Burundi: The heart of Africa beats Orthodoxytranslated

By Theophilus. Bishop of Bujumbura and Burundi, Mr. Isaac

If one looks at the map of Africa, one will see in the center a small country, equal to the Peloponnese, Burundi. It is considered the heart of Africa and, not coincidentally, it has its shape. According to local tradition, God took clay from these sun-baked soils and created man with water from the source of the Nile. That is why in their primitive rituals they emphasize this birth of human existence and life. They have respect for nature and what it offers them and coexist harmoniously without "rushing" it.

In this place, about a century ago, when it was under the rule first of the Germans and then of the Belgians, the Greeks found themselves, in order to improve their living conditions. They interrupted, progressed and some took root. Thus, in the mid-1950s, they built the Pericalli Church of the Dormition of the Virgin, whose inauguration was celebrated on March 27, 1960 by the first Metropolitan of Central Africa, Kyprianos Papadopoulos (1958-1973), when the then Pope and Patriarch of Alexandria and All Africa, Christophoros B, took care to create this Metropolis. This was the…