Dear friends of the Mission,
Rejoice that Christ is risen, giving eternal life.
It is with joyful resurrectionist feelings that I again communicate with you, the blessed co-workers of the Foreign Mission, to invite you, on the one hand, to praise “Christ risen from the dead” for His visible and invisible benefits to us sinners and the unworthy, on the other hand, to inform you of some of our efforts, with your support, for the progress and advancement of our Diocese as Bishop of Malawi.
My brothers and sisters, our goal and our struggle is first and foremost: to run and glorify the Word of God, the living and “living One who is above every sword, the one who is sharp as a knife, the one who is divided into marrow and bone”.
So during the Holy and Great Lent a seminar was held for our Priests and Deacons at the Holy Trinity Missionary Centre in Blantyre. By the Grace of God, our Clergy were taught theoretically and practically about the services of Lent and especially about the Divine Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts.
They were divided into five groups, as many as the weeks of Lent, with five members each, so that the accommodation and success of the course would be the most efficient.
Also, this year a programme was drawn up for all the parishes, so that what they learned in the Seminar could be applied by the priests in their parishes.
Also, as we had written in a previous article, we are forming a house with your contribution, and we thank you very much for it, for accommodation and teaching for our clergy, in the place where our headquarters are located.
Furthermore, we would like to inform you that with the help of God and the intercession of Saint Panteleimon the Great Martyr of Iamatikos, an elaborate Chapel was built with donations from visible and invisible benefactors from our Holy Mother of Thessaloniki, in honour and memory of Saint Panteleimon.
This will be placed in the office and seminar area, to teach that the Mercy of God, which leads us to eternal Salvation, is received through the Sacraments of our Church, celebrated in the Holy Church.
Many thanks and infinite gratitude to the Dear and Historical Brotherhood of the Orthodox Foreign Mission, because you undertook the major part of the cost for the transportation, in a special way, of the aforementioned Church from Thessaloniki to Blantyre, Malawi.
Finally, my brothers, I would like to inform you that with your money, through the Brotherhood, we offered eggs to all our parishes before Easter. The thanks of “the least of the brothers of Christ” were directed as a fragrant incense before the All-Holy God.
✝ Malawi’s Photius
