He is our beloved brother and father Barnabas, pastor and spiritual father of the unbroken Orthodox community of Lampasa, on the second large island of Fiji, Vanua Levi.
The news of his passing was sudden and shocked us, because he was still young and in the prime of his missionary activity.
Every Sunday and feast day he would go to the villages in the parish car and transport all those who wanted to go to church but there was no means of transport to take them. He visited the sick in their homes and in the hospital and distributed his few savings to every poor and helpless person in his parish. He was a successful indigenous clergyman who bore fruit richly in the tropical climate of his land and made Orthodoxy a living reality and a fruitful tree that has and will bear much fruit.
He was mourned by his beloved elder Mary and their beloved children and with them all of us who with one mouth exclaim Eternal be his memory, our dear father Barnabas. And may the void you leave be quickly filled by a chosen successor and successor equal to you and a successor to the work.
† The New Zealand Ganu and Country Amphilochius of New Zealand
