Μια παρουσίαση για την Ορθόδοξη Ιεραποστολή του Μαλάουι από τον Επίσκοπο Μαλάουι Φώτιο, τον πρώτο επίσκοπο της περίκλειστης νοτιοαφρικανικής χώρας με τους 8.000 Ορθοδόξους πιστούς.
Συμπλήρωμα
Εμφάνιση αναρτήσεων με ετικέτα Orthodox Malawi. Εμφάνιση όλων των αναρτήσεων
Εμφάνιση αναρτήσεων με ετικέτα Orthodox Malawi. Εμφάνιση όλων των αναρτήσεων
Κυριακή 10 Απριλίου 2022
Παρασκευή 9 Ιουλίου 2021
Orthodox Mission / December 2020 issue - The new winter issue of our magazine is now out
Our quarterly magazine
The new issue of the “Orthodox Mission” magazine is now out with news and reports from 16 missionary regions in Africa, Asia and Oceania
Holy Nativity 2020
May the grace of our newly-born Christ shine upon you and the nations in the new year 2021
Παρασκευή 21 Φεβρουαρίου 2020
MALAWI, NDIRANDE: THE PATRIARCH CELEBRATED WITH THE “GARBAGE CHILDREN”
Patriarchate of Alexandria & all Africa
In the Orthodox Vineyard of Africa (photo)
On 17th February, the Feast of the Great Martyr Theodore of Tyre, Patriarch of Alexandria and All Africa Theodoros II, celebrates his Name Day, and from the first year of his ascension to the Throne of the Church of the Apostle and Evangelist Mark, to this day, he always celebrates with his spiritual children, the African Orthodox Christians.
So this year too, His Beatitude the Patriarch who is in the Republic of Malawi, arrived at the Holy Church of St Catherine in the Ndirande district of Blantyre, accompanied by His Eminence Daniel Metropolitan of Aksum and the local Bishop His Grace Fotios Bishop of Malawi, fort he consecration of the above Church.
The Ndirande area is one of the most degraded areas of the city, as garbage accumulates there from throughout the Blantyre region, causing residents of the area, especially young children, to suffer from serious diseases such as cholera, because of the contaminated water and the fumes from burning garbage.
In this area, the imposing Holy Church of the Great Martyr St Catherine was erected, donated by businessman Dimitrios Buckle, to whom the Patriarch expressed the gratitude and thanks of the Alexandrian Church.
His Beatitude was welcomed with shouts of joy and gratitude for the building of an Orthodox Church in their degraded district. Then, in a climate of devotion and reverence, the Patriarch and the concelebrating Hierarchs performed the service of Consecration and then the first Patriarchal Divine Liturgy, on the occasion of his Name Day.
Ndirande. Blantyre, Malawi.
Ndirande.com
No one knows exactly how large the Malawian slum of Ndirande is. The number of inhabitants should be well above 200 thousand people. Ndirande is located three kilometres from the centre of Blantyre, the second city of Malawi. Ndirande crawls up from Makata Road to the slopes of the 1,800 meter high Mount Ndirande. Halfway you cross Ndirande Ringroad, the commercial and manufacturing centre of Ndirande. On both sides you will find timber sellers, minibus repairers, pubs, take-away’s and producers of burglar bars, cooking stoves and comfortable couches. Between Makata Road and Ndirande Ringroad, Ndirande has a reasonably ordered street pattern. But anyone who leaves the Ringroad and walks up towards Ndirande Mountain, ends up in a myriad of backstreets and alleys. Some are not wider than trenches where the water flushes through in the rainy season.
At the centre of the Ringroad you’ll find a huge market where an estimated 30 thousand people earn their living. On Ndirande Market you can get everything. From coffins to second hand clothes, from fruit to cheap sex, from live chickens to fried fish, from cars and car parts to hand-crafted residential furniture. Across Ndirande runs the Nasolo River. In the dry season the river is a sluggish meandering sewer in which malaria mosquitos incubate, children play and women do their laundry. In the rainy season the Nasolo changes into a dangerous current, sweeping away chickens and children, bridges and houses. The transformation of the friendly Nasolo in such a devastating flood is partly due to the almost complete deforestation of Mount Ndirande. Searching for cheap firewood, residents of Ndirande have cut away the immense forest that once covered the mountain.
The official unemployment rate in Ndirande is over 90 percent. That doesn’t alter the fact that most slum dwellers are hardworking people. The majority of the work they do, is simply not recorded or taxed. An important part of the work is carried out outside the slum. Every morning, there is a huge exodus of men and women, most of them by foot, some in minibuses, who leave for low-paid jobs in the richer neighbourhoods like Namiwawa, Nyambadwe or Sunny Side. They work as Garden Boys, Safe Guards, Cooks, Home Boys or Nannies. They are accompanied by mechanics, carpenters, plumbers and electricians, carrying their tools under their arms, offering their services to the wealthy minority of Blantyre.
© Ralf Bodelier, Overview Ndirande, Malawi. 2008
The money the residents of Ndirande earn, is spent on food and clothing, on bit-for-bit expanding and refurbishing homes, on school fees and on transport by minibus. On Sun-day mornings, part of the earnings are offered in the numerous churches within the town-ship. On Sunday night, the leftovers are spend in the pubs of the Chinseu entertainment dis-trict. On Monday morning, the exodus starts over again.
Those who visit Ndirande for the first time, will be shocked by the miserable conditions in which many residents live. The funeral procession, the coffins for sale on Ndirande Ringroad and the sick, sometimes emaciated on a mat in front of their house. The visitor will notice children with ripped clothes, barbed wire on walls and the omnipotence of burglar bars. He or she will see the crippled scurrying in the dirt.
But those who visit Ndirande time after time, will observe much more. They will become aware of the normality of Ndirande. People in Ndirande are more than slum dwellers. They are individuals, human beings, people you can agree or disagree with. They are people with whom you can raise a glass, have a chat, or argue with. They are people that can be your friends or foes. But, and most of all, they are people who, like everyone else, want to make the best of their lives. This is what we tried to portray in the web-documentary 'Ndirande. Its Strength, Its People.'
"Ρatriarch Theodoros in Blantyre to inaugurate the Church of St. Catherine"
In the Orthodox Vineyard of Africa
Greek Orthodox Church Of Alexandria and Africa In Australia
"The third day of Pope Theodoros in Malawi, 17 February 2020
On February 17th, on the occasion of the anniversary of St. Theodore the Great, His Excellency Pope Theodoros II, Pope and Patriarch of Alexandria and the rest of Africa celebrated his patronage with his Greek Orthodox spiritual sons in the Republic of Malawi.
Accompanied by Metropolitan Daniel Bishop Axum (Abyssinia) and Bishop Of Malawi Mr. Fotos, Thepatriarch of Theodoros, Theodoros, the Pope arrived in the Durante area of Blantyre to inaugurate the Church of St. Catherine.
Durante is one of the poorest areas in the city that accumulates garbage all over the city. This has led to serious diseases such as cholera from the local population, especially young children, due to contaminated groundwater and fumes from burning garbage.
In this environment, the majestic Church of St. Catherine was erected, donated by businessman Dimitriou Bucky, to which Pope Theodoros expressed his gratitude and thanks to the Church of Alexandria.
After the arrival of Theodoros, the pope's glee entered the church and before the start of the Mass, he held the inauguration service of the Church with the help of his companions. This was followed by the Mass, presided over by His Holiness.
The believers there expressed their joy and gratitude to his excellency for the establishment of this Orthodox Church in their deteriorating area.."
See also
Malawi
(in our blog)
The Orthodox Church in Zambia & Malawi Malawi - The sick woman who was healed, a neighbour, who had no knowledge of Orthodoxy, & a "strange, crazy native" who went in the center of the Church and began to shout...
Orthodox Mission in Tropical Africa (& the Decolonization of Africa)
African Initiated Churches in Search of Orthodoxy...
"THE WAY" - An Introduction to the Orthodox Faith
Theosis (deification): The True Purpose of Human Life
How “White” is the Orthodox Church?
«African needs to be helped, to find his divine roots, for his soul to be at peace, to become united with God...»
Τετάρτη 17 Ιουλίου 2019
Responsibilities and tasks of the Orthodox clergy
Orthodox Missionary Fraternity
Since all of us have tasted the sweetness and uniqueness of the Orthodox Church, it is only natural as well as our duty to want to pull into the Orthodox Church those who are currently out of it, regardless of whether they are idolaters or heretics! How then will we draw the heterodox into the Church of Christ?
The answer is given by Christ Himself on the Cross with His sacrifice. The sacrifice of the leader of our faith is His only sermon against worldly logic/reason since the early Christian period. The sacrifice of the contemporary priest, who is duty bound to perform the bloodless sacrifice of Christ again and again in the history of the world, gives the opportunity for salvation to each one of our fellow human beings by enabling them to have a personal relationship with Christ, which makes him a beacon in the darkness of our time…
When we priests live a pure and holy life, when we know and respect the rules, teachings and doctrines of our Church as well as the commandments of God, when we shed tears of repentance and we humbly call for the mercy of God, when we are suffering for our brothers in other confessions that live in error, then holding the prayer rope, we fervently pray that all the people of the earth will know our Faith, which is the only true faith! Great and true missionary is not the one who conveys faith with words, but the one who lives it. The one who prays with tears in front of the icon of Christ and the Virgin Mary that God will enlighten all people to return to the Mother Church. The Orthodox Church is open to all people. It embraces and expects everyone to move forward and respond to the call of Christ Himself, thus becoming partakers of this heavenly calling: «Come and see!»
If we pray to Christ this way every day, our churches will be full. It is through repentance and a mighty warm prayer that we will bring them all to Christ. If we live our life partaking of the Holy Mysteries, with sincere confession and Holy Communion, then we will achieve our purpose: to help all people know the true Church.
Unless we have a spiritual father, we will not be able to succeed pure prayer and repentance. We will lose the path that leads to Christ and salvation. It is absolutely necessary for us to go to our spiritual father quite often and honestly confess our sins, our mistakes and our queries. The spiritual father has a threefold role: to hear our sins, to solve our questions and to give advice, guidance and counsel as well as his blessing for what we do in our lives. Next I will refer to the priest’s duty to his parishioners. It is our big responsibility to keep those who have shown interest in Orthodoxy and to do everything in our power so that those who are inside the Church and are lukewarm, will acquire a living spiritual consciousness.
How, then, can we win souls from the world’s tempest and lead them to the safe harbor of the Church? All the Orthodox priests in our parishes must be active. The morning and evening services (the Matins, the Vespers, the Supplication Canon) should be conducted every day if we want to attract the grace of God. Every night, if every one of us, each one according to their own penance, dedicates two hours praying the rope and making prostrations, this will draw the grace of God. It is this very Grace that will help us and provide solutions to our problems, not our mind or our actions!
Another very important thing is for the priest to have a strong interest in the parish. He should run to the sick, read Orthodox books and have a steady seminar attendance every month. He should neither improvise in his sermons, nor express divergent new opinions that sound good and modern. He should only preach what is confirmed in the conscience of the Orthodox Church and comes from the Holy Fathers; only this can be taught by the Orthodox priests. Finally, a priest should preach in catechetical schools, organize sports events, games with children as well as various activities, show love and affection to children, be close to the people, comfort and help his flock, and then, the miracle will come and our parish will be full of conscious Orthodox Christians! Amen.
Since all of us have tasted the sweetness and uniqueness of the Orthodox Church, it is only natural as well as our duty to want to pull into the Orthodox Church those who are currently out of it, regardless of whether they are idolaters or heretics! How then will we draw the heterodox into the Church of Christ?
The answer is given by Christ Himself on the Cross with His sacrifice. The sacrifice of the leader of our faith is His only sermon against worldly logic/reason since the early Christian period. The sacrifice of the contemporary priest, who is duty bound to perform the bloodless sacrifice of Christ again and again in the history of the world, gives the opportunity for salvation to each one of our fellow human beings by enabling them to have a personal relationship with Christ, which makes him a beacon in the darkness of our time…
When we priests live a pure and holy life, when we know and respect the rules, teachings and doctrines of our Church as well as the commandments of God, when we shed tears of repentance and we humbly call for the mercy of God, when we are suffering for our brothers in other confessions that live in error, then holding the prayer rope, we fervently pray that all the people of the earth will know our Faith, which is the only true faith! Great and true missionary is not the one who conveys faith with words, but the one who lives it. The one who prays with tears in front of the icon of Christ and the Virgin Mary that God will enlighten all people to return to the Mother Church. The Orthodox Church is open to all people. It embraces and expects everyone to move forward and respond to the call of Christ Himself, thus becoming partakers of this heavenly calling: «Come and see!»
If we pray to Christ this way every day, our churches will be full. It is through repentance and a mighty warm prayer that we will bring them all to Christ. If we live our life partaking of the Holy Mysteries, with sincere confession and Holy Communion, then we will achieve our purpose: to help all people know the true Church.
Unless we have a spiritual father, we will not be able to succeed pure prayer and repentance. We will lose the path that leads to Christ and salvation. It is absolutely necessary for us to go to our spiritual father quite often and honestly confess our sins, our mistakes and our queries. The spiritual father has a threefold role: to hear our sins, to solve our questions and to give advice, guidance and counsel as well as his blessing for what we do in our lives. Next I will refer to the priest’s duty to his parishioners. It is our big responsibility to keep those who have shown interest in Orthodoxy and to do everything in our power so that those who are inside the Church and are lukewarm, will acquire a living spiritual consciousness.
How, then, can we win souls from the world’s tempest and lead them to the safe harbor of the Church? All the Orthodox priests in our parishes must be active. The morning and evening services (the Matins, the Vespers, the Supplication Canon) should be conducted every day if we want to attract the grace of God. Every night, if every one of us, each one according to their own penance, dedicates two hours praying the rope and making prostrations, this will draw the grace of God. It is this very Grace that will help us and provide solutions to our problems, not our mind or our actions!
Another very important thing is for the priest to have a strong interest in the parish. He should run to the sick, read Orthodox books and have a steady seminar attendance every month. He should neither improvise in his sermons, nor express divergent new opinions that sound good and modern. He should only preach what is confirmed in the conscience of the Orthodox Church and comes from the Holy Fathers; only this can be taught by the Orthodox priests. Finally, a priest should preach in catechetical schools, organize sports events, games with children as well as various activities, show love and affection to children, be close to the people, comfort and help his flock, and then, the miracle will come and our parish will be full of conscious Orthodox Christians! Amen.
Τετάρτη 10 Ιουλίου 2019
Malawi - The sick woman who was healed, a neighbour, who had no knowledge of Orthodoxy, & a "strange, crazy native" who went in the center of the Church and began to shout...
Fr. Ermolaos Iatrou
Orthodox Missionary Fraternity
In Zomba, the old capital of the state, there is a church that was built in honor of Sts. Athanasius and Cyril.
Recently we had another marvelous event there, which strengthened our faith and made us love, honor and revere more the saints of God, who are always by our side, and help us in a scandalous way, as a holy man said.
The Church of Sts. Athanasius and Cyril is situated in a conspicuous position, on the main road, opposite a large hospital.
Indigenous Fr. George, both priest and pastor, spends many hours in the church dedicating them to prayer, so many passers-by find him on duty there, diligently performing his ministry, when they seek support and help from Heaven for anything that troubles them.
That morning a taxi brought a sick Malawian woman -accompanied by her good-hearted husband- from her village, to the city hospital due to a health problem that she had. Let’s say how things happened, though.
Mrs. Nefi, is a Malawian woman around the age of 40, married and mother- of -four. She and her husband are educated. She works in the hospital while her husband is a head teacher in a local school.
The woman was in her village and she was feeling very sick. The pain was acute and was coming down to her stomach and to other parts of her body.
Her condition was getting worse and worse, so she decided to go to hospital. However, she had the feeling that she could hear a voice that was telling her: «If you want to be saved, go to the Greek Orthodox Church, not to hospital.» She said that to her husband, but although he would always listen to her, that time he said, «No, we will go to hospital”. They took a taxi to go straight to hospital.» While the taxi was passing outside the Church of Sts. Athanasius and Cyril though, the woman heard the same voice say the same words: «If you want to be saved, go inside this church and do not go to hospital.» Once this happened, the woman lost her senses and collapsed. She seemed to be nearing death. Her husband had no other choice but to tell the taxi driver to stop at the Church. Without wasting time, he carried his almost half dead wife inside.
They got into the Church and found the indigenous priest Fr. George. The husband explained to the priest what they had lived at home and outside the Church and begged the Orthodox priest to pray for his slowly dying wife.
The priest’s first reaction was to say that the woman was not Orthodox, therefore, he could not possibly pray for her. The husband continued to beg him to pray in the name of the Orthodox Church. Then the priest, out of brotherly love for every human being that is suffering, yielded to his entreaties and said he would pray but he would not be wearing a stole, neither would he touch the woman with it since she was not Orthodox, and so he did.
The priest prayed wholeheartedly for long, and suddenly, the woman who was almost dead, stood up completely healed.
Their gratitude was indescribable! They left the Church praising and glorifying God, but on Sunday morning, they were both in the Church again. At the end of the Divine Liturgy, they confessed to everyone present there the miracle they had experienced and said: “From now on, we belong to the Orthodox Church, and when the priest decides to baptize us after our catechesis, we will be ready. We firmly believe that here is the only true Faith, and that the Triune God has called us personally to it, which makes us be eternally grateful to Him.”
When Fr. George told us all this, we marveled at the infinite love of God, Who works miraculously on His humble creatures and Who thus draws them close to Him and helps them become acquainted with His One, Holy, Apostolic Church.
We also marvel at the attentiveness of the native priest and his respect for the rules of our Church, which say that we must not pray with people of other faiths or other denominations, neither must we administer the Holy Sacraments or put the stole over people who have not entered the baptismal font of the Orthodox Church. Even if our brotherly love is big, we still do not betray our Faith, and as Fr. George has proven with his stance, especially in the hard and confusing times we live in, we are impressed by his zeal and enthusiasm to keep the Tradition of the Holy Fathers of our Church to the letter.
In our humble opinion, the attitude of the native priest, whose encounter with Orthodoxy took place just 8 years ago, is particularly noteworthy; and yet, he is humble in his work and sets a very good example to us who were born in Orthodoxy and who sometimes feel “over confident” about violating the rules established by the Holy Fathers, the Holy Tradition and the 7 Ecumenical Synods.
Equally remarkable is the virtue of the priest’s humility, which makes him attribute everything to the Triune God. He confesses everything to his spiritual father, and is thus covered by temptations on both the right and the left hand.
Among others, he narrated the following incident. An acquaintance of his, an orthodox parishioner, lost his cell phone and was deeply sad. Then he went to the priest and begged him to pray for his cell phone to be found. Indeed, Fr. George fell on his knees and prayed for this little matter, since love in God does not differentiate between small and big matters. God instructed us to always love and help our neighbor. What happened next made us marvel at God’s prompt responsiveness. A man very hurriedly went past the house from which the cell phone had been lost, and with quick moves he pulled the missing phone out of his pocket, threw it onto the porch and vanished. Someone forced him to do that. Prayers have a lot of power and can even defeat passions, make thieves return the things they stole, but the most amazing thing they can do is to make people believe in the Holy Orthodox faith. Such experiences are quite common here.
Dear brothers and sisters, our Orthodox Faith is alive, true and unique! Let us hold it as a treasure to be cherished, as a valuable gift from Heaven, and be steadfast in it.
Our Saints are scandalously generous with their assistance
The narration below is from the time prior to the ordination of Fr. George to Ρriest.
We are re-publishing it, from here (ORTHODOX MISSION ASSOCIATION "ST. KOSMAS THE AITOLIAN"). Translation from Greek A.N.
A
wondrous event took place at the Parish of Saints Athanasios and
Kyrillos in Zomba, the old capital of the State. In that Parish served
an outstanding catechist named George, married with three children.
George was sent by our Mission for theological studies to the Orthodox
Ecclesiastic School of Kenya, and he returned full of knowledge on
Orthodoxy, and a zeal to offer from the excess of his heart to his
compatriots who thirsted to acquaint themselves to the truth.
George
lives next to the Church, spending his day offering his services there.
He had asked us to buy him a bicycle, so that he could go to nearby
regions to painstakingly and sacrificially teach at the villages. In
that way, the people who had shown interest - both in the city and in
the surrounding villages - came to learn about Orthodoxy.
The
first missionary steps took place in that region by George, and it was
not long before he was ordained a Priest by the Grace of God, so that he
could also minister to God's people from the Holy Altar. [Note: He has
now been ordained, and serves in that Parish]. George's zeal in the
matter of catechisms is immense, but equally immense is his love for the
Services and the Prayers. He would often tell us that the prayers of
the Orthodox would bring people to the Church, which is why we
catechists and Priests must be very zealous during the Holy Services, so
that the Holy Spirit can "draw" more faithful to the harbor of
Salvation.
George
therefore used to pray in the Church mornings and afternoons, serving
Matins and Vespers and Evening Prayers, and at night fulfil his personal
rule in a room of his house, which was next to the Church. Every night,
between 12 and 2 after midnight he would wake up and fulfil his
personal rule, with psalms, prostrations, prayer-rope etc.. It should
be mentioned here that neither the Church nor his house had electricity.
A
few days ago, a neighbour approached him, who had no knowledge of
Orthodoxy nor was familiar with our Church until then. He came up to
George and with confidence and joy said: "Both myself and my family want
to be baptized in this Church, because the Truth is here, and you have
the true Faith."
Quite surprised, George asked him "How come, so suddenly?" To which the man replied with the following :
"I
am your neighbour and my job is to go on night patrols and check the
watchmen that work in our company, to see if they are at their posts.
Every night, I begin work at 12 midnight, and I actually hear you
praying just before I leave for work. A company car with a driver
comes and picks me up and drives me to the company.
"The
other day around that time when you were praying, both the driver and
myself noticed that the entire Church as well as your house were flooded
in light! It made a huge impression on us, so we stopped the car to
take a better look, since we knew that those two buildings don't have
electricity. That light was so brilliant, so beautiful and natural!
The next evening the same sight was repeated, at exactly the same hour.
Nothing like that has ever happened to me before. I want to become
Orthodox, along with my family."
This
miraculous event reminded us that several years ago, when that Church
was still under construction, a certain "strange, crazy native" appeared
among the unsuspecting workers; he went and stood in the center of the
Church and began to shout out loud and announce to everyone that "this
is where the Truth is - this is where Salvation is!" He had also
"announced" certain other, unfamiliar details that were to take place,
such as: "Your Bishop will be coming tomorrow, but he won't visit you
here this time", and other, similar "announcements".
With
wondrous events like these, my brethren, but also with other, similar
ones, the great Saints and Fathers of our Church reveal to us that they
are by our side and they help us during the various problems that we
encounter in this land.
Our
Saints are scandalously generous with their assistance; that is, they
hasten to solve our problems, they shelter us, they protect us, they are
constantly by our side and they mediate to the Triune God for us, while
simultaneously respecting our free will. That is why the only thing we
need to do is to pray to them and ask for their mediations. We should
entrust our children, our family, our homeland, our missions to them, in
order to achieve escape from various impasses. Wondrous events such as
the aforementioned one will always come before us, to show us that
through prayers, humilitation and our proper worship of God, we can
attain whatever we need.
With love in Christ
Fr. Ermolaos Iatrou
See more
Malawi
(in our blog)
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