After the aggravation of the ecclesiastical situation in Africa, which as a continent is under the jurisdiction of the ancient Patriarchate of Alexandria, on the Sunday of the Publican and the Pharisee, February 13, 2022, another new bishop was ordained in Cairo, again African. This is Bishop Nectarius of Gulu and Northern Uganda.
The ordination of the new African bishop took place in the church “St. Nicholas ”in Hamzaoui, Cairo, by His Beatitude Patriarch Theodore II of Alexandria together with Archbishop Damian of Sinai and with hierarchs of the Patriarchate and the Greek Orthodox Church. In his speech at the ordination, Ep. Nectarios expressed his gratitude to the archbishop and other hierarchs, clergy and laity of the Greek Church, who helped him establish himself as a theologian and clergyman of the Orthodox Church. He also duly thanked Patriarch Theodore of Alexandria, who gave him paternal attention and trust, placing him in responsible service among the people of his native Uganda. For his part, the patriarch highlighted the exemplary and successful work of Archimandrite Nectarios and already as a bishop wished him to always have two important things in his work: inspired vision and faith to fulfill the command of Jesus Christ, following his sacrifice.
The bishop (secular name Nicolae Cabuye) was born in Uganda in 1982 to a family of fifteen Roman Catholics. He graduated from the Rizari Seminary in Athens, then the Faculty of Theology there, specializing in ecclesiastical law. He also graduated in management training in the United States, and finally on November 1, 2013 he was ordained a monk by Archbishop Jerome II of Athens, who named him the former Metropolitan of Pendapolis of the Patriarchate of Alexandria, St. Nectarios of Aegina. For the next few years he was ordained hierodeacon and hieromonk in Athens, and eventually became a clergyman of the Alexandrian Patriarchate in Africa. Meanwhile, his entire family and many others around them converted to the Orthodox faith.
In recent weeks, this is the third newly ordained bishop for Africa and the second African of the three. Which comes to show that the current personnel policy of the predominantly Greek hierarchy of the patriarchate has had its weaknesses. It was they who gave rise to the Moscow Patriarchate to create a schism among African clergy by organizing its own exarchate in Africa.
