At dawn on Friday May 17th, 2018, His Beatitude Theodoros II arrived in Kenya accompanied by the Very Reverend Archimandrite Athenodoros Papaevripiades, on a Pastoral Missionary visit to the Provinces of the Throne of St Mark, in Kenya.
His Beatitude was welcomed at the Nairobi airport by His Eminence Makarios Metropolitan of Nairobi and His Eminence Ieronymos of Mwanza, the Bishops of Nieri and Mount Kenya His Grace Neophytos and of Kisumu and West Kenya His Grace Athanasios, His Excellency the Ambassador of Greece Mr. Constantine Moatsos, the Charge d’ Affaires of the Arab Republic of Egypt in Kenya, many clergy and other dignitaries.
On the same day, after a brief rest, the Alexandrian Primate together with the above-mentioned Hierarchs and his entourage, visited the Holy Church of the Apostle Paul in Kagira, which was built by the late ever remembered Missionary Chrysostomos Papasarantopoulos in the area of which the late Archbishop Makarios III of Cyprus had baptized five thousand newly enlightened Christians.
A brief Doxology was sung there and then His Beatitude declared the opening of the deliberations of the four-day Congress of the Union of Orthodox Mothers, O the Holy Metropolis of Nairobi, in which hundreds of Orthodox mothers participated as members, and welcomed the Patriarch with traditional dances and songs.
In his address to His Beatitude Patriarch Theodoros, the local Metropolitan Makarios of Nairobi, thanked him on behalf of the Clergy and the Orthodox faithful, both for his visit to Kenya, as well as for his presence for the very first time at the deliberations of the Union of Orthodox Mothers.
Addressing His Eminence, the Patriarch thanked him for the welcome and to the Mothers he addressed words of love and the gratitude of the Alexandrian Throne, for the for the great work of sacrificial education in Christ, of their Orthodox children.
Late in the evening, His Beatitude and his entourage arrived at the Patriarchal Academy, where he was warmly welcomed by the entire body of seminarians. He immediately went in procession to the Holy Church of St Makarios, where a Doxology was sung and the seminarians sand his acclamation in Greek.
A meeting presided over by the Patriarch followed with the participation of Metropolitan Makarios of Nairobi and Metropolitan Ieronymos of Mwanza, Bishops Neophytos of Nieri and Mount Kenya and Athanasios of Kisumu and West Kenya, as well as the Exarch of the Patriarchate in Cyprus Archimandrite Athenodoros, in which there was an extensive discussion and collaboration, for the more effective progress of Orthodoxy and missionary work, in Kenya’s Local Churches.
His Beatitude drew up the guidelines of the missionary effort by giving the necessary instructions from his many years of missionary experience for a more effective and systematic planning.
After the Congress, they went to the Church of St Makarios where they served the Resurrectional Great Vespers, officiated by His Beatitude the Patriarch, where the seminarians of the Academy sang the hymns.
A dinner was then hosted in the Academy, blessed by the Patriarch.
