With ecclesiastical magnificence but also simplicity, as is customary in Africa, and with the blessings of HDB Theodoros II, Pope and Patriarch of Alexandria and All Africa, the until recently Deacon of the Holy Metropolis of Irinoupolis Fr. Elias Katasiko, was ordained Elder by His Eminence Demetrius of Irinoupolis.
It is worth stressing that Fr. Elias is the first Orthodox priest from the primitive Maasai tribe in Tanzania. The touching sacrament of his ordination took place at the Metropolitan Church of Saint Paraskevi in the city of Dar es Salaam, whose erection was a donation from the family of George and Erasmia Arnaoutoglou and the Greek Community in 1952.
The Sunday Divine Liturgy was attended by the President, the board and a lot of members of the Greek Community, as well as by many natives from various tribes of Tanzania, but mostly from the primitive Masaai tribe, who ,at the end of the Divine Liturgy and after the “Agape Meal”-that is, the Christian fellowship meal, celebrated and congratulated in their own primitive African way the first Priest in Tanzania from their tribe.
Fr. Elias will be in charge of the Masaai Mission in the wider area of our Mission Center in MOROGORO, in eastern Tanzania, where there are about 30 primitive Masaai communities (nomads) and 6 newly established Orthodox parishes.
† Demetrius of Irinoupolis
