In what seems to be an increasingly rare act of inter-Orthodox cooperation on its part, a bishop of the Bucharest Patriarchate has laid the cornerstone for a church to serve Romanian immigrants in metropolitan Johannesburg, South Africa, with the blessing of Pope Theodore II (Horeftakis) of Alexandria and All Africa. The cornerstone was laid this past Saturday in Midrand, a suburn of Joburg, by Metropolitan Damascene (Papandreou) of Johannesburg, the local ruling hierarch, and Bishop Petronius (Florea) of Zalau, a suffragan bishop of the Romanian Orthodox Metropolitanate of Cluj in Transylvania. A full account of the day with pictures of the service can be found here.
It is unclear whether the church will function as a representation of the Bucharest Patriarchate to the Church of Alexandria or as a Romanian-speaking parish of the Metropolis of Johannesburg.
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From Dn Steven's comments on the "Orthodox Missions" listserv, it sounds like this parish- similar to other ethnic missions in the Gauteng area- is under the omophorion of His Eminence Metropolitan Damaskinos of Johannesburg.
ReplyDeleteTo my knowledge, the only canonical Eastern Orthodox parish in Africa *not* part of the Church of Alexandria is a solitary ROCOR mission on a Ugandan island of Lake Victoria.
St Andrew's Romanian Orthodox Church in Johannesburg is under the omophorion of His Eminence, Metropolitan Damaskinos of Johannesburg who sits on the Holy Synod of the Church of Alexandria and all Africa. All canonical Eastern Orthodox congregations in Africa, possibly with one exception on an island in Uganda, are part of the Church of Alexandria and all Africa.
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