From November 2025 to June 2026, another training course for clergy of the Patriarchal Exarchate of Africa was held in Moscow. Five candidates for ordination from Kenya, Malawi, Uganda, and Zimbabwe completed the training.
In the spring, at the Church of St. Philip, Metropolitan of Moscow, in Meshchanskaya Sloboda district in Moscow, the Patriarchal Exarch of Africa, Metropolitan Konstantin of Cairo and North Africa, ordained the candidates first as deacons and then as priests.
All of them are married with children and have many years of experience in church life. Before traveling to Moscow, each actively served in his own parish, fulfilling various duties.
During their training, the future pastors deepened their knowledge of pastoral theology, liturgy, Church history, apologetics, and other disciplines. At the Nativity of Theotokos Convent, they learned how to bake prosphora, braid prayer ropes, and make candles.
Educational excursion programs were organized for the African clergy: they visited the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, the Holy Trinity St. Sergius Lavra, the Danilov Monastery, the Marfo-Mariinsky Convent, the Church of the Intercession of the Most Holy Theotokos in Yasenevo, and other churches and monasteries in the capital, as well as the Mikhail Abramov Museum of Russian Icons.
The newly ordained priests, Jairo Atieli and Raphael Andayi (Kenya), David Okurut (Uganda), Vladimir Mdoka (Malawi), and Emilian Shumba (Zimbabwe), have completed their liturgical training and are returning to their home countries to continue their pastoral ministry.
Father Raphael Andayi is the director of the elementary school at the Parish of the Great Martyr Panteleimon in the capital of Kenya.
It is also noteworthy that Father Emilian Shumba has become the first priest of the Russian Orthodox Church in Zimbabwe.
Patriarchal Exarchate of Africa
