I came in the evening to the beloved town of Sakaraha in Toulear. I came, even though yesterday the fever and exhaustion from my illness, which has been going on for two months now, left no room for my calculations and decisions. 2 months confined to the house I begged God to claim me to have Christmas with the people I love. Yesterday I struggled with the calculation on the one hand not to leave the house because of the risk of sudden deterioration of health, and on the other hand with the sadness and pain in my heart for our people. Merry Christmas 2016! Under two mango trees, which were turned into a roof to protect us from the morning dewdrops. Together with the people of our new parish. Under the blessed sky, which today takes the place of the dome, for the All Saints to touch and observe and listen to the prayer of their children. Christ is born, praise be! The antimension is spread out on the table. This table was specially made to replace the altar and to hold on its perishable wooden legs the Incorruptible and Eternal. To give His light today to the city of Sakaraha. To preach through our quiet and peaceful prayer through the Peace of the Eucharistic Prayer the great event. Christ is born. How different indeed is this natural, divine Serenity from the fake and false Serenity of this world! Yes, under our trees. Under the trees of our earth today…
Heaven opens and Christ is born! In this beautiful and so well-bonded harmony of the natural and human worldly element with the divine and supramundane. This uniqueness no other denomination can offer and see. No other doctrine succeeds in seeing the glory of God in the peace of the material world or, conversely, the peace of the material world in the glory of God. For simply nowhere else is the Peace of our God experienced except through our Orthodoxy. The people who framed this liturgy until yesterday were the ones who objected and interrupted the process of buying this plot of land for at least a month, but in which we now pray together. I do not want to mention the reasons for this behaviour. But what I do know is that they are now indoctrinated, they call the writer “our priest”, while the church which we hope soon to build on this wonderful site, they like to call it “our church”.
So yes, I hope that near these magnificent mango trees there will soon be a magnificent temple. The Holy Church of the Ascension of the Lord, a loving offering of the Brotherhood of Orthodox Foreign Missionary Fraternity from a donation by an anonymous donor. The work as I write is only a matter of days to begin. And the dream is becoming a reality. By the grace and goodness of the Most High God. When our Temple is finally finished, I hope and pray that it will be full of human souls who will count Your glory, Christ, in the glory of Your Temple. But never, ever, will they forget the presence of those magnificent trees, the mangoes, which I hope will also remain standing with the Temple.
And when I am old, with perhaps teary eyes, I will see our first Temple here with you, my brother people, I will also be proud to consider these wonderful mangoes – the first real Temple in our city of Sakaraha. I will forever remember with you the first services under the heavenly firmament of the Creator, and I will monologue that wonderful Gospel passage: “but not the most high dwelleth in temples of the highest, as the prophet saith, Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool.”
π. Polycarp Agiannanitis
Sakaraha-Toulear
