On Thursday, June 7, the Ven. Metropolitan George of Guinea, with the blessings and blessings of His Holiness the Pope and Patriarch Theodore II of Alexandria and All Africa, arrived in Guinea via Mauritania. In the following days he met with Guinean Orthodox, Russians and Ukrainians working in Guinea and visited properties to find a suitable site for the construction of a Holy Church in a suburb of the capital city of Conakry. On Sunday 10 June he celebrated the Divine Liturgy in the home of a Greek-American woman. On Monday, His Eminence visited the “Greek Square”, as the natives called it, inspected the progress of the construction of the St. Parthenius Church and the Academy of “Friendship between Greece and Guinea” and gave the necessary instructions for the immediate completion of the works. The Brotherhood of the Orthodox Foreign Missionary Fraternity also made a decisive contribution to the construction of the Holy Church and the Academy.
On the afternoon of Thursday 14 June, he went to the port customs office in Conakry and arranged the customs clearance procedures for the container that arrived a few days later in Guinea. The container contains humanitarian aid sent to the children of Guinea by the Brotherhood of the Orthodox Foreign Missionary Fraternity. It was loaded by volunteers on May 6 and contains, among other things, church supplies, 576 sacks of rice, 100 boxes of biscuits, 96 boxes of sugar, 83 boxes of flour, 55 boxes of candy, 52 boxes of sweetened milk, 50 boxes of cooking oil, 40 boxes of salt, tomato paste, pasta, halva and 329 boxes of clothes, shoes, toys, books, etc. This aid will support hundreds of poor families in Guinea, where 47% of the population lives in very poor conditions, 93% of the population has no access to drinking water and child mortality is at an all-time high. Late on the evening of Friday 15 June, Mons. Late Friday, Friday 15th Friday evening, Bishop George of Guinea arrived in the capital of Sierra Leone, Freetown, where he was greeted at the port by the First Bishop of the Metropolis, Fr Themistocles Adamopoulos. On Saturday morning he preached the Divine Word at the Church of Saints Constantine and Helen and during the Divine Liturgy he ordained Sotirios Sesay as a deacon. His Eminence gave paternal admonitions to the new Deacon, emphasizing the responsibilities he assumes as a soldier of Christ and then addressed the young people who were the majority of the congregation, saying, among other things, how important it is to take advantage of the opportunity Orthodox Schools in Sierra Leone to apprentice and study in model schools and colleges so that they can in turn work to improve the living conditions in the country and help in their own way in its development and prosperity, having always above all the Lord Jesus Christ and the Saints of the Church as an example to follow. After the Divine Liturgy, the youth presented an artistic program with Christian songs and traditional dances and Sister Menais distributed braided crosses to all the young people.
In the afternoon, His Eminence was informed by Fr Themistocles and his collaborators about the progress of the projects and thanked Fr Themistocles, the teacher Maria Adams and Dr Eleni Athinodorou for the great work they are doing in Sierra Leone, especially in the educational sector. On Sunday, June 17, the Rev. On Sunday 17 Sunday, Bishop George of Guinea preached the Divine Word at the Church of St. Moses of Ethiopia in Waterloo, Sierra Leone. and ordained Deacon Nectarios Kollie as elder and Deacon Athanasios Sesay, a teacher, as deacon. In his address, His Eminence referred to the Gospel passage of the day, gave admonitions to the new clergy and then spoke about the place of women in the Orthodox Church, about the duties of elders who should be an example for all women in the parishes where their husbands serve as pastors and finally he spoke about teachers and the important work they have to do as Orthodox teachers schools and wished that the great disaster brought about by Ebola will remain in the past as a nightmare and urged everyone to be careful and strictly follow the instructions of the Ministry of Health so that this deadly virus does not knock on the door of the country again.
After the end of the Divine Liturgy, His Eminence visited all the classes of the Kindergarten and the Primary School of the parish, distributed to all the children candies, pencils, balloons and to the excellent students painting colors, a noble offer of the congregation of the Patriarchal Chapter of St. Athanasius of Kypseli. He then visited the clinic and the first building of the Orthodox Children’s Village for orphans, which will be inaugurated next November by His Beatitude Patriarch Theodore of Alexandria. On Monday 18 June His Eminence visited the largest slum in the centre of the capital of Sierra Leone, where more than 20,000 adults and children have taken refuge, living in dire conditions, without water, electricity and access to human sanitation, and at risk of drowning in the rainy season from the large water streams or being killed by landslides. In the slum, the local councillor was waiting for them, and he directed them to the rudimentary school for the children of the slum. The pictures were horrific, but despite the dire conditions and the suffering of the children, all were happy for our visit. His Eminence, on behalf of the Patriarchate, pledged for the immediate renovation of the school and the accelerated training of teachers at the Orthodox Pedagogical Academy of Sierra Leone. To all the children, Sister Menais offered candy and stationery.
In the afternoon a priestly assembly was held with the presence of all the clergy and the members of the youth choir. Liturgical matters and other practical matters were discussed at the meeting. Finally, gifts were offered to all the priests and the youth. Before his departure from Sierra Leone, His Eminence publicly thanked the Brotherhood of Orthodox Foreign Missionaries for standing by his work for twenty consecutive years and especially for sending containers of humanitarian aid to Guinea and Sierra Leone.
George Guineas
