Ordination of a former Lutheran Pastor in Tanzania

With ecclesiastical splendour and simplicity, but above all with the wishes and blessings of His Beatitude Pope and Patriarch Theodoros II of Alexandria and all Africa, Steven Mpalange, a 57 year old former Lutheran Pastor of 25 years, who around two years ago was baptised into the Orthodox Faith by His Eminence Metropolitan Dimitrios of Irinoupolis, along with his whole family and then studied for an academic year at the Ecclesiastical Seminary of the Holy Diocese of Bukomba, was ordained on Sunday, 10 December 2023, as a deacon of the Holy Metropolis of Irinoupolis by His Eminence Metropolitan Dimitrios of Irinoupolis.

The touching sacrament was conducted in the Holy Church of Saints Arsenios and Paisios, at the Missionary Centre of Saint Catherine, in the city of Morogoro in Eastern Tanzania, and the Sunday Divine Liturgy was attended with exemplary order by members of the Greek Community, members of the Russian Community (despite the difficulties with the Moscow Patriarchate, many Russian believers continue to church with us) but also many indigenous Orthodox, Lutheran pastors and members of the Lutheran Church (it is the second largest denomination in Tanzania with about 5 million believers, being the fruit of the German Missionary efforts), who after the festive “agape meal” for the poorest of the poor, celebrated and congratulated their new Cleric in their own traditional African way.

The new Deacon will be in charge of the Missionary works of the two new parishes, in the wider area of the capital Dar es Salaam, where there is already the Holy Church of Panagia in Kunduchi, which is the first Holy Church built by the Greeks in Tanzania in the 1940s, with soil brought from Crete!

Source: romfea.gr