Orthodoxy, with much toil and tireless efforts, has now touched the origins of the great and vast Equateur of Africa. How long our brethren there had been waiting for the beneficial and redemptive presence of the ancient Church, the Orthodox Church of Christ. How long they have waited for the sparkling spiritual water of Truth, changed to eternal life.
In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, in the old Zaire, for fifty years now, the Orthodox Church of Christ has been working systematically and with missionary zeal and fervent enthusiasm, bringing to the heartland of the great land of Africa, the saving Word of the Lord through the unadulterated teaching of the holy Gospel. Fifty years of a spiritual journey. Fifty years of missionary struggles. Fifty years of spiritual march. Fifty years of genuine, unadulterated missionary service in the Congolese georegion, where with rare and unparalleled ethos and admirable zeal, the blessed and now immortal, Metropolitan Cyprian of Central Africa, Nicodemus, Timothy, Ignatius and Nikephoros, my immediate predecessor, worked. As well as the triskarii and in heaven missionaries missionaries Chrysostomos Papasarantopoulos, Chariton Pneimatakis, Athanasios Anthidis, Seraphim Parcharidis and Kosmas Gregoriatis.
Also, from time to time, many monks and clergymen went to the pro-Orthodox Congo, contributing greatly to the missionary work. But even today, for many decades, Metropolitan Meletios of Katanga has been working with youthful enthusiasm and in an exemplary manner, spreading the light of Christ and Orthodoxy everywhere.
In the Holy Metropolis where God has called me to be associated with my last two predecessors, the blessed Ignatius of Pentapolis and Nicephorus of Kinshasa. I bow before these two great High Priests, who both with the fragrance of their sanctified lives and with the rest of their varied missionary work in a few years each, did so much in transforming the capital of Congo and many provinces of the present Diocese of Kinshasa.
But many other places have not yet received the light of Orthodoxy. Each Hierarch continues with respect, love and gratitude the work of his predecessors, walking in their own spiritual footsteps.
Ecuador, the Equator, is roughly three times the geographical size of Greece. It consists of five provinces where the five capitals alone, each of which has more than one and a half million inhabitants. The time has come for Orthodoxy to reach these places far from the capital of Kinshasa.
The first Orthodox missionary presence in Ecuador was first seen in April 2023, when a missionary team first arrived in the city of Bandaka. This group consisted of my Minority and Archimandrite Chrysostomos, Abbot of the Monastery of St. Athanasius of Athonite. Then in the river of Bandaka we baptized the first seven believers. We visited the authorities of the city.
Then after a month we rented a house where the living room was transformed into a temple. Simply, humbly, as in the early apostolic years, the priest celebrates daily the Orthros, Vespers and on high days, the Divine Liturgy. And yet, even there the miracle of God’s love is performed. The Bread and Wine is transformed into the Body and Blood of Christ and given to the faithful to eat, in the humble and crumbling house of the Priest.
Glory, O Christ, for Your inexpressible mercy! The new priest Fr. Spyridon has established the so-called Orthodox nests in many places of the city where he visits them during the week and there he prays with the faithful and of course he cures them. A little later we bought a plot of land and there now a few days ago we laid the foundation stone for the first Church of the Resurrection to be built in Equater. Fr. Spyridon is travelling to visit with a motorbike we bought for him, making a two-day journey to the next province of Chuapa, in order in the middle of nowhere – the Lord help us – on the one hand to sow the first Orthodox seed and on the other hand to prepare the ground in a short time for Archimandrite to become a permanent priest, in Chuapa. John. The third province is Gemena, where for a month now we have sent the zealous priest, Fr. Theophilos, who also in a rented house conducts all the services and Divine Liturgies. He runs around the neighborhoods, plows the place spiritually, sows the seed, speaks and preaches about Orthodoxy and of course presents to the city authorities the credentials of the canonical Orthodox Church of Africa, but also the one which is since 1972 one of the 8 recognized churches and religions of the state.
The rivers of Gemena were also watered by the holy waters of the baptisms of the Orthodox Church. Great is Your glory, Christ!!
In the province of Bandolit, a new person is to be ordained in a few months’ time to take over the mission in this province. I wonder, God, what you have in store for every new missionary soul! All and everything under your roof and your good providence. We send, or rather, Thou, my Lord, dost send men, as sheep in the midst of wolves, aspiring to be spiritually regenerated and to become, through their entrance, into Orthodoxy, white doves, high-winged eagles flying with the wings of Orthodoxy in the unapproachable places of Christian life.
The last province where the right man has not yet been found is Lisala, but the Lord will send us His man there too.
Equater is about to be illuminated and transformed by the Grace of the Holy Spirit. Orthodoxy now runs like a rapid fire, as my late predecessor, Metropolitan Ignatius of Pentapolis, used to say… It runs to win and save every Congolese brother. The late Metropolitan Nikephoros of Kinshasa and the late Metropolitan Ignatius of Pentapolis will rejoice that we continue with their prayers the work we received from them.
Yes, we promise them that we will continue with the same love for their labours and sacrifices. But, my brothers, all this struggle needs your prayers and your support. We have no temples to seriously project our presence when everyone else is building temples, schools. hospitals and much more. The houses we rent and the shacks we operate in are the first solutions, which should be replaced with some at least modest Temples where the brethren who follow us can worship decently. We are glad that His Beatitude, His Beatitude Patriarch Theodore, the Patriarch of Love, is always close to us and supports the missionary work. But what words can I find to express my infinite thanks to the Brotherhood of the Foreign Mission of Thessaloniki, which we feel that we are in pain, tears and agony for the missionary work of our Metropolis.
Many times her members call me… but with so much love… to express their love, to declare their undivided interest, to express their philanthropic missionary feelings.
With so much love, but also respect. Sometimes we ask them for help and I don’t have time to hang up the phone and their love runs faster than airplanes. Other times without asking I receive their messages of practical love. We will not cease to pray for the Orthodox Foreign Missionary Fraternity and confess with gratitude what they continually do for our Metropolis. We hold you close to our hearts. Engraved in gold letters in the dustbin of our diaries of our personal feelings and from there we will draw you to our memory whenever our missionary work needs you.
Always indebted to your love and your contribution.
†Theodosius of Kinshasa
