Patriarchal blessings and blessings for our 50 years

“Let us not love in vain, nor in a tongue, but in work and in truth” (1 John 3:18)

The Church, as the mystery of the communion of God and man, is impossible to define; it is not presented in doctrinal formulations and explanations. The Church, with the work, passion and glory of Christ as its foundation, regenerates man spiritually and offers him the participation of God by grace. In this reorientation of human existence within the Church, the central role played by the mission is that of witness and ministry, the call of the Gentiles to sow and bear “fruit that will last” (Jn 15,16). It is a responsibility to gather and build up in the body of the Church the children of God and a responsibility to lead them in faith. However, “faith, if it has no works, is dead in itself” (Jn 2,17). And faith is made alive only if it is “acted out of love” (Gal. 5,6), and love “not of accidental love, but of love that binds us together, and that has no fear of others” (I Chrysostom, Memorandum to the Epistle to the Ephesians 11,1 PG 62,79).

It is precisely this indissoluble coexistence of faith and works of love for those in need that is the cornerstone of the ministry of the Patriarchate of Alexandria and All Africa in the area of its spiritual jurisdiction, from the Mediterranean Sea in the north to the Cape of Good Hope in the south, from the Horn of Eritrea in the east to Cape Verde in the west. And if a single concept must be found to describe this marriage of faith and love in our missionary cells throughout Africa, then there is no more appropriate than that of humanity.

Since I remember myself ministering to the spiritual georgio of Africa, I recall the solidarity of the Brotherhood of Orthodox Foreign Mission towards the struggle of the Church of Alexandria to meet the man of Africa, to share with him the demands of life, to give answers to his existential questions. But even today, when, with God, I have shouldered the ecclesiastical helm of the Church of Alexandria, the Brotherhood of Orthodox Foreign Missions continues to share the challenge of the sacred mission to make the nations of Africa co-heirs and participants in the promise of God “in Christ through the gospel” (Eph. 3, 2-6).

Through its periodical publication, it understands in practice that a necessary condition of the resolute call of the peoples of Africa to share the joyful news of the Gospel through word, work, prayer and worship, the daily witness of Christian life, is to make the devout flock of the Motherland a partaker of the titanic work of renewing the souls of the African brothers and sisters in the nourishment of the native Orthodoxy and of strengthening their relationship with God through their incorporation into the evergreen tradition of our Church. Through the periodical publication of the Brotherhood of Orthodox Foreign Mission, thousands of anonymous and anonymous people are sensitized and rallied to our struggle, who either voluntarily offer invaluable services to our missionary homes, or assist from the surplus or the scraps of their loving hearts in order to meet the necessary material needs of the mission. Together they all come together as fellow companions in a process of early Christian dynamism in the recruitment and transformation of newly arrived Africans to the faith and the experiential deposit in the reservoir of their hearts of the gold and silver of the true gifts of faith for their ontological fulfilment. Thus, in the spiritual hothouse of Orthodox Africa, types of “believers in faith, in conversion, in love, in spirit, in faith” (1 Tim 4:12) are emerging.

The Brotherhood of the Orthodox Foreign Mission, which shared our struggles and anxieties, shared our hopes and visions, went along with us and generously assisted us, we honour today on the occasion of the completion of fifty years of presence and action in Christ. We extend to it our paternal blessings and our patriarchal blessings, reaffirming our mutual commitment to make every possible effort, each from our own ramparts, to form the New Creation in Christ. A blessing from God

†The Pope and Patriarch of Alexandria and All Africa
THEODORE II

In the Great City
of Alexandria
on the 6th of November 2013