Your Excellences from various Countries’
Your Eminence’
Honorable Brothers and sisters from various institutions and organizations
And all the Protocols observed.
Kindly, allow me due to the time factor to give my speech shortly concerning the Religious Components in the Development of African Countries in a Rapidly Changing World.
The institution of religion strongly influences the social agenda of African countries and their peoples. But some global and regional players are trying to use it as a tool for political manipulation. This is often at the root of the escalation of armed conflicts, giving them a special poignancy and cruelty. A consequence of this is the persecution of Christians in a number of African countries, which is largely fueled by external forces. By taking this factor into consideration when building Russian–African cooperation, responding to emerging challenges, and outlining geopolitical planning frameworks, we can foster the development of peacekeeping initiatives on the continent and ensure the more sustainable development of African countries. In this sense, it is vital that Russia and Africa exchange experience in inter-religious cooperation. The religious mentality has formed the basis for the development of African societies, which revolve around traditional religious moral norms. Attempts by the West to alter this foundation, propose an alternative understanding of morality, expand the institution of family and marriage, and make other societal changes that are sinful from the point of view of traditional religions, are strongly rejected in African countries, and this brings them closely in line with Russia. We should jointly resist this pressure and consolidate efforts in this area by leveraging existing internal mechanisms and cooperating broadly on international platforms.
The Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarchal Exarchate of Africa was formed by the decision of the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarchate of Moscow and all Russia on 29th December 2021 with the requests of the African Orthodox Christians who were under Greek Alexandrian Orthodox church in Africa and decided to join the Russian Orthodox church because of the poor spiritual guidance and Neo-colonialism introduced in Africa by dividing the Africans and rule done by the Greek Bishops. The last straw that broke the patience of Orthodox Africans was the recognition by the Patriarch of Alexandria of the schismatic church in Ukraine. For this reason, the Russian Orthodox Church, Moscow Patriarchate accepted the requests of the Africans and the Holy Synod appointed his Eminence Metropolitan Leonid as a Patriarchal Exarch of Africa on 29th December 2021.
In Tanzania we introduced the presence of the Russian Orthodox Church in The Government of the United Republic of Tanzania on 2021 and was accepted, trusted and warmly welcomed.
The Russian Orthodox Church in Tanzania was officially registered on January 18, 2023 by the United Republic of Tanzania under the Ministry of Home affairs registration number SA.17296, and obtained the certificate from the Tanzania Revenue Authority with (TRA) TIN number 115-040-103 since January 18,2023
In Tanzania we introduced the presence of the Russian Orthodox Church in The Government of the United Republic of Tanzania on 2021 and was accepted, trusted and warmly welcomed.
The Russian Orthodox Church in Tanzania was officially registered on January 18, 2023 by the United Republic of Tanzania under the Ministry of Home affairs registration number SA.17296, and obtained the certificate from the Tanzania Revenue Authority with (TRA) TIN number 115-040-103 since January 18,2023
By continuing this good inter-religious between Russian and Africa
The Russian Orthodox Church with the cooperation with the Africans has achieved a lot in terms of spirituality, education and social welfare of the Africans.
The Russian Orthodox Church in Africa is giving good spiritual guidance to the African clergy and their believers. Spiritual trainings have been organised in Africa and in Moscow for the African Clergy and candidates who are been prepared to become priests, that has enabled them to learn and understand the spiritual life of the church, preaching the Gospel, the Holy Tradition of the Church since the period of the Apostles. And the number of African Orthodox Christians are increasing daily due to the factor that the Church has the major Root of the Word of God which is Christ and is the only Founder of this true Church, and He is the Head of the Church. From this training program, many priests and deacons have been ordained and some of them have joined monastic life both monks and nuns.
In this short period of time, the presence of the Russian Orthodox Church in Africa under Metropolitan Leonid has succeeded to organize internal and external scholarship for the children of the African Priests and their parishioners who were not able to afford the school expenses in different angle of education. Some of the them came to study in Russia and are still more coming for Higher education including Theology. In this case there are 10 African students who are studying Russian language in St Petersburg Theological Academy and 7 African students are studying in Moscow. Next year these students will continue their studies here in Russian in different faculties and more new African students are coming next year. The Russian Orthodox church has also organized Sunday schools in some parishes in Africa to prepare good spiritual leaders of the Church of tomorrow. By the Grace of God in future the church will establish her own schools and universities in Africa where many Africans will get good knowledge to fight against ignorance and poverty. Many African countries for example, in Tanzania in the Coastal Region, in Kisarawe district the Russian Orthodox church has opened an educational centre which hold 15 Tanzanian Orthodox youths.
The Church has managed to provide to some of our clergy Health Insurance, that has given them confidence in their missionary work in terms of any disease, natural calamities and accident during missionary work in their environments,
In Agricultural activities, as a major economic activity in Africa the Russian Orthodox Church has played a major role to support the farmers by helping them with fertilizers. In 2022 many African Orthodox Christians received fertilizers and seeds for their agricultural activities. Not only in agriculture but also the Russian Orthodox Church in some African countries has provided pure and clean drilling water, for example in Tanzania in Morogoro region in the Masai tribe.
Apart from all above mentioned activities done by the Russian Orthodox Church in Africa, during occurrence of the Tropical cyclone Freddy in Malawi which caused a loss of lives and loss of properties and thousands of victims were left homeless, in this issue the church stood together with the people of Malawi to provide some basic needs for the victims, such as shelters, food, clothes and medication.
Thank you very much for your attention.
May almighty God bless you, kwa jina la Baba na la Mwana na Roho Mtakatifu. Amina.
