•The problem started three years ago but has intensified over time.
•However, for some time now, some congregants told the Star, ranking priests and officials from the Russian Orthodox church have been trying to penetrate the local assemblies in Kenya.
Image: FILE
The ongoing Russia-Ukraine tensions have found their way into the Orthodox Church in Kenya, with priests taking sides, some rebelling against the leader Archbishop Makarios Tillyrides.
In interviews with the church leaders, including ranking officials and congregants, they paint a picture of a fellowship whose leaders are divided to get the loyalty of the congregations.
The problem started three years ago but has intensified over time.
The Orthodox Church in Kenya was established in the early 1900s by the first Greek emigrants.
Kenyans started embracing it in the 1930s. For decades, the church priests and other leaders have pledged their allegiance to and got their facilitation from its parent church in Athens.
However, for some time now, some congregants told the Star, ranking priests and officials from the Russian Orthodox church have been trying to penetrate the local assemblies in Kenya.
Initially, George Kiragu who attends one of the assemblies in the city told the Star, Russian priests would attend the services and be recognised as visitors from abroad.
With time, the local presiding priests who have allegedly been roped into the power grab plot would allow the Russian priests to conduct services.
The new priests raised the eyebrows of the congregants when they stopped recognising Archbishop Makarios in their liturgies.
Archbishop Makarios said the development was true and the Kenyan priests had been allegedly bribed with hefty salaries and other benefits to depose him and turn the church to Russia.
In his letter dated December 8 to the church priests and deacons, he said his attention had been drawn to the fact that some of their priests had been approached by personalities claiming to be another patriarchate, to lure them to join that church based on foreign issues that they have nothing to do with.
“I have also learnt the allure of financial incentives has been added to the package for whoever signs their fallacious oath,” the letter read.
Reverend Father George Maximov, a priest of the Russian Orthodox Church, told the Star the Russian priests came to the country on invitation by Kenyan priests who protested alleged mistreatment and dictatorship by the Greek leadership.
Makarios and Maximov said the Russian-Ukraine conflict has a role to play.
Maximov said the Russian Orthodox decided to come to the Kenyan church because the head of this church, Patriarch Theodoros, made a sole decision to enter into communion with the Ukrainian schismatics.
“For Orthodox Christians, the issue of schism is very serious. So many priests from Kenya and other African countries turned to the Russian Orthodox Church with a request to accept them. Our church responded positively to these requests,” he said.
The Athens church sided with Ukraine in the ongoing conflict with Russia over the former’s annexation of Crimea and the likely invasion. This angered the Russians, making them displace the Greek influence in the church as a way to get back on them.
Maximov denied they are out to grab leadership in Alexandrian church.
“They still have their structure. We just restore our presence in Africa and we will create our church administrative structure in cooperation with those fathers and laypersons who wanted to join us. We have nothing against those Africans who decided to stay in the Greek church. We respect the free will of people. We want to focus on work with those who joined us,” he said.
He says the local top leadership of the church are jittery at the entry of the Russians “because they get used to having a monopoly on Orthodoxy in Africa last years.”
“They should understand everything that is going on here is the result of the decision of their patriarch. Sadly he didn't consult with Orthodox Africans when he made the decision.”
Makarios says the Russians move is malicious, from the hands of the devil and will be defeated in the end.
He says the faithful in Kenya knows him and all he has done for the church and the corrupted priests have been chased away.
“We have put in new people and the attempts by the Russians is nothing in reality,” he said.
“There is no such a thing as Russian take over of the Orthodox Church in Kenya and the Christians know their bishops.”
He believes that very soon, the Russians will go.
“It is the priests that walked away but the congregation is not split. We have the congregation,” he said.
“I have been in the country for 45 years and the work we have done in schools, clinics, and orphanages is visible for all. The work I have done cannot be done by 10 bishops,” he said.
Makarios told his priests to avoid the Judas-like temptation and to shun that intrusive church that has no canonical rights to operate in Africa and as such can only cause them to err by joining an uncanonical sect through them.
Edited by Kiilu Damaris