In Nairobi, ROC clerics refuse to serve with hierarch of Alexandrian Church

Clerics of the Exarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church in Africa celebrated Divine Liturgy at the St Catherine Church in Nairobi, Kenya, on February 6, 2022. The priests refused to serve with Metropolitan Makarius of Nairobi who came to the church, reports Patriarchal Exarch of the Russian Orthodox Church, Metropolitan Leonid (Gorbachev) on his Telegram channel.

“The day before, the fathers agreed on a joint service. Upon learning of this, Metropolitan Macarius of Nairobi called the rector of the church and demanded that there be no Liturgy, to which he received an answer that he was treated with respect, but the decision to transfer to the Russian Orthodox Church was conscious and final. In the morning, His Eminence arrived at the temple before anyone else with a support group and announced that he would now serve the Liturgy here as well. Fathers, all as one, refused. The Metropolitan was forced to leave,” wrote Metropolitan Leonid.

“When in November 2019, when Patriarch Theodore recognized the OCU, Metropolitan Macarius stood on the left, what did he feel? Did his heart not tremble at the iniquity and injustice? And how cheerfully, at the last Synod, he reported to the Patriarch that ‘all discords occur in the west of Kenya, everything is fine in my capital!’ He who sows the wind will reap the storm. Vladyka Macarius is one of the oldest hierarchs of the Alexandrian Church, which means that experience and intuition should tell him the right decision. However, like all the others ‘who was pressured by the authorities, diplomats, etc.’,” added the Exarch of the Russian Orthodox Church in Africa.

As previously reported, the Exarch of the Russian Orthodox Church said that another heterodox community in Africa is interested in Orthodoxy. 

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