Fr Spyridon comes to Tembisa
Yesterday we went to Tembisa again, as we do on alternate Sundays, but this time Fr Spyridon came with us.
I met Fr Spyridon at the reception given for the Archbishop of Mavrovouni last Monday, and only now discovered that the Archbishop was here to consecrate the Serbian Orthodox Church of St Thomas in Sunninghill Park last Sunday. Fr Spyridon is now serving at St Thomas's with Fr Panteleimon, who has been there a couple of years now. They are both from the same monastery in Serbia, and now that there are two of them they are living a monastic life together. For years we have been praying for a monastery here in the Archdiocese of Johannesburg and Pretoria, and now it seems to be happening.
At the reception Fr Spyridon was asking Fr Johannes Rakumako of Soshanguve about Zulu words and phrases, and I said that if he was interested in learning more, he should come to one of our services at Tembisa, where we use English, North Sotho and Zulu, depending on who is there. Mostly the services are in English, because Bothwell Gurure, the "Reader", is from Zimbabwee, and does not know any of the local languages. But yesterday Bothwell had gone home to Zimbabwe for his uncle's funeral, so we used mostly Northern Sotho, which is what most of the South Africans in the congregation speak, and it seemed good to have it for the children and the older people.
Fr Spyridon loved it, and now wants to visit our Mamelodi congregation as well. He said that when Archbishop Amphilochius was here, had had given him a special blessing to learn African languages.
And suddenly I am tremendously encouraged by all this. The two parishes closest to Tembisa are St Sergius in Midrand, a Russian parish, and St Thomas's in Sunninghill Park, the Serbian one. I had been hoping that we would be able to get one of them involved with our mission congregation at Tembisa, which only started in February this year (they came to the funeral of a priest who happened to live in the area, and were so impressed with the funeral that they decided they want to be Orthodox). And suddenly things seem to be coming right. St Thomas's now has two priests, so they would not be leaving the parish in the lurch if one of them comes to visit the mission congregations. And I also have a feeling that it is really good for monks to be involved in this, because most Orthodox mission has traditionally been monastic. And these are real monks who look like monks, with Schema, pony tails and all.
I'm posting this in both my journals, the public one in LiveJournal, and the private blog at Yahoo 350. The latter allows pictures, so I've posted it there with a picture of Fr Spyridon. LiveJournal actually does allow pictures, but one has to pay a lot of money to store them somewhere for them to appear there, and Yahoo allows one in a blog entry for free.
I met Fr Spyridon at the reception given for the Archbishop of Mavrovouni last Monday, and only now discovered that the Archbishop was here to consecrate the Serbian Orthodox Church of St Thomas in Sunninghill Park last Sunday. Fr Spyridon is now serving at St Thomas's with Fr Panteleimon, who has been there a couple of years now. They are both from the same monastery in Serbia, and now that there are two of them they are living a monastic life together. For years we have been praying for a monastery here in the Archdiocese of Johannesburg and Pretoria, and now it seems to be happening.
At the reception Fr Spyridon was asking Fr Johannes Rakumako of Soshanguve about Zulu words and phrases, and I said that if he was interested in learning more, he should come to one of our services at Tembisa, where we use English, North Sotho and Zulu, depending on who is there. Mostly the services are in English, because Bothwell Gurure, the "Reader", is from Zimbabwee, and does not know any of the local languages. But yesterday Bothwell had gone home to Zimbabwe for his uncle's funeral, so we used mostly Northern Sotho, which is what most of the South Africans in the congregation speak, and it seemed good to have it for the children and the older people.
Fr Spyridon loved it, and now wants to visit our Mamelodi congregation as well. He said that when Archbishop Amphilochius was here, had had given him a special blessing to learn African languages.
And suddenly I am tremendously encouraged by all this. The two parishes closest to Tembisa are St Sergius in Midrand, a Russian parish, and St Thomas's in Sunninghill Park, the Serbian one. I had been hoping that we would be able to get one of them involved with our mission congregation at Tembisa, which only started in February this year (they came to the funeral of a priest who happened to live in the area, and were so impressed with the funeral that they decided they want to be Orthodox). And suddenly things seem to be coming right. St Thomas's now has two priests, so they would not be leaving the parish in the lurch if one of them comes to visit the mission congregations. And I also have a feeling that it is really good for monks to be involved in this, because most Orthodox mission has traditionally been monastic. And these are real monks who look like monks, with Schema, pony tails and all.
I'm posting this in both my journals, the public one in LiveJournal, and the private blog at Yahoo 350. The latter allows pictures, so I've posted it there with a picture of Fr Spyridon. LiveJournal actually does allow pictures, but one has to pay a lot of money to store them somewhere for them to appear there, and Yahoo allows one in a blog entry for free.