For exactly two years now, with the grace of God and the blessings of the Pope and Patriarch of Alexandria and All Africa, Theodore II, I have been ministering in the martyrdom of the Diocese of Burundi and Rwanda, which is only a few years old. I will therefore abuse your patience to make a brief account of the stewardship of your love during these two years of my ministry. After all, you need to know where your money is going, what goals we have achieved, where we have missed, and what we are planning for the future… I believe that holding me accountable in some way is a necessary and honorable action.
As you all know, Burundi and Rwanda emerged a short time ago from a fratricidal war that ended in genocide – in 100 days 1,000,000 people were slaughtered, including the souls of innocent children – which marked the last decade of the 20th century and proved that man for man is a wolf. The museums commemorating the war in Rwanda are irrefutable witnesses, where one wonders to what extremes hatred, bigotry, conflicting interests and personal ambitions can lead. These are the people we interrupt and try to comfort, console and uplift. The war ended, like all wars, where it began: with peace. And we have already started from the same place. The needs are many, spiritual and material. The physical wounds have been healed, but there are the unseen ones, the wounds and traumas of the soul, which take great effort to erase. Our efforts are to make them feel that they are human, to help them live.
In Burundi, about 40 kilometres northeast of Buzubura, there is a vibrant Christian community of war refugees, clustered around the Church of St. Alexius and the Twelve Apostles. Deprived of the necessities, the people show an unparalleled will to survive. Last summer, we ordained the headmaster of the community’s school as a priest and thus provided a solution to the problem of the priest. A problem also intractable for the moment is the teacher. In the five classrooms of the elementary school, there are literally 700 children crammed into the five classrooms. There is an urgent need to add at least four classrooms, but these buildings in both Burundi and Rwanda are very expensive, because everything is imported and therefore the cost is compounded by transport costs from neighbouring countries. As for secondary schooling, things are equally disappointing. The nearest secondary school is 10 kilometres away, a distance that the few children attending it have to walk. On foot, too, patients walk to the nearest health station, for example, and on foot , young pupils, before setting off for school, walk 5 kilometres to fetch water home – it is their duty to do so – from the nearest borehole.
Both in Burundi and in Rwanda – in Rwanda more so – they embraced Orthodoxy with great love. In trying to explain why, and without claiming infallibility, I came to the conclusion that this is due to the fact that our Mission is relatively new, in the sense that it started operating after the war, so we are, in a way, indestructible. Each of our outreaches is an event of special significance to them, so the welcome they give us is touching. They are simple-minded people, most of them without any appreciable education – and this is only natural, since the war was a catalyst for the development of their lives – and for all their simplicity, their questions about the teachings of our Church, its mysteries, holy persons and religious traditions are anything but simple. I would also like to refer to the role of the State, in relation to the functioning of the Orthodox Church and beyond. Missions operate under the watchful eye of the state, which even intervenes in the choice of the building in which we are housed. Under the Constitution of the country, we are obliged to submit to the creeds of our Orthodox faith, the doctrinal truths of the Gospel as well as the statutes of operation. If approved, we are granted a temporary license for one year, which is extended indefinitely. In August of this year, we expect to receive it, for we have work to present. In particular, we have opened eight communities in Rwanda, we have made four ordinations of priests and we have sent six young Rwandans to the “Blessed III” Theological Seminary in Nairobi, Kenya, to be ordained after graduation. After catechesis, we have baptized about six hundred Rwandans and there are many more waiting to be baptized. It should be noted that all the rites are performed in the open air, since we lack temples. Also, the State attaches great importance to social policy, so it works closely with us to carry it out.
In general, the same applies in both countries, with the following difference: In Burundi, the government gives us free land, provided we build schools, temples, health stations. In fact, they have already given us two plots of land and we are trying to get the titles and find donors to promote the projects. On the contrary, in Rwanda everything is sold at high prices. In order not to inconvenience you further, to sum up, I will remind you that we do not have a diocese, places for confession, catechesis and hospitality for friends-volunteers who visit us from time to time. Some projects are still pending, mainly due to lack of funds and also due to some legal obstacles which, we believe, will be overcome. A particular problem is our travel both within each country and from one country to another. The car was damaged in a road accident. There are not a few times when we stay on the road and go to our pastoral visits by public transport, which is not at all frequent and we lose precious time.
In conclusion, I appeal to your love and to your philanthropic feelings, which have proven to be your hallmark: Pray for us, be our companions, help us to teach the creatures of God whom we have been ministering to, for two years now, to recognize the miracles, that is, the essence of life, to teach them that life is a gift from God to us and that the way they live their life is their gift to God. So let us all make this gift wonderful…
† Burundi & Rwanda Innocentius
