God uses the back door

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Eight years ago two monks, Fr Nazarius and Fr Elias, came to see me. After their visit I wrote in my diary

In the afternoon John Palmos, now Fr Elias, came to see me, with Fr Nikodim. They said they wanted to start a monastery in South Africa, and evangelise among blacks, but as they span out the long story it became apparent that they were doing all this under the auspices of Cyprian of Oropos and Fili, the Greek Old Calendrist bishop. They said that they had tried to do it under the Patriarchate of Alexandria, but that the Patriarchate of Alexandria did not want monasteries. I found that hard to believe. As they expounded their mission strategy, I found I agreed with just about everything they proposed to do. It seemed a very sound, Roland Allen-type strategy, and I wished I could help them, but introducing yet another “jurisdiction” into South Africa would be disastrous. I wrote again to Archbishop Makarios, in the hope that he might invite them to work in his Archdiocese, and so wean them away from their sectarian affiliations.

Father Nikodim was a priest from St Petersburg, Florida, in the USA, under the Patriarchate of Serbia. John Palmos, a young South African, had joined him there as a novice, and after a few years they went to a monastery in Serbia and were tonsured, John Palmos as Fr Elias and Fr Nikodim as Fr Nazarius. When they returned to South Africa in June 2000 the then Archbishop of Johannesburg and Pretoira, Metropolitan Ioannis, was very ill (he died a few months later), which was why I suggested that they should make contact with Archbishop Makarios of Zimbabwe (who is now in Kenya).

A couple of years later (in November 2002) I went with Father Athanasius Akunda, with the blessing of His Eminence Metropolitan Seraphim, the new Archbishop of Johannesburg and Pretoria, to visit them at their Monastery of the Holy Spirit a few kilometres west of Pretoria. They had built a chapel and a few wooden huts, and were building in local stone. Father Athanasius and I gave them the invitation from Archbishop Seraphim to go and see him, but nothing seemed to come of it.

Towards the end of 2007 Fr Nazarius became ill, and was in Sunninghill Hospital. Fr Pantelejmon, of the nearby St Thomas’s Church, visited him in hospital, and Fr Nazarius said that he regretted his estrangement from the canonical Orthodox Church, and wished to return with those he had gathered, and made his confession to Fr Pantelejmon, and died a couple of weeks later, on 2 January, which was the day that Father Frumentius was ordained as a deacon.

A few weeks ago I blogged about the ordination of Fr Frumentius. The day of his ordination was the first day I had met him. I have met him a couple of times since then, and he has now been ordained as a priest (he had previously been ordained by an Old Calendrist bishop).

Last weekend we fetched Fr Frumentius and his wife Evgenia at their home on the outskirts of Atteridgeville, where they run an orphanage for about 20 children. We first went to visit the monastery of St Andrew, where we gave a puppy to Father Nektarius and Father Seraphim, and were able to join them for compline. The stavropegic monastery of St Andrew is an English-speaking monastery, newly-established with the blessing of Archbishop Seraphim.

Father Frumentius and his wife stayed with us on Saturday night, and came with us to visit the congregation in Mamelodi on Sunday, where Fr Frumentius preached, and his wife spoke about the women’s conferences. Fr Frumentius speaks Northern Sotho, which most members of the congregation speak, so at last people will be able to make confession to a priest who speaks their language. Some of the older people do not have very good English, and have had to confess to priests for whom English is also a second language.

And as Fr Frumentius told us of what they had been doing, it became clear that not only had Fr Nazarius and Fr Elias come with an excellent mission plan; they had also carried it out diligently. Together with Fr Frumentius they have established congregations in various places, and there are also several priests and deacons whom I have not met, but look forward to meeting over the next few months. Not only are there congregations in Mamelodi, Witbank, Vosloorus, Daveyton and several other places, but also in other provinces — KwaZulu/Natal, the Eastern and Western Cape, which fall under the Archbishop of Cape Town

Fr Frumentius is a true missional church planter, and Fr Nazarius and Fr Elias have taught the people well. I have been waiting twenty years to meet someone like Fr Frumentius, and God has granted it at last.

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Filed under Christianity, Orthodoxy, South Africa, monasticism

Tags: African Orthodox Church, African Orthodoxy, missiology, missional church planting, Orthodox mission