By His grace and blessing since I have been in Fiji for about a month and a half, everything has changed for the better. The necessary improvements have been made to the chapel of Agia Paraskevi, the beautiful wooden iconostasis with the wonderful Holy Icons sent from Aspropyrgos has been installed and the sweet voice of the bell was heard for the first time during the celebration of six new Baptisms, a wedding and the Divine Liturgy that followed on Sunday morning the day before yesterday, Saturday. An excited Adventist pastor who came to witness the Baptism of his brother’s children declared his desire to become a member of our true and holy Church with his family and his more than twenty followers.
“What shall we render unto the Lord for all things…?” We praise, bless and give thanks to Him.
All simple and unpretentious here in Vanua Levi, Fiji. In the airport and port, in the dress and general manners of the inhabitants, who like in Viti-Lewu are half indigenous Fijians and the other half Fijians of Indian origin, mostly pagan Hindus. Here in Vanau-Lewu, it was no accident that I and my companions found ourselves here. Our ten-day visit, to the second largest island in Fiji, has a missionary character and purpose. And here dwell thousands of people with immortal souls, to whom, as to so many millions of inhabitants of the earth, the words of the Lord apply, “Go ye therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you” (Mt 28,19) That is why our satisfaction and joy has been great, with the acquaintance of the first inhabitant of this island, who gladly accepts to become Orthodox with his whole family and then to be the first Orthodox Priest on this great island. As in the case of the Apostle Philip with the Ethiopian, which we read in the eighth chapter of Acts, the Holy Spirit said to him, “Be careful and cleave to this chariot” (Prax. 8:29), so in the case of our dear Hindu pagan Shri, an inward impulse made me tell him to go a little outside the office where he worked, and where we had met, and to talk to him about our Lord Jesus Christ, the image of Whom he saw in the Encyclical I wore, and about our Holy Orthodox Church, the first and true Church of Christ. Since then we have met again and talked again on every occasion.
But what literally shocked us was the invitation Sree extended to us to go to his house the next day to meet his wife and children and to have us at their table, as well as the willingness of his mother to travel three hours by bus to come to her son’s house and help her daughter-in-law prepare the food. We arrived there at about seven in the evening; Sri greeted us by making the sign of the Holy Cross, and was followed by his wife and three children and his mother. The faces of all of them were radiant with sincere joy and heartfelt cordiality. Their simple traditional food was offered to us with much love and willingness, and they all stood respectfully at the beginning and end of the meal, attentively and reverently listening to the words of prayer. On entering the interior of the house, to give God’s blessing, we were surprised and delighted to see that the Icons of Our Lord and Our Lady, which we had given at our first meeting to Mr.Sree, sign that he and all his family have made up their minds to join Christ and His true Church, and are awaiting the day of their baptism, having already tasted the first mystical joys of Divine Grace in their simple and unfeigned souls. Hinduism for them is now a thing of the past of uncertainty. Their joining the Church of Christ is their sure conviction that henceforth they will belong to the bright kingdom of true life and joy in Christ. The father after his baptism wants to be ordained a priest. We will send his eldest son, who is eighteen years old, to the male monastery of Archangel Michael in Rhodes for the same educational reasons. Another pleasant taste we have had at Vanau-Levos is our acquaintance with the Lebanese-American Orthodox Christian, Mr. Michael, who lives with his wife and their only child, having their cot as their permanent home, and going from there to their work out in the harbor in a rowboat. He did not know how to express his joy at seeing us, for he now knows that there is an Orthodox clergyman there who could baptize his child. Nothing is accidental. Everywhere the invisible but living presence of the true God opens ways and points out ways for all those who believe and seek Him, even if unconsciously, to come to Him… Let us therefore thank Him, once again, for these new tastes of His abundant and divine blessings and divine benefits.
†O New Zealand Amphilochios
