The year 2012 was dedicated by our Metropolis to the fortieth anniversary of the departure of the late Fr Chrysostomos Papasarantopoulos, the first missionary of Congo and spiritual founder of the Brotherhood of Orthodox Foreign Mission. Thus, with the embassies of Fr. Chrysostomos, this year began with a special blessing for the Theological School of the capital Kinshasa, to the reconstruction of which you also made a significant contribution. The fruits of its five years of service are now beginning to ripen. Marriages and ordinations of our students have begun. Three of our students were married and five of our students entered the priesthood. Five students, now priests, were ordained into the clergy of our diocese. Five new priests ready to minister in difficult remote areas of the jungle. Areas that for many years have been served occasionally by itinerant priests. They will leave at the end of the academic year, in mid-July, for areas far from Kinshasa, where, to get there, one travels by riverboat for 40 and 50 days along the Congo River, passing through virgin forests.
They will go to the provincial towns of Dekese, Sabo, Luebo in the heart of Congo, in the Saguzu River region, where an anonymous donor is building a clinic to relieve the natives through your Fraternity. The joy of our students is great, but the joy of our faithful is greater. The excitement and celebration that was set up when they were informed of the ordinations touches us. “We now have a priest and a theologian at that” they said, dancing and singing for hours. Our orthodox catechumens will now be able to be baptized, our faithful will be able to liturgize and receive communion, participate in the sacraments, be buried with a priest. But the cries from other parts of the diocese are growing:
“We want a priest too.”
Our ordained students are preparing for their priestly and pastoral ministry.
At the same time, our lay students are preparing for their work in the church as priests, catechists, teachers, lecturers, and staff in the work of the diocese. We hope that the operation of this School, which has brought so much good, can continue despite the adversity.
The Centrist African Nikephoros
