“He pleased God, and was beloved of Him
It is about our beloved brother and father Barnabas, pastor and spiritual father of the newly established Orthodox community of Labasa, on the second largest island of Fiji, Vanua Levu.
The message of his passing into eternity was sudden and unexpected because he was still young and at the height of his missionary activity.
Every Sunday and holiday he himself would go to the villages in the parish car and transport all those who wanted to go to church but could not do so as there was no means of transportation. He would visit the sick in their homes and in the hospital and would distribute his few savings to every poor and helpless person in his parish. He was a successful native clergyman who bore rich fruit in the tropical climate of his birth place and gave prominence to Orthodoxy as a living reality and a fruitful tree that bore and will bear much fruit.
He was mourned by his chosen presbytera Maria and their beloved children and along with them by all of us who with one mouth exclaim “May your memory be eternal, our beloved father Barnabas, brother worthy of blessedness and everlasting memory. And may the void you leave, be quickly filled by a chosen and equal to you successor who will continue your God-pleasing work.”
Amphilochios of Ganos and Hora –formerly of New Zealand
