Let us rejoice, brothers and sisters, in the joy of God. Let us praise our Creator and let us give thanks and gratitude for the wondrous things that we see taking place around us every day… The spread of Orthodoxy to the ends of the earth from the time of St. Paul the Apostle to the present day is a great miracle. But the erection of the Holy Church of Saints Cosmas and Damian in the Malayan land is also a miracle. In fact, it is one of the many miracles that take place every day. It is God’s answer to the chronic and unceasing prayers of our indigenous brothers and sisters. For five long years they have been begging like crazy to have a temple. For five years, under the guidance of the native priest Sophronius, they gathered in the thatched hut they had built to hold their meetings and found a way out of the dead-end problems of their painful lives. With toil and pain, under adverse conditions, scorching heat or threatening rain, mud and mould, which did not stop them from their goal. At last, gratitude pervades all of us, indigenous and non-indigenous, for the pious donor from Greece, who through the Brotherhood of Orthodox Foreign Missionaries took on the financial burden of the construction of the Holy Church. Thanks to the generosity of the donor, the Temple is large and spacious, 350 square meters, to accommodate many, and yet strong and stable, to withstand the passage of time.
By the grace of God, in this project, as long as it took to start, so quickly did the work progress once it began. Work began five months ago and God willing, the Temple will be ready in a month. The grace and gratitude of the indigenous parishioners of the Holy Church of Saints Cosmas and Damian is great and their prayers for the donor will continue forever, since in every Divine Liturgy celebrated in the Church, prayers for the builders always have a special place, as they do in every Holy Church. It will be a prayerful task for the near future, next to the newly erected Church, to find a donor who will take on the financial burden of building the presbytery, that is, the small house for the Orthodox priest. Thus, the priest, together with his family living next to each church, becomes the guardian, the caretaker and guardian of the property of the Orthodox Church. Let us all rejoice in the pure joy of the parishioners in the newly established parish of Saints Cosmas and Damian in Malawi. Brethren, let us also participate, humbly and secretly, simply and with our own little prayer, in the consolidation and consolidation of our Orthodoxy in this small piece of land in far-off Malawi.
π. Hermolaus Iatrou
