One of the most essential and most difficult achievements of missionary activity is the transmission and transmission of the sacred texts and the daily prayer practice of the Church, in a language that is understandable and comprehensible to the evangelized or constantly upgrading evangelical peoples. Language was and is the vehicle through which knowledge, faith and love for the Creator and Redeemer God can be planted in the heart of man, called by the Holy Spirit to become a “new creation”. And it is the constant practice of the Orthodox Apostolic Church to address peoples living outside of Christ and to invite them to the living and saving faith, taking in and utilizing the verbal forms and generally the linguistic background of these peoples.
In this effort the Church is faced with a multitude of challenges, dilemmas and, often, deadlocks. The majority of them, poor, descriptive languages, unable to convey richness and depth of meaning and lacking variety of expression, are called upon to become carriers of the message of salvation and theosis in Christ Jesus. Therein lies above all the struggle and anxiety of every missionary opening: How can the unsurpassed richness of ecclesial experience be made the possession, ethos and life ethos of the children of God “in a far country and in a strange way”, without losing or betraying the essential features of this experience? Indeed, if we focus our attention on the space and time of the African continent, we will find, with pain and acute concern, that, alongside the darkness caused by the profusion of languages, which are in any case tragically poor in expression, there is another dead end: the superficial or non-existent relationship of Africans with books of all kinds.
So how is the believing and baptized Christian in Africa to be initiated into the wonderful mysteries of Divine Revelation when he has no books in his language, or even if he does, he does not read them? If the only opportunity for him to take a book in his hands and read from it is at the time of divine worship, then precisely the Church should help him to do so. By offering him the devotional texts and readings translated into the language he understands, it motivates and supports him in entering into the atmosphere of God’s will. Countries with great natural wealth but at the same time extremely poor. Not in the sense that the world gives to poverty, but in the ontological and spiritual sense. Places with hidden “treasures” in their bowels, but mourning in Truth and awareness. There the Church is called to bend reverently and with patience and perseverance to create favorable conditions for sowing her own precious and priceless treasure in the barren and uncultivated vast continent, to fertilize it and make it capable of producing fruit for eternity.
It is precisely here that the Brotherhood of Orthodox Foreign Mission in Thessaloniki comes, for the umpteenth time, to be present and to support dynamically the work of the deacons of the Gospel, financing and making an elusive dream come true: “Masomo ya mitume”, the publication of the Apostolic Announcements for each day of the church year, in the Tanzanian language, Swahili, according to the order of the Orthodox devotional tradition. So that every day a new Apostolic Diamond may enrich the hearts and spirits of those who dwell in the land of diamonds. Every day, a spiritual seed may fall to the earth, until one day the Spirit will transform it into a great tree, with strong branches, lush foliage and fruitful fruits, offering refreshment, rest and nourishment to many “toiling and burdened”. Amen.
† Muanzas Hieronymos
