Author: Bishop Prodromos of Toliara

Dear friends of the Mission, Hello! It is with deep emotion and infinite respect that we send this speech, the fruit of gratitude for the volunteer doctors and specialists who left their homeland and came here, in Southern Madagascar. This visit was not just a journey – it was the living flame of the Gospel,…

My dear brothers and fellow companions, Christ is Risen. Our joy is great because always during this Resurrection period, the group baptisms of the catechists take place. By the Grace of God, 500 new members received Holy Baptism and became members of our local Orthodox Church. How can one describe the overwhelming feelings at that…

The moment I am writing these lines is a few days before Judgment Sunday. How stunning the words of our Christ are! What does He tell us? That the criterion of judgment will be how we behaved towards our brother. Towards our suffering brothers, the sick, the imprisoned, the thirsty, the naked, the needy… My…

Blessing of the Lord, fragrance of the Resurrection, heavenly scent and blessing of Heaven, the completion of another Sacred Church in the Holy Diocese of Toliara and South Madagascar. The way of fulfilling this work can only be regarded as a spiritual act. Once again, a pious couple undertakes the building of the third Church…

Dear Friends of Mission, The days on my mind run like the daily sweat in our ministry to the needs of our native brothers here in Southern Madagascar. Perhaps most places are not suitable or hospitable from a geophysical point of view, but the sincere feelings of love on the part of the inhabitants make…

My dear brothers and fellow companions, It is not so long ago that our local Church decided to deal with what every society diligently wants to forget: the inmates of penitentiaries. We got our vehicle loaded with rice and utensils and we visited as many prisons as we knew. This happened for days. If you…

Dear Brothers and Friends of the Foreign Mission, I greet you and embrace you in the Lord from South Madagascar, this beautiful island, the earthly paradise of travel guides and at the same time the harsh reality, marginally unsustainable for the indigenous population culminating in the catastrophic onslaught of two fierce typhoons. Houses were leveled,…

Just a few decades ago, the famous Jean Paul Sartre, immersed in the latent Western tradition rooted in himself, exclaimed: “l’enfer, c’est les autres” (hell is other people). Whoever they are, known and unknown; the face of every person whom I will encounter. In the process of relating to the others, something steals my time,…

Dear friends of the Mission, Honestly, every time I write a piece for your publication, I hope and pray that it will be the last time I fill the page with human pain. After an unprecedentedly arid four years, for the entire territory of Southern Madagascar, the majority of the indigenous people are facing the…

The sun once again began its cycle in the sky. Warm, almost bearable. Window open, a peculiar insect with long slender legs climbs onto the desk and approaches me unconcernedly. In the corridor of the clinic I hear voices. People come and go, apparently carrying X-rays, which make an almost eerie sound with every movement….

What unspeakable joy for one to be called “my child” by the great apostle who claimed divine adoption and rapture to heaven, Paul, the Apostle to the nations! Timothy, my child, the beginning, the address, the literal love of the Epistle to Timothy, of the text that said it all to all of us like…

I will never get tired of confessing, because first of all, it relaxes me to experience things myself, that the life of the Gospel takes on flesh and blood every day, in every step of our Church Mission. I myself used to be an indifferent reader of the Bible; emotional, moderately faithful, or of course,…