Lack of churches

[eish]

Christ is risen!

I just had an exceedingly long earful of the usual how we mustn't all go our own way alone, can't go to no church at all, the heretical bishops have no power but that doesn't matter because we get the Eucharist from Christ and not the bishop, communion is not with the bishop (!?!), elder so-and-so said stay and wait, don't care what the bishop does, I just do the right thing, etc.

On that note: Please play for the conservatives in World Orthodoxy who are being tossed about leaderless and clueless, particularly here in South Africa. We have hardly any conservatives and the nearest TO churches that I can find anywhere--any putative TO, not even checking if they are correct--are not within a thousand miles. That number goes up if one excludes jab requirements for travel. I don't even have a place to go nor direct people to.
 

[Suaidan]

Christ is risen!

I just had an exceedingly long earful of the usual how we mustn't all go our own way alone, can't go to no church at all, the heretical bishops have no power but that doesn't matter because we get the Eucharist from Christ and not the bishop, communion is not with the bishop (!?!), elder so-and-so said stay and wait, don't care what the bishop does, I just do the right thing, etc.

On that note: Please play for the conservatives in World Orthodoxy who are being tossed about leaderless and clueless, particularly here in South Africa. We have hardly any conservatives and the nearest TO churches that I can find anywhere--any putative TO, not even checking if they are correct--are not within a thousand miles. That number goes up if one excludes jab requirements for travel. I don't even have a place to go nor direct people to.
 

 

Truly He is Risen!

We (as in True Orthodox as a whole but I'm not discounting our own Synod) are going to have to work on this; ultimately somebody is going to have to go down there and create something.

 

[Barbara]

Christ Is Risen ! Isn't Bishop Ambrose active in parishes in Central Africa somewhere ?
Maybe one could consult the missionaries there, to keep an ear out for conditions and updates about prospects for starting a TOC mission in South Africa.
Whereabouts are you, eish ? A big city or rural ?

[eish]

Christ Is Risen ! Isn't Bishop Ambrose active in parishes in Central Africa somewhere ?
Maybe one could consult the missionaries there, to keep an ear out for conditions and updates about prospects for starting a TOC mission in South Africa.
Whereabouts are you, eish ? A big city or rural ?

 

 There are GOC-K parishes in a couple of places in Central and East Africa, and I think one or two other jurisdictions as I recall. There are problems with that.

1) I don't trust GOC-K. If I can't be one with ecumenists then even more I certainly can't be one with covidists. I can't pick and choose which heresies are okay to be in communion with because that would be hypocrisy. If someone thinks I'm too strict then so be it, but if anyone wants to insist that the teaching of injecting oneself with "medicine" made by murdering infants is not a heresy "condemned by holy Synods, or Fathers," then that is not someone I take seriously enough to even debate with.
2) Nearly all countries near the African equator have vaccine requirements for travel. Yellow fever, I grant, but I sure don't trust them any more. At this point if I take a jab after learning that they were lying to us about what they were doing for so many years, I would be co-responsible even if they told me there were no infants harmed. Some African countries might also still be difficult with covid jabs. I don't know if there's any official information available on the net, but certainly from speaking with acquaintances they still block you at the Zimbabwean borders.
3) The nearest parishes of any group would still be around Kolwezi or so. That's over a thousand miles.
4) Rural Africa can be hard to reach and I won't get time off work for bundu bashing.
5) Africa is huge. See previous point.

Everything I have found is excluded right off the bat, by vaccination requirements, except maybe in Tanzania where there might be something and it might be viable to travel.

The big city isn't too far away and South Africa is fairly traversable so long as one has a car. But then even if we can get something started here, the question remains: Who would even be parishioners? The Greeks aren't interested in suddenly leaving their eastern papist state church, and the general population does not know Orthodoxy. That means starting from nothing.

Ultimately it means that either we get missionary clergy--difficult but not impossible--or I could be all alone in communion with distant Christians. There might be a few individuals to be found here and there, if I knew where they were.
 
 

[Barbara]

You DO have a predicament, eish ! But you know, if one of the Synods, maybe Milan or anyone adventurous, sent a good priest there, automatically, parishioners would collect. It happens naturally.

The main problem would be to get someone skilled at handling difficult situations who is also personable. Perhaps some priest who has ALREADY traveled widely.

EXCELLENT point about the risk if you wanted to travel to other parts of Africa. I haven't traveled in so many years that I forgot about that noxious restriction of a few years ago. I can't imagine that it's STILL in place in some of these parts of the world. [Is it for Europe or UK too ?]
You're RIGHT ! Metropolitan Demetrios of GOC-K did strongly defend that reprehensible practice. I remember that once you mentioned it.
Well, in that case, you better apply to ROCANA - ? At least they are also in the Southern Hemisphere, if that's any comfort !

Remember that for any growing jurisdiction, it would be attractive for them to be able to add to their roster of parishes "Johannesburg, South Africa". It would make even a small jurisdiction seem global.
That benefit might partly offset the difficulties of the process of starting a parish so far away.

What jurisdictions are in Tanzania ? That's way too far to travel, though, as are all these places.
You need a parish right nearby !