The main characteristic of water is flow and when water flows, it is difficult to stop it. Even the biggest dams that people build can seem weak to stop it. In the Old Testament, in the Book of Genesis, what “flood” means is most vividly seen. However, water has another characteristic, its unifying power. Seas, lakes and rivers unite places, allow passage, carry knowledge and goods, contribute to creation, progress and unity. Let us also remember the Book of Genesis, where the Spirit of God “came upon the waters” (Gen 1:2) and became the beginning of the creation of the world. Epiphany marks the time of the sanctification of all things, human and creature, by the grace of the unifying Spirit. Experiencing this truth, we, the Orthodox of the Congo-Brazzaville neophyte Church, headed a few days ago to the banks of the Congo River to participate in the blessing of creation. We went to the waters of the river, which on that day was mentally our Jordan River, in which we were all spiritually rebaptized and saw Christ, the True Light that illuminates and sanctifies every person who comes into the world. The “Congo River King”, in the expression of the locals, becomes the biblical Jordan River, which comes all the way to the African equator, as water does not discriminate, to irrigate this Orthodox community jealously. So this is how the Illustrious God fuses and strengthens His Church!
We left the Church of the Resurrection of the Lord, in the capital of the country, having received the Body and Blood of Christ the Saviour, to go in procession to the banks of the second largest river in the world. The litanies of the Orthodox have a confessional, but also a teaching character, all the more so for us here in Congo-Brazzaville, since the period we are living in – from the time when the local Orthodox Church was founded until today – could be called “Apostolic”! After all, it is only thirty-two years since then. We are thus experiencing our own early Christian century in 2017, and we are symbolically in our own “32 A.D.”, with all that this means in practice… This is the glory of the Church: Christ and His light-bearing children, who tirelessly confess Jesus Christ as Saviour and Redeemer! Here, our litanies differ from those of our blessed homeland, since there is no official religion. Here, our litany passes among our fellow citizens who either practice traditional religious practices, engage in witchcraft, belong to some other Christian denomination, or experience the chaos of some sect (personified “religious” group with a Christian veneer) wounded just as deeply by prejudice. The Epiphany litany is a collective expression of the Truth of the Triune God in a society enslaved to superstition and inequality, in a society where opportunities are absent, in a society where the human person most often loses its value.
We threw the Holy Cross into the waters of the Congo River, into the waters of our own Jordan. We see both in the Congo River and in the Jordan River how creation takes life from the waters and how they travel at the same time. “What great God is like our God? Thou art the God who is wonderfully alone”, we sang on our return to the Cathedral of the capital. Christ promised us that he would not leave us orphans. We see this in the procession of the Epiphany, which grows every year and our brothers and sisters – “fellow passengers” – become more and more numerous. Our brothers and sisters are looking for the Light! Lord, continue to give us Your Light by flooding with the impetus of the Holy Spirit both the souls of the natives, so that they may experience Your heavenly blessings, and of our Orthodox Greek brothers and sisters, so that they may not forget in the whirlwinds of life the offer of practical love for these African souls who have just tasted the redemptive power of their personal “Jordan River”!
† Brazzaville Panteleimon
