Dear friends of the Mission,
By grace of our Lord, we came to Greece on July 5th in the company of three children from the orphanage of the Holy Archdiocese of New Zealand in Fiji, namely Moses, Basil and Gabriel, so that they can study in the Patmiot Ecclesiastical School, in order to learn the Greek language and the Holy Scriptures and maybe become the first Fijian indigenous educated priests, if God wills.
The Holy Archdiocese of New Zealand carries on the significant missionary initiatives started in Fiji, Tonga and Samora by His Eminence bishop Amphilochios of Ganos and Chora, while he was the Archbishop of New Zealand.
Our Orthodox faith is accepted by the local community with zeal and our cooperation with the authorities is very good. The newly illumined members of our Orthodox Church zealously attend the holy services, the catechism lessons and the church activities, while new catechumens want to get baptized, get wedded and partake the Holy Communion and the other sacraments celebrated in our churches.
The work that has already been done is very important, but the needs are constantly increasing. Five of our priests minister to the Mission, but there is need for more. Five holy churches have been constructed, while three more are under construction.
Finally, the most important activity in our Mission is Saint Tabitha’s Orphanage in Fiji. There we offer our love and care to thirty children, orphan and indigent, from infancy to adolescence. We plan to build a school for the education of our children and a local medical unit for their health care. Generally, the need for nursing the orphans in the region is great and the number of our orphange’s beneficiaries is expected to raise in the upcoming years. Our Archdiocese will need more means in order to deliver and help them.
Your contribution in our missionary work, however small and negligible you may consider it to be, gives a great push to our endeavors for the evangelization of our new brothers in Christ and supports the melioration of their life conditions. The field is fertile and even the smallest cultivative care bears a lot of fruits.
We invite you to taste the joy of giving and participatin in the missionary work of our Holy Archdiocese and we request you to contribute, either through your physical participation and volunteering for the Mission for as long as you can, or through your distant financial support.
† Myron of New Zealand
