a house because there was no church. There in the yard we brought the baptismal font, a

large barrel, where 27 people were baptized ... The youngest was 10 months old and the oldest 67 years old. Then followed the weddings... Six couples who had just been baptized, got married. Shortly before we left we distributed second hand clothes from Greece. The joy of the people who took the clothes was indescribable, especially that of the kids who found some toys amongst the clothes.

During our stay in Madagascar, we visited the orphanage, the old people’s home, the polyclinic, as well as churches and schools created and run by the Metropolis of Madagascar with the help of donors. As His Eminence Metropolitan Ignatius told us, after the financial crisis in Greece the donations have been considerably reduced, which forced them into the creation of two farms, where every possible effort is made to sustain missionary activity.

On leaving Madagascar, you feel the eyes of the locals follow you ... Especially the eyes of the children waiting in the queue every morning to get a glass of milk and a few biscuits, I think they will accompany me throughout my life...

Nikos Aslanides Journalist Regular Fraternity Member

Journalist Nikos Aslanides at the Orthodox orphanage 41

Bishop Nectarios Kellis of Madagascar His Righteousness Endureth for Ever Fifteen years! Five thousand four hundred and seventy-five days!

Countless hours, numberless minutes, an ocean of seconds; and yet, all this time, all this measurement with its subdivisions, which is desperately trying to put some order in the chaotic space between events is an act so subjective! The fluid time itself, as the Holy Fathers put it, the dubious space-time continuum of natural scientists, is at its core so human a construct! Without the human subject, without this wise saying ÂŤman is the measure of all thingsÂť, even without this bio42

chemistry of our brains, the intervals between events would range from meaningless to non-existent.

We are the ones who, as perishable creatures, consistently want to measure the periodicity of our deterioration, our falls, we are the ones who perceive everything in flux, and definitely we are the ones who, once we define time, depending on the importance of events, misrepresent it.

And what does this have to do with number 15? It is absolutely relevant. Because this largely insignificant period of time, always

compared to the years that humankind has been on earth, not merely through the subjective perception of time, but through the more objective inter-subjective co-perception and comprehension of events, tends to constitute the beginning of an originative myth, the beginning of a shared national and cultural memory of a highly emotional and at the same time rational collective unconscious. For the people of Madagascar it is both a sad and joyous day; the day on which the first Orthodox Bishop, Fr. Nectarios, through a horrible death goes into the life of eternal bliss. It is the fall of the fatal Chinook, the mysterious death that relates the whole

Patriarchate of Alexandria to the mystery of death, since the second throne of Orthodoxy remains headless and many local Churches lose the paternal concern and love of their Bishops - Shepherds.

Among them is Madagascar.

This country, which was introduced to Orthodoxy by a man of a fiery zeal and nobility, Fr. Nectarios, is merely confined to the mournful hearing of spiritual orphanhood, being deprived of the obvious, the corpse, the tangible proof of death and the consolation of mourning.

The land he so much loved and watered with his own sweat and tears, could neither give him a last embrace, nor be his last earthly abode

Ο μακαριστός επίσκοπος Νεκτάριος με το ποίμνιό του

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while awaiting Resurrection as the deceased Prelate’s venerable body was never found. Nevertheless, despite the fact that there is nothing left of him, a part of his physical presence that could be a starting point for memories, in people’s hearts his spiritual presence is more than real. There are so many villages in the depths of southern Madagascar where men and women would say in broken Greek: «Nectarios - Nectarios»!

There are so many places where the only sign of Orthodoxy is a hut with a rickety cross on the roof, and old people would come and talk to me about Fr. Nectarios, the one who has been physically missing for fifteen years, but whose love is tied to the eternal present.

Fifteen years on, and the humble nun of Toliara, at the time the young indigenous woman who did the unthinkable, she became a nun in a faith entirely foreign to her tradition, confirmed to me the account of Fr. Nectarios request after the heart surgery he had undergone at the Onassis Heart Clinic. He had asked his attending physicians to grant him an irregular discharge so that he could return to his beloved land, to his millions of children, to the 44

little Vineyard of his Lord, which he dug with his bare hands and watered with the spring water of his so full of paternal love words.

I am tested! My conscience is tested for I can barely follow in the footsteps of this Titan of Mission, this man who twenty years ago met me through his pen on the pages of a journal, and set me on fire for his love of the Vineyard, which has not yet been cultivated. Fifteen years, then, and six identical words he chose to repeat while making the sign of the cross at the time of his ordination as Bishop. “Glory to God for all things, glory to God for all things, glory to God ...», the words of St. John Chrysostom on his long journey to exile and the certainty of death. For Fr. Nectarios, too, the daring venture of Madagascar was a voluntary exile and certain death for the salvation of the people who he was appointed to minister to by our Holy Church. And if the words “exile” and “death” sound cruel and unfit for the ministry of a bishop, I repeat them five times making the sign of the cross myself, for it is the phrase «of one’s own volition” that turns martyrdom into the ticket to Paradise. † Prodromos of Toliara

Fr. Chrysostomos Papasarantopoulos’ Contribution to the Mission of Africa

By His Eminence Metropolitan Nikiphoros of Kinshasa - Part C Fr. Chrysostomos was also involved in the field.of translation He translated into Swahili the Divine Liturgy of St John the Chrysostom, the Matins service , the Compline and the Salutations to the Virgin as well as the English version of the Orthodox Catechism by Metropolitan Germanos Polyzoides (Catechism of the Eastern Orthodox Church). He also translated the church calendars of the years 1966-1970 of the H.. M. of Eastern Africa, adding in the end dismissal hymns of Easter and other big feasts..

In 1963, Archim. Athanasios Anthides goes to Uganda close to Fr. Chrysostomos.

He writes in his autobiography: ÂŤ... in

1957, I went to Athens to study Theology.

During the years of my studies, there was an attempt for a mission outreach, and the late Fr. Chrysostomos, immediately after his graduation in 1960, was the first to go to Uganda, Africa, as a missionary.

When I graduated in 1963, I went to Uganda and worked with him for one year.

There I learned a lot of things from him because of the experience he had earned having lived in monasteries and churches since he was fifteen years old. There we established a Seminary, which generated the first fifteen African priests. After one year, he took me to Kenya with him. May his mandate be blessed.

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In Kenya we established a Seminary, from which graduated 29 candidates for the Priesthood. I completed five church buildings, which Fr. Chrysostomos had not managed to finish as he had gone to Zaire (Congo) in order to avoid the “Mission theorizers”, who had come ... . « It was for the same reason that I also went to Zaire , where I established a Seminary of eighteen candidates for the Priesthood, and then moved to Ethiopia.» Ιndeed, after Fr. Chrysostomos’ death in May 1974, Fr. Athanasios moved to Mbujimayi, city of Congo, to continue the work started by Fr. Chrysostomos. It was to this city that Fr. Chrysostomos was going when he was struck by profuse bleeding, which caused his death.

Eastern Africa was the place where his Mission partners and associates came to his help and stayed for short or longer periods of time. Amongst them were Constantine Vassilopoulos, Maria Katsigaraki, Stavritsa Zachariou, Fr. Christophoros, Penelope Katshea, Sister Gabriella, and Fr. Amphilohios Tsoukos. Some others who believed they knew everything about Mission came just for a while. He writes deeply bittered: «All our visitors have offered us precious services and have refreshed a little our hearts and the souls of the members of the Missionary Division of our Metropolis as well as our native Orthodox brothers, wherever they visited them. But on the other hand, after literally bombarding us with brotherly advice, suggestions and remarks, even rebukes for our shortcomings and weaknesses, they simply left, leaving us with the bitterness of 46

both the fast separation and «deprivation of their brotherly support» and our inability to continue supporting the sectors of missionary work they themselves launched.

In 1967 Metropolitan Nikolaos of Irinoupolis was elected Patriarch of Alexandria. Fr. Chrysostomos writes about his enthronement with great joy: «The bright lamp which was upon the low lamp stand of our Metropolis was appointed

by His Divine Grace to the venerable high throne of Mark the Evangelist to let its light shine. We pray and hope in the Lord that in the days of the Archbishop and our Father Pope and Patriarch of Alexandria and All Africa Nikolaos of Irinoupolis, a new period of revival and prosperity rises over this ancient bright apostolic Throne, with the massive influx into Orthodox Christianity of indigenous African people from all over the African continent. The Lord wanted the evangelization of the Africans into Orthodoxy to start from this corner of Eastern Africa, where His Beatitude Patriarch Nikolaos was the first Bishop. « He pins his hopes on the new Metropolitan Nicodemus Galatsatos, with whom they collaborated well in the first place.

Some “mission theorizers” are still creating problems. They say, « We will either make Mission the way it should be, or else we will dissolve it ...». The prelates from the city of Athens show disregard for his work. In grief, Fr. Chrysostomos, writes to the Patriarch, «Your Beatitude, they say that we have done nothing, but we have done something. We have created the right

conditions for those people who have the programs and the necessary capabilities to work. «I am worthless, incapable, unfit for so great a work.” In one of his letters he writes, “I don’t know what has been going on since a certain man came here… The Bishop’s attitude towards me has changed.» This negative atmosphere makes him go to Cairo, Egypt, where he meets with Patriarch Nikolaos. He had been ministering under his direction when the latter was Metropolitan of East Africa and particularly loved and appreciated Fr. Chrysostomos. Their feelings were mutual.

Fr. Chrysostomos writes to one of his spiritual children, «I made a long- distance journey after Holy Easter. I went to Cairo, Egypt, where I presented myself before His Most Divine Beatitude Patriarch Nikolaos.

He accepted me most favorably and with paternal kindness. He immediately appointed me to the H. Metropolis of Central Africa, (where I stayed for the last few months) as a preacher and a traveling spiritual father, but mainly for the work of Mission «.

He arrives in Kolwezi in November 1970, where he begins his missionary activity. Sixteen months later, Metropolitan Kyprianos of Central Africa sent him to Kasenga, where he worked for both expatriate Greeks and natives. Natives from Kananga were informed that an Orthodox missionary was in Kasenga, and they sent delegations there to ask him to go to their place and preach Orthodoxy. They said to him that there were thousands of them thirsting for God and true faith. In his letter of 3rd July 1972 he writes to us: «I

have some information that will make you rejoice. I want all of you, clergy as well as brothers and sisters in Christ, to pray fervently. Delegations of natives from Congo’s inland (I am at the southern end) have come here again and again, asking me to go to their region and preach the word of God, as all of them want to enter Orthodoxy. I presented myself before the aforementioned Metropolitan and took his blessing to go there. I’m planning to travel this August, more than 1,200 miles further.

Bless and pray. « In May 1971 he stops at Kinshasa for five days but the Greeks asked Metropolitan Kyprianos to keep him with them. The Metropolitan sends him there for a month in August 1971, and on 17 September he returns to Kasenga.

Having no one to help with the Mission fills him with sorrow. « Lack of human resourses makes my heart bleed .Yet, a few is better than none”, he wrote in a letter from Kasenga in July 1972. That is the reason why from the very first moment he went down to Africa, he started writing letters asking for help, but pointing out that whoever came down, should have the blessings from the Patriarchate and the Metropolis. «As His Grace Bishop of Naukratis Theodore Nankyama writes, Fr. Chrysostomos supported the institution so that the Mission to East Africa could become international. Anyone who wanted to come down, whether Greek, Russian, Yugoslav or Romanian, would only be accepted if they received permission and blessing from the Patriarchate of Alexandria”.

(To be continued...)

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