It is not easy to write about and explain the phenomenon of the expansion of the Orthodox faith in our country, but the truth is that God calls where no one expects, a community of Colombians seeking Orthodoxy. Very close to Bogota, the capital city of Colombia, in a municipality called Alban, a large group of farmers, led by their religious leader, Father Panteleimon today, began a few years ago to seek the Orthodox faith. In Colombia, the Orthodox faith, as I have stated on other occasions, is the oldest Christian message, but it is the newest in our land. The strange thing is not that these people become Orthodox, but that God, without any effort on our part, breeds this inclination towards true faith in groups of people in areas of the country where until a few years ago there was not a single Orthodox. There is a popular saying in Colombia: God writes straight with crooked lines, and so invites every human being, as happened in the life of Bishop Athenagoras of Myrina and mine, to seek the only true Christian faith maintained by the Orthodox Church without change or alteration over the centuries.
In the case of the Alban population, when a young priest from a Western denomination discovered the Orthodox Church, he began a process that initially allowed him to raise his followers’ awareness of the Orthodox faith, to come from the Western faith to Eastern Christianity not only himself but as a group. Thus, hundreds of requests for catechism in the Orthodox faith began to come from a large number of people.
In this article today I do not want to refer to the testimony of Fr. Panteleimon and his journey to the Orthodox faith; what I would like you to understand is that in Colombia and other Latin American nations, there are groups of people and families to whom God reveals our Orthodox faith, without anyone having taught them, but as a fruit of inclination and call to the true faith. However, every new community is a new challenge that requires all kinds of assistance. The Orthodox faith extends to Colombia and Latin America in a way that can hardly be explained, because if there is no preaching, if people know that our Orthodox Church exists and understand that it is the only one that contains the Christian tradition unchanged, if they come to us individually and in groups asking for Orthodoxy, this means that God speaks to people in Latin America in these times, and also that the Orthodox Church must be ready to respond appropriately to this challenge posed by the Lord of history and time to these brothers of ours.
” Therefore go and make disciples of all nations” means not just learning that the Orthodox Church exists, but that along with it, there is a whole catechetical process, liturgical utensils, vestments and especially sacred churches. When here there is nothing from what I have just mentioned, I suppose you understand what missionary work in these lands means!
In this way, in Alban, Kundinamarka, more than 260 people asked to become Orthodox, started being catechized, and so far, over 40 believers have already been baptized and the rest are preparing to go deeper into Orthodoxy without having a church though, gathering in a rented space, with difficulties but always with hope in God and His own miraculous intervention.
What really amazes me is the fact that these people who are ordinary farmers, living in the mountains of the area, some at more than three hours’ distance, every time they have a divine liturgy, they eagerly travel for hours either on foot or on horseback only to participate in the divine mysteries!
† Timothy of Assos
