By Charalambos Metallidis, Chairman of the Board of Directors.
I leaned back a little to rest my memory on the past, my old man, and reflected…
A handful of people with deeply engraved faith and love in their hearts spread the word of Christ to the ends of the earth.
Sixty years of ministry and service passed when you blessed this small group of missionary friends to follow your difficult but beautiful work.
Shepherd you started sheep from your small and insignificant village and shepherd you remained until the end of your life.
As another David, Holy Elder, God anointed you a missionary and sent you to Africa, to enlighten with the light of Orthodoxy the long-suffering continent.
You have been an inspiration and a leader, old Saint, and you have made us beggars in your divine work, breadwinners of the world, as Papadiamantis would say in his memoirs.
My ears have heard again what you cried out in the first years of your ministry! “Help me! The people here are thirsty for Orthodoxy, for Christ, and at the same time hungry.”
I have turned back my memory, Holy Elder, so that we may travel together into the oblivion of the past in the early steps of the Brotherhood.
Poor and difficult years then, but the love of giving and ministry was great.
The first clothes, the first sacred vessels, candles, incense and charcoal, holy vestments and covers for the first Temple had slowly begun to be gathered.
What joy, what a blessing in the hearts of the first founding members of the Board of Directors and the ever deceased President of the Brotherhood, the late Pantelis Bayas and Panagiotis Papadimitrakopoulos.
The first meeting was held on 15 December 1963 under the name “Friends of Uganda”.
The first historic words of the president at the first fraternity meeting were:
“Dear Ones, as we begin the first session, I consider it my duty to say the following, which I consider necessary, namely, that the work done for God does not tire, does not fill the soul of man with toil, as St Chrysostom said, “Godliness is insatiable”.
Words of wisdom that to this day govern the spirit of the Brotherhood as God’s accomplices in this Christ-centered work of ministry and sacrificial walk.
In the early years the meeting places were borrowed in various offices and houses of friends of the mission, until 1975 when the late great benefactor Panagiotis Papadimitrakopoulos dedicated a room at 6 Mackenzie King Street for the activities of the Brotherhood in the work of the Foreign Mission “to all nations”.
What can one first remember, Holy Elder, from the selfless ministry in this Blessed Work, which you have accompanied us with your blessings for so many years?
The hospitality of the missionaries
Their moral and material support
The speeches, the events, the radio and television broadcasts, the distribution of information leaflets, the collection of money and donations for the financial support of the brothers and the sending of these funds to the missionary teams for the building of temples, schools, orphanages, clinics, dispensaries, wells.
For the organization of catechisms of the missionary centers, baptisms, soup kitchens, for the purchase of church supplies, agricultural equipment.
The support of indigenous students from the various missionary groups and the provision of aid for their studies; the collection and dispatch of containers with the various items mentioned above, with all that this entails (paperwork, customs procedures and difficulties with laws and procedures in these third world countries).
The monitoring of projects at various scales with unlikely and unexpected difficulties, the publication of the magazine… Where to stop for such a great work!
Our Spiritual Father Chrysostom, Holy Missionary, the world is changing, needs are diversifying, the demands and claims of the long-suffering peoples of Africa are increasing, and the flows towards Europe are growing suffocatingly with thousands of innocent victims in the holy waters of the Mediterranean, as they chase a better tomorrow.
The great ones of this world must understand that missions have played an important role in the relief of our poor brothers and sisters in these countries and have contributed to the good functioning of their society.
The Orthodox Foreign Missionary Fraternity continues to play an important role in supporting indigenous people, indiscriminately homogeneous and heterodox, around the world.
We thank you, Holy Missionary, because with your blessings you support and direct this work, which has taught us that this world does not belong only to the powerful, but was created by the Creator for the people of the whole world with equal rights and opportunities.
We owe you, old man, because you have opened up missionary paths to worlds that need solidarity and spiritual illumination more than ever before…
