Patriarchal Exarchate continues to develop educational projects as part of its mission

Educational projects remain a top priority for the Patriarchal Exarchate of Africa in its mission.

Nun Matrona (Jepchirchir) started learning the Russian language even before her tonsure, while still in Kenya, and continued her studies in Russia with a qualified teacher.

Ms Anna Ibrakhim, a faculty member of the Chair of Russian as a Foreign Language at the State University of Education, has been teaching Mother Matrona for three months now and says that her student’s progress has exceeded all expectations.

Russian is also on the curriculum of a training course for clergymen. This week the students taking the course have also attended lectures on liturgics, dogmatic theology, history of the Church and schism studies.

Priest Sergy Voyemawa from the Central African Republic is receiving practical liturgical training in the French language at the Church of St Nicholas the Wonderworker in Novaya Sloboda in Moscow under the guidance of Archpriest Igor Davydov. It was organised under the auspices of the Synodal Missionary Department of the Russian Orthodox Church. The students doing the training course also serve as acolytes.

English-speaking clergymen of the African Exarchate, namely Priests Daniel Agbaza from Nigeria and Paul Atangana from Cameroon and Deacon Savva Kajawa from Malawi, are now in Karelia (northwest Russia), where they receive practical training under the supervision of Priest Stanislav Rasputin, concelebrating divine services and rites with him.

The Patriarchal Exarchate of Africa has signed an agreement with the Moscow Pedagogical State University. On 15^thMarch 2023, Mr Konstantin Gorditsa, who is in charge of foreign students, met with Mr Vyacheslav Kruglov, head of the International Relations Office of the Moscow Pedagogical State University.

Eight applicants from Kenya, Madagascar, Cameroon, Uganda and Burundi have been enrolled on Russian as a Foreign Language Course at the Pedagogical University. Upon completing the studies and passing certification exams, they will be able to enrol in the Russian theological schools, first of all, the St Nicholas Seminary in Ugresha, where they will be staying while doing the aforementioned course.

“I thank Hieromonk Mefody (Zinkovsky), rector of St Nicholas Theological Seminary in Ugresha, and Mr Alexey Lubkov, rector of the Pedagogical University, for their assistance,” Metropolitan Leonid of Klin, Patriarchal Exarch of Africa, wrote in his Telegram channel.

Patriarchal Exarchate of Africa