The African Orthodox Church

THE ORTHODOX MISSION TODAY

THE AFRICAN GREEK ORTHODOX CHURCH

The most complete account to date of the past and present of East African Orthodoxy, which is perhaps the most remarkable Orthodox Mission of the 20th century: a "spontaneous" working of the Holy Spirit that may yet, if the dream of its apostles be true, sweep the continent of Africa.

I

THE VAST continent of Africa – 5000 miles long, and 2000 miles wide at its narrow belt is divided by the Sahara Desert into two quite distinct areas. To the north lie the lands bordering on the Mediterranean, long in contact with Western Europe and actually a part of the Western world. To the south lies Negro Africa, until recently largely unknown to the outside world and only in the last century entering into contact for good or ill with Western civilization. Its owngeography has served to isolate sub-Saharan Africa: back of its coastal area, about twenty miles wide, it is an immense plateau, averaging over 3000 feet in height, with which communication has been possible only with great difficulty.

Throughout this area the greatest diversity reigns, whether with regard to landscape and climate, or people and cultures. There are some 800 indigenous languages belonging to four major language families; of these languages only one Swahili, a Bantu language of the coast modified by Arabic and spread inland as a lingua franca is spoken over any large area, and that often only as a second language. Before contact with Europeans, the African political unit was the tribe, of which there were many hundreds, some highly organized and sophisticated and with a wide sphere of influence, and others much more localized or primitive. To this day any one African nation is composed of any number of different peoples speaking several or many different languages.

European explorations of the African coast in the 15th and 16th centuries began for Africa a new era of contacts with the West, but the interior remained still for several centuries largely isolated and inaccessible. The missionaries and explorers of the 19th century (of whom Livingstone is the best known) finally awakened Western interest in the interior, and in the two decades after 1880 virtually the whole of Africa south of the Sahara was partitioned among the leading European states. The boundaries of the modern African states are with few exceptions those drawn at this time by the European powers.

East Africa is an area if anything even more diverse in its features than the rest of Africa. It has the perpetual snows of Mt. Kenya and Mt. Kilimanjaro, and tropical Lake Victoria, the source of the Nile, with the fertile lands surrounding it; the invigorating climate of the Kenya Highlands, and the dust and heat of Kenya's Northern Province; modern cities and subsistence agriculture; the whole gamut of tropical African wildlife; and its share of racial and tribal diversity and conflict.

The narrow tropical coast of Kenya and Tanganyika (now Tanzania, after federation in 1964 with Zanzibar), 10 to 40 miles wide, has had contact with the Middle East for a thousand years, and in its cities is a large concentration of East Indian and Arabian traders and merchants. Most of the native Africans live far inland, separated from the coast by a series of low, arid plateaus, with the greatest concentration of population in the Eastern Rift Valley of Kenya and the Western Rift Valley of Uganda, and in the Central Plateau Basin (including Lake Victoria) that lies between them. The total population of the three East African nations, which occupy an area one-fifth the size of the United States, is about 25 million, of which 100,000 are Europeans and over 400,000 Asians.

Uganda until recently was a unique federation of four tribal monarchies, but conflicts between the Central Government and the chief tribe, the Baganda, have led to the exile of the Baganda and other kings and an increase of central control. Tribal friction has been present in Kenya also, owing to the presence of two large tribes, the Kikuyu and the Luo. The situation in Kenya has been further complicated by the presence of a rather large number (66,000) of European settlers, who had been given choice farmlands in the Highlands area; this resulted eventually in the anti-White Mau Mau revolt of the '50's (an "Emergency" period being declared by the Government from 1952-56) on the part of a small number of the Kikuyu tribe. This period is now happily past, and Kenya today is an independent multi-racial state. Only in Tanzania has there been an absence of major tribal conflicts, owing to the large number (120) of small tribes and the decline of their influence. Kenya and Uganda were part of the British colonial system, and Tanganyika, once in German hands, became a British mandate after World War I. Thus, throughout East Africa English is the official language. All three nations gained political independence in the years 1961-63.



EAST AFRICA

The penetration of the interior of East Africa by Western missionaries occurred only in the last quarter of the 19th century, with their greatest success being in Uganda. Today some 80 per cent of the inhabitants of Uganda are nominally Christian, most of them Roman Catholics and Anglicans. The rest of East Africa is predominantly pagan, less than a third of Kenya being nominally Christian, and 7 per cent of Tanzania.

II

THE HISTORY of the Orthodox Mission in East Africa differs strikingly from those of the Western confessions in that it was not started by foreign missionaries at all, but by natives. For many years, it is true, there have been Greek Orthodox churches in Africa below the Sahara, but only for the benefit of Greek settlers. The Church of Alexandria, one might say, was forced to come to the aid of the African Mission after it had already existed for many years. Today Greek churches in Africa outside the area of the native missionary impulse – as in South Africa or The Congo – are not engaged in such missionary activity.

Orthodoxy in East Africa owes its foundation to two men, both of the Baganda tribe, both baptized by Anglican missionaries but led by inner disatisfaction and a search for truth that did not cease until they had found the true Church of Christ: Orthodox Christianity.;

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1. The information in this section was taken almost entirely from F. B. Welbourne, East African Rebels, SCM Press Ltd.; London, 1961, which contains the most detailed information on the background of the African Orthodox Church. A brief historical account and some information on more recent conditions is contained in Orthodoxy 1964, "Zoe," Athens, 1964.


Reuben Sebbanja Ssedimba Mukasa was born at the end of the 19th century to Anglican-baptized parents. From the age of eight he was educated in Anglican schools, where from his spirit in athletic competitions he earned the nickname of "Spartas," by which he has been commonly known ever since. He considered Anglican ordination, but from his reading in Church history he came to the conclusion that the Anglican church was not the true Church of Christ, and he began searching for "the true old Church." After further education and service with the African Native Medical Corps (during World War 1) and The King's Rifles, he became a clerk and interpreter at Bombo, where he met Obadiah Basajjakitalo; they became "the two inseparables," and out of their friendship and love and zeal for truth, Holy Orthodoxy came to East Africa.

Obadiah Basajjakitalo, born of pagan parents, was baptized an Anglican in 1903, and after completing his education continued to read widely, especially in Church history. He remained an Anglican until 1924, and then leaned toward Roman Catholicism, but his new friend Spartas (whose sister he married) dissuaded him and they continued together the search for the true Church. About 1925 Spartas founded a school and an "African Progressive Association," and to this day the Orthodox schools have played an important role in the spread of Orthodoxy, especially in Uganda.


A typical village church in Kikuyu country (Village of Waithaka in Kenya)



African Orthodox Church of St. Nicholas in Kampala (Uganda)



Greek Orthodox Church in Nairobi (Kenya)



Orthodox Youth Meeting at Muguga (Central Kenya) Father Chrysostom of Nairobi Greek parish at center.



Some Orthodox clergy and laymen. Archimandrite Reuben Spartas (left), one of the founders of the African Orthodox Church, with Fr. Ireneos Magimbi, Kam pala parish priest.



Taken outside a village church in Uganda: (1-r) Fra Obadiah (one of the founders); John Harwood (author of the report in part III below headmaster of local Orthodox school; Deacon Emmanuel Mulunga; Fr. Ireneos Ma gimbi: a lavman of the parish.


One thing, however, from the very beginning distinguished their concern from that of their contemporaries who, on the one hand, placed first and foremost the secular, political question of nationalism and independence, and on the other, were led into religious movements and sects based upon the negative foundation of reaction against "colonialism" and "the white man's religion." With "the two inseparables" the search for truth was always paramount, and it led them in the end past all pitfalls into contact with, and eventual allegiance to, international and canonical Orthodoxy.

The temptations to turn back from this path were many, coming not only from African nationalism, but also from false "Orthodox" sects, and from within the Orthodox Church herself.

Their search for the "true old Church" finally led them into an interest in Orthodox Christianity. Their first contact with "Orthodoxy," however, was in the form of an "African Orthodox Church" that had no connection whatever with the Orthodox Church, being simply a sect created by a Jamaican Negro, Marcus Garvey. In 1929 Spartas established contact with an "Archbishop Alexander" of this sect and, breaking with the Anglican Church, formed the "African Orthodox Church." In 1932, both he and Obadiah were ordained "priests" by this "Archbishop

The fraud, however, was soon unmasked. Before "Archbishop Alexander" left Africa he was asked by a Greek employee of the Public Works Department to baptize his child. Seeing that the "Archbishop" did not use the Greek rite, this man advised Spartas to write to a Greek Archimandrite in Moshi, Tanganyika. The latter visited Uganda at the end of 1932, and at his advice the new church severed relations with "Archbishop Alexander" and began its long attempt to gain recognition and help from the Orthodox Patriarchate of Alexandria.

Archimandrite Nicodemos Sarikas was the first Orthodox priest in the Union of South Africa, founding in 1907 the Greek Orthodox community in Johannesburg. In 1911 he moved as a farmer to the Moshi district of Tanganyika, and remained until his death in 1941 a devoted pastor for the Greeks in Tanganyika. He responded to the call from Spartas, visiting Uganda several times as an adviser and friend, and later contacted followers of "Archbishop Alexander" among the Kikuyu tribe in Kenya.

Archimandrite Nicodemos was the first contact the new church had with living Orthodoxy, and he gave it great help in developing in an Orthodox direction and establishing a connection with the historical Orthodox Church. He wrote the Patriarch of Alexandria, asking him to take the church under his protection. He advised training native men for the clergy and sending them for education to Alexandria and Athens, and himself took two men of the Baganda tribe to study with him in Moshi. (One of these, Fr. Ireneos Magimbi, is now a priest in Kampala.) He established friendly relations between Spartas and the Greek community in Kampala, which now accepts the ministration of African Orthodox priests and has contributed much to the financial support of the African Church.

Unfortunately for the Africans, the Patriarchal See of Alexandria was occupied at this time by the modernist ecclesiastical adventurer and actual apostate Meletios (II) Metaxakis. In response to the Africans' request for support and recognition he sent, in February, 1934, some Orthodox books, together with a reply that reveals the corruption of some Orthodox circles by the "ecumenical" spirit even at that early date. Because, the Patriarch wrote Spartas, union between Orthodox and Anglicans was now close, he would do best to return to the Anglican church in Uganda! The Anglican bishop of Uganda, informed of this by Meletios, asked for Spartas" "repentance" and in general tried to discourage any Orthodox help to him from Alexandria.

This, perhaps, was the greatest trial the young community had yet to undergo. The Orthodox Church, it seemed, was not interested in spreading Orthodoxy among the Africans, but willingly abandoned them to heterodoxy! The response of the Africans to this trial proved the genuineness of their search for the true Church of Christ. Countless other African "religious" figures simply formed their own sects; but Spartas and those with him, once having discovered Orthodoxy, were not to be swerved from their resolve to be accepted into her bosom. Spartas has written of this period: "We did not sleep or rest but knock and knock again and again upon the Patriarch's door for admission."

In 1930 Spartas was approached by the "African Orthodox Church" of Kenya, and the latter group was brought into the same struggle for recognition by the Patriarch of Alexandria. Spartas visited the communities in Kenya and gave instruction to them; but the Orthodoxy of the latter did not have as solid a foundation as did that of Uganda, owing to the greater heritage among the Kikuyu tribe of sectarianism and the persistence of such practices as polygamy. In this difficult period much help and encouragement was given by Archimandrite Nicodemos.

Under the new Patriarch of Alexandria, Christophoros II, the goal of the Orthodox communities in East Africa was finally attained. In 1945 four students from Uganda were sent to the Greek Patriarch's College in Alexandria. (One of these is now Archimandrite Theodore Nankyamas of Kampala.) In 1946 Spartas visited Alexandria at the expense of a Kampala Greek, and the long-sought recognition was finally granted. Spartas was blessed by the Patriarch, who made him his Vicar in Uganda and Kenya, with Obadiah Basajjakitalo his assistant in Uganda. In 1951 Archimandrite Antonios of Juba (in the Sudan) visited Kampala, and finally a Greek Metropolitan was appointed for all of East Africa. The first Metropolitan of "Eirinopolis" (the Greek translation of Dar-es-Salaam, capital of Tanganyika), Bishop Nicholas (Barelopoulos), soon transferred his see from Tanganyika to Kampala, in the interests of the African mission.1 To him Reuben Spartas vowed obedience in an impressive ceremony at Namungona in July, 1959. In 1960 the first native priests after the founders were ordained, and today there are in Kenya and Uganda in all 25 priests and three deacons, with a number of candidates awaiting the visit of the Metropolitan for ordination.

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1. As this article was being prepared, Metr. Nicholas was elected Patriarch of Alexandria. His first official act was to proclaim himself an adherent of reunion with Rome, looking to a "new spring of Christianity" (Orthodox Russia, no. 14, 1968). May this example not be followed in East Africa or elsewhere!


The Orthodox mission in Tanganyika, despite the great concentration there of Greeks and a greater number of Greek churches than elsewhere in East Africa, dates only from 1963. It began, again, "spontaneously," without any missionary activity, through the influence of a devout Greek, an employee in an African factory, on his African fellowworkers.1 This mission is served from Kampala, there being as yet no local clergy.

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1. See the account by Fr. Theodore Nankyamas in Orthodoxy 1964, pp. 388ff.


As for the total number of Orthodox Christians today in East Africa, there are no figures and it is difficult even to guess. Estimates have run as high as 30,000, although all that can be said with certainty is that there are many hundreds of converts every year.


Great Friday Procession with the Shroud of the Lord, Kompala, Uganda, 1968



Open-air Liturgy in Kenya: Seminarian receiving Communion from Fr. Joachim



Great Friday Procession, Kompala, Uganda, 1968



Seminarians outside St. Nicholas Seminary in Waithaka, Kenya



Open-air Liturgy in Kenya (Litany): Deacon Emmanuel Mulunga (acting principal of Seminary)



Fr. Emmanuel outside of St. Nicholas Seminary with daughter


III

Against this background one may view the present state of the African Greek Orthodox Church in some perspective. The following report consists of quotations from letters written this spring to The Orthodox Word by an Orthodox Englishman, John Harwood, a British civil servant who was in East Africa until April in the employ of the Kenya Government. All the photographs were taken by him also.

VERY ROUGHLY, the situation is quite different in Kenya from Uganda. In Kenya the Orthodox Africans are found in Central Province (especially to the west of Nairobi-Kiambu district) and Western Province. The former are of the Kikuyu tribe and the latter Abaluyia [Luo]. These are two of the largest tribes in Kenya...

The Kikuyu I know well since their Orthodox villages are mostly near Nairobi. They are numerically very strong, and I would think the Orthodox in Kenya far outnumber those in Uganda... However in Kenya the educational standards of the priests and laity are rather low and the canons are frequently broken through ignorance. Like other Christian missions we find it very difficult to persuade the Kikuyu of the necessity of Church marriage and monogamy...

In Uganda, however, the situation is quite different. The numbers are fewer but the people really "know" their faith and nearly every priest has a theological degree from Athens or Salonica. I think that the future of a sound Orthodoxy in Africa lies with them..

The mission in Kenya is largely the result of work by priests from Uganda among what was formerly a break-away church calling itself "Orthodox." In the "Emergency" period it was politically active against the British and still retains a "tribal" mentality (typical of the Kikuyu), although now on a canonical basis. There are whole Kikuyu villages in Kiambu District (just west of Nairobi) which are almost entirely Orthodox . These date from the time when the people left the mission churches (Anglican, etc.) in the '30's and '40's and formed independent sects with such names as "African Orthodox Church." The movement was largely to get away from European control and Westernization (sometimes in order to retain highly undesirable practices such as polygamy and female circumcision). Such movements are found in Africa wherever there are large numbers of Europeans (e.g, South Africa, Rhodesia, Kenya) and are understandable. The result is, however, that the Church in Kenya is a lot less stable than in Uganda where the "sect-heritage" is not so great.

As far as the mission in Tanzania is concerned, it is at the moment in one district only: Geita, to the south of Lake Victoria. Like most tribes in Tanzania the people of this area speak Swahili habitually and the tribal languages (unlike Kenya) are being abandoned. There is no Orthodox priest yet in Tanzania and Fr. Theodore Nankyamas from Kampala holds services for them fairly regularly (in Swahili). There are approximately 2000 Orthodox in the area. There are many Greek centers in Tanzania also and Fr. Theodore holds services for them also, since he knows Greek well.

TRANSLATION WORK is a great problem since it involves about six or seven local languages! There are simply no qualified people to do it except in the case of Luganda (spoken in Buganda, around Kampala).

The Liturgy, Vespers, and many occasional services have been translated into Luganda. The translations are of good quality and only the texts for certain feasts and certain troparia remain untranslated. Fr. Chrysostom (the Greek priest in Nairobi) has translated Matins and the Lectionary (Calendar) into Swahili (the lingua-franca of Tanzania and Kenya), [and the Liturgy has been translated as well].

In the churches of central Kenya, Kikuyu is used for Vespers, Matins, and Liturgy the translation was made some years ago from an English translation and is apparently not very satisfactory. In Western Kenya the Abaluyia used their tribal language for the Liturgy and again the translation was probably made from the English. The Liturgy (alone) has been translated also into Lango and Acholi, both Nilotic languages spoken in Northern Uganda. There are Orthodox students from these tribes in America, Greece, and Rumania. Also (besides Buganda) there are abroad students from the old Kingdoms of Toro and Bunyoro in the south. These latter tribes speak languages close to Luganda and therefore no translation work is necessary at this stage...

English is used for communication between different tribes, or Swahili (though many people in Uganda don't know the latter). English is also the "official" language of the Youth Movement in Kenya.but is never used liturgically.

ORTHODOXY is mainly spread by priests from Kampala travelling to different parts of East Africa (especially of course Uganda) or by opening schools in villages without them. Even parents who remain Moslem or Protestant themselves, will then like their children to be baptized Orthodox. The second method is slow but paves the way for a strong and educated elite in whole villages in Uganda. In Kenya, people who become Orthodox these days are mostly ex-Anglican: a couple of Anglican churches have closed down completley in villages around Nairobi. The motives for the change, however, are sometimes mixed.

Any books suitable for teaching the Orthodox faith and practice in schools or seminaries in the English language are most welcome...I would not say that the printed word has much influence in spreading Orthodoxy outside schools, however. All direct mission work in new areas is done by the priests from Kampala themselves. They work amazingly hard and it is astonishing to see how far Orthodoxy has spread when one considers that before 1960 there were only two priests – the founders themselves – in Uganda.

IN KENYA most of the churches are wooden and poorly furnished. The iconostas is simply a plain wooden wall of planks with three doorways (usually curtained in the Greek modern custom) with paper icons (mounted) hanging in the usual places. The floor is usually just beaten earth and very uneven! There is always an iconostas and altar (usually a crude wooden table covered with silk cloth) but little else in the way of furnishings or decoration. Sometimes school desks and benches are brought in from the local school for the congregation but the people seem to have no objection to the Orthodox custom of standing for long periods. Often the churches are not well-roofed enough to protect clergy and laity in the long rainy seasons. The "floor" will then turn to red mud. In Uganda there are some quite nice stone churches going up.

THE SERVICES (largely taken from Greek usages, with Matins and Liturgy together on Sunday morning) are magnificent. In both Kenya and Uganda (particularly the former) what was originally Byzantine Chant has been slowly and unconsciously "Africanized" so that the music is the envy of the other missions! The priests celebrate with wonderful dignity, even those who are uneducated; one finds it hard to believe that they were not taught by Russian monks!

Services tend to be long, and Vespers on Saturday night and Matins and Liturgy on Sunday morning are well attended; but the Calendar and Saints' Days are not much followed due to incomplete translations of the necessary texts.

Sometimes (as with many Kikuyu) people have a great devotion to their Church without really understanding very much of its teaching and worship. Ignorance of the canons among such people is even greater. For example, in Central Kenya most people receive Holy Communion every Sunday but often without proper preparation (confession, fasting, etc.), and even with canonical impediments (polygamous marriages or irregular unions) as well. In Uganda, however, people tend to go to Communion far less frequently but with proper care and reverence (they will for example "excommunicate" themselves if their married status is doubtful).

Veneration of the Mother of God is quite strong, but knowledge of individual Saints not very great. Veneration of Icons is not very noticeable but will probably increase in time. The Africans have little traditional two-dimensional art (all their representational art is in the form of wood-carving), so Icons are still a little strange to them. I have only rarely seen Icons in people's huts and houses, though the clergy have them. The lay people largely use simple prayers of Roman Catholic or Protestant origin for private use; as far as I know none of the Orthodox Morning and Evening Prayers have yet been translated.

Please do not think I am being critical or pessimistic when I write such things. All mission work in Africa is beset with such difficulties. It is a long process in which secular education is intimately involved, and many things which might shock us are done in ignorance rather than in a "liberal" or unorthodox spirit.

THE ST. NICHOLAS SEMINARY is located at Waithaka (near Nairobi), and another Seminary is being started soon in Uganda at Degeya (some miles north of Kampala). Prior to this Ugandans studied theology abroad.

It is difficult to give an idea of the kind of candidate found at Waithaka. It is only recently that it was put on a sound basis (with help from Uganda). At the moment many of the students have not completed secondary education, so a great deal of time has to be spent teaching them elementary subjects as well as theological ones. When the seminary at Degeya is opened it will be rather different and candidates will have to have reached a high standard of general education before commencing there.

At Waithaka there are now three teachers, Fr. Emmanuel Mulunga (Deacon) teaching theology and liturgical practice, etc., and two lay teachers (one Tanzanian and one from Western Kenya) teaching secular subjects. The students are about two-thirds Kikuyu and the re mainder mostly from Western Kenya (Abaluhiya). The Kikuyu are not very happy at having no teacher of their tribe but there are simply no suitable candidates.

THERE ARE quite a number of Greeks in Kenya and Tanzania (very few in Uganda) but they attend church rarely, either because they have farms some way from the nearest town or because long periods without resident priests have made them lose the habit. At the moment Nairobi Greek parish has a resident priest (a very good man who has done great work for the Africans) but he is old and before him there was a long period without one. Both here [Nairobi] and in North Tanzania (Moshi, Arusha, etc.) there are permanent and very fine Greek churches, but nearly all without clergy.

Both the Greeks and the Africans come under the Greek Metropolitan of Eirenopolis, who is supposed to be resident in East Africa. In fact he resides almost entirely in Alexandria and only comes here when there are some African priests to ordain.

The relations between the Greek laity and the Africans are generally very good. The few Greeks in Kampala recently turned down an offer by a wealthy Greek woman to build them a church in Kampala. They said they preferred to go to the African church, which is a very healthy sign.

The church in Nairobi is used largely by Greeks, but the only reason why Africans don't come (since they are welcomed) is that the service is only in Greek, except that Fr. Chrysostom usually reads the Gospel in Swahili also.

THE CHURCH here is very much bound up in its own problems and rarely looks outside except for help (rather like the new African nations). The problem of Ecumenism is a good example. The African Orthodox does not look at it and ask whether it is good or bad for Orthodoxy as a whole, but whether Ecumenical movements can help individual Africans (with scholarships, etc.). Dealings with the World Council of Churches and Communist-dominated churches, which I should be horrified at in a Western context, are quite harmless and understandable here. What the African desparately wants is an educated clergy who can explain the faith and an educated lay elite who can teach the young. People don't realize that Africans are not so stupid that they cannot see through propaganda. If you explain to them the dangers of the above contacts they will answer (more or less), "So what, we know that, what we want is education we can ignore the propaganda." I'm afraid I no longer try to argue against this. It is a necessary evil which will soon no longer be necessary!

The local non-Orthodox churches largely ignore Orthodoxy in Kenya, regarding it as a "sect" and generally spreading lies about it. In Uganda there was some active opposition but this was stopped by the Kabaka (King) of Buganda (now exiled), who was a strong supporter of the Orthodox Church and granted much money and land to the Mission Center in Kampala. Though remaining Anglican he had some of his children educated as Orthodox. Spartas was a close personal friend and advisor of the exiled Kabaka.

IN KENYA there are 16 African priests (10 in Central Province and 6 in Western province). The parishes in Central Province tend to be larger and few of the priests have more than 1-2 parishes each. The total number is something like 20. In Western province the villages tend to be very small and close together, so the parish system follows this and often one priest can have between 3-5 parishes to look after. So the number is larger (30 or more). But if one includes all the places where the Liturgy is occasionally celebrated the total could be as high as 100. It is difficult to be more accurate than this.

In Uganda there are nine priests in the whole country and three deacons. Three are Archimandrites and the others married priests. One priest and one deacon are serving in Northern Region of Uganda and the remainder in Buganda or Busoga (Midland and Eastern Regions). Fr. Obadiah (one of the founders) has recently been appointed Vicar-General for Uganda.

[Unfortunately there has been some negligence and indifference to the needs of the African Church on the part of the Patriarchate of Alexandria.] The worst thing about this is that some African Orthodox leaders are turning to the Moscow and Rumanian Patriarchates. It is well to remember that schools and foreign scholarships are very important to any Mission here. Many of the laity in Uganda study at Athens University.

To put it bluntly, the chief needs of the Church here in East Africa are: money; opportunities of studying abroad; and priests and (more important) teachers for the schools and proposed Seminary in Uganda. Also, of course, increased contacts with Orthodoxy – especially in the United States – of varieties other than Greek. They want people to be aware of their existence and show solidarity with them. Orthodox literature in English is especially useful.

The Youth groups are a relatively new movement and it is hard to tell how far they will improve the situation in Kenya. Certainly the hope of the Church is with the young (who form a large percentage of the congregations), since the old are too conservative to change their ways now. The most important function of the Youth groups is really to get the "feel" of being together for a common purpose and to feel less of an "inferiority complex" towards other Christian groups, when they realize they themselves are quite numerous. If the Church in Kenya had its own schools (which it does in Uganda) the Youth groups would be much more effective.

FATHERS Reuben Spartas and Obadiah Basajjakitalo are still the venerated leaders of the Church in Uganda, though Fr. Obadiah tends to keep out of the limelight. Spartas is a very powerful personality and utterly dedicated to Christ and His Church. Both are still active, though old. Apart from Spartas there are only two other unmarried priests in Uganda. One of these is Fr. Theodore Nankyamas. A highly educated man, he is the one most likely to be made a bishop in the future, though some of his anti-Greek remarks in the past (concerning lack of Greek concern for African Orthodoxy) have made him very unpopular in Alexandria.

IV

The above account of the present state of the African Greek Orthodox Church speaks for itself. From the point of view of strict Orthodoxy, the picture presented is not without its defects. But they are the defects of a young and growing church and are due to inexperience or ignorance, to lack of means, and to difficult circumstances. The people of East Africa have come to Holy Orthodoxy by an evident miracle of God's grace, and by this grace and the guidance of the Holy Spirit, these defects can be overcome and outgrown, and what is already a thriving if fragile plant may yet grow into a great tree in God's Kingdom to the glory of God and for the salvation of many.

The temptations of the age are great, and in the contemporary world whole Orthodox Churches have fallen and are falling into apostasy, becoming indistinct in spirit and appearance from the heterodox. The Orthodox Christians of East Africa have not yet been drawn into this whirlpool of contemporary apostasy, but rather occupy a place apart. In East Africa they belong to none of the local Councils of Churches and are generally looked down upon by the other confessions; and abroad they have few contacts, and they send no delegates to frivolous and soul-dostroying "ecumenical" gatherings. Above all they are occupied in learning and growing in the Orthodox Faith.

May God continue to guide this young church on the narrow and straight Orthodox path, preserving her in purity and soundness of doctrine and practice, and bringing forth in her fruits for the coming Harvest of our Lord Jesus Christ!

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Orthodox readers who desire to render financial or other assistance to the African Greek Orthodox Church may address communications to:

V. Rev. Theodore Nankyamas
Orthodox Mission Centre
P.O. Box 3970
Kampala, Uganda

Any orders received by Orthodox Christian Books & Icons for Orthodox materials to be sent to Africa will be given a discount of 10 per cent. Unspecified contributions will be used to send books and icons as requested and needed by the African Church. Concerning Missionary Subscriptions to The Orthodox Word, see back cover of this issue.