Dear Brother Mr.Daoudakis, President of the Brotherhood, dear brothers in Christ of the Board of Directors and you, all members of the Brotherhood, The years are passing and it is a vital issue whether we leave our footprints in them and whether the Lord will recognize these footprints. For eternal is only His memory, inasmuch as it is beyond time and space. Our memory is limited, imprisoned by time. But we need to have a good memory, and we know that the Lord is pleased for us if we leave memories that “see” Him. We, the departed, are blessed if we are blessed to be able to speak of things and persons who have been in our lives and have sealed us with the morality they taught us, the piety they showed us, and the charity with which they surrounded both those of us who were near and those whom the sacred writer calls “those who are in darkness and shadow.” But is this not the condensation of the Gospel message, life and love in Christ?
This year marks fifty years since the late Pantelis Bayas, Panagiotis Papadimitrakopoulos and you yourself, together with some friends of the Mission and with the spiritual guidance of the blessed Fr. Chrysostomos Papasardopoulos, founded the Brotherhood which later, in accordance with the demands of the times, took the name of the Orthodox Foreign Mission.
I had the good fortune to meet and apprentice with Panagiotis Papadimitrakopoulos as a young student at the Theological School about twenty years ago. I admired his love for my country and our people and learned a lot about missionary ministry. His ethos, his missionary zeal and his kindness became life lessons for me.
We, the Ugandans, are grateful to your Brotherhood, because it was you who first supported the Church in Uganda and since then you have stood by us with great understanding, with admirable patience and with every sacrifice, a humble helper and protector. Today, as Bishop of the Patriarchate of Alexandria in Burundi and Rwanda, I thank you for your offer, love and discretion towards the whole missionary effort of our Church. It has been a rich and blessed fifty years of ministry of the Fraternity. To you, the younger generation, we wish you to honor and enrich what you have received. May the memory of the persons and lives of those who worked here inspire us all. Please, may you wish and pray that I, too, may deservedly respond to the ministry entrusted to me by His Beatitude Theodore II and continue the work received from those who preceded me in my diocese. May Christ, victor of death, Himself Resurrection and Life, be granted to my people, who have so recently suffered from death and barbarism. May we always be His good servants. In Christ’s grace,
† Burundi & Rwanda Innocentius
