Steve Hayes writes:
The story I heard from Madagascar was quite amazing. Father Nectarios had been there for 18 months, and had started 15 new parishes in that time. He travelled down the coast taking the student with him, and when he saw a village with no church, would speak to the chief of the village and ask if he could come on a date to be arranged to explain the Orthodox Christian faith to anyone interested. Then a few weeks later he would return and speak to the people there, and then gather the interested people to catechise them and baptise them, and so 15 new parishes had been started within 18 months.
1 comment:
Dear Fr John,
The story of the late Bishop Nectarios is truly inspirational. What I always wonder is this: Do tribal people accept Christianity more easily than the more "sophisticated" city folk? Also, do we have records of the proclamations of such inspirational missionaries? How did Bishop Nectarios "explain the Orthodox Christian faith" to the villagers?
In Australia, we would not find that many villages without a church. Even then, there would not be an easily identified figure head like the village chiefs of Madagascar. Of course, all this does not absolve us from our duty to proclaim the faith. We just probably need a different model.
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