The first typed encyclical letter of Saint Chrysostomos Papasarantopoulos from Africa

ByThe Orthodox Missionary Fraternity

HOLY METROPOLIS OF IRENOUPOLIS
(EAST AFRICA)
To the… (Reverend Ioannis Athanasiadis)

Most beloved in Christ… (brother Fr. Ioannis),

With brotherly courage, I address Your Reverence as a faithful worker of our Lord Jesus Christ and a chosen assistant at the Holy Altar, and at the same time a fervent Greek patriot, and I appeal to you to embrace as your own the nascent work of the Greek Orthodox Foreign Mission.

Consider, brother, as a Greek Priest, you are a child and successor of the Great Fathers of the Church from the post-apostolic and Byzantine eras, who through great labors and sacrifices achieved the Christianization and civilization of many barbarian peoples across the three continents known at that time.

Now again, little Greece and its pious people—especially its Holy Clergy—are called to become bearers of the Orthodox Christian spirit for the re-Christianization of those who are only materially civilized, and the Christianization of the underdeveloped peoples of the whole world, and for the prevalence of the only Hellenic-Christian Civilization suitable for man.

As you know, the first “hearth” of the Greek Foreign Mission has already been established in Uganda, East Africa, under the blessing of His Beatitude the Patriarch of Alexandria and the spiritual leadership of His Eminence Metropolitan Nikolaos of Irenoupolis, whose blessings I convey to you.

The aims of our Mission are:

  • The ecclesiastical organization and religious cultivation of the thousands of African Orthodox in Uganda and Kenya, who for 30 years, through the laborious work of the well-known African ecclesiastical leader Fr. Reuben Sparta and his collaborators, have come and continue to come to Orthodoxy.
  • The education of Indigenous Priests and Theologians and, through them, the wider dissemination of Orthodoxy in Africa.
  • The establishment of Orthodox Holy Churches by parish, Schools, etc.

Your contribution and participation in this sacred Work with prayers and enthusiastic words and exhortations to the people on its behalf will be invaluable support for us. From such work of yours will also spring forth, to the best of your ability, the financial assistance of which we are likewise in need.

I embrace you with much love in Christ Jesus, wishing you a Merry Christmas and every good thing in the Lord, and remain your least brother.

The General Secretary
Archimandrite Chrysostomos Th. Papasarantopoulos

P.S.: Beloved Fr. Giannis. You once wrote to me in Athens, and I was very late in replying. You did not write to me again, but your name is on the list I keep. So I come again to greet you from the depths of Africa. This Christmas, a collection plate for Uganda will be circulated in all churches in Greece again this year, just like last year. Speak enthusiastically to the people to contribute to our Mission. Tell this also to your colleagues around you, many of whom remember me, along with my embrace in Christ to all. And again, Happy Holidays and a New Year with health and the joy of Christ.
Archimandrite Chrys. Papasarantopoulos

(P.S. in his own hand)

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