Bukoba, Tanzania, August 5, 2026
Photo: orthodoxianewsagency.gr
The Diocese of Bukoba and Western Tanzania of the Patriarchate of Alexandria has sent a missionary delegation to the Geita and Mara regions of western Tanzania in response to the expansion of the Russian Orthodox Church’s African Exarchate in those areas.
Bishop Chrysostomos of Bukoba directed the diocese to dispatch the delegation, which was headed by Fr. Athanasios Rukamunuga and Fr. Ioannis Jakobo, Sister Paraskevi, and theologian Yiannis Tumba, reports the Orthodoxia News Agency.
The group held a clergy assembly in the Vicariate of Geita, where the situation was reviewed and measures were decided upon to address it. The delegation also visited parishes throughout Geita, holding gatherings with the faithful to inform them about the activity of the Russian clergy and clergy of Tanzania in the region whom the Alexandria Patriarchate has defrocked.
The Russian Exarchate’s activities in Tanzania, according to the Geita Vicariate, includes offering money, churches, and education for children to the local faithful.
The Alexandria Patriarchate considers the bishops and clergy of the Russian Exarchate as defrocked for their activities on the Alexandria Patriarchate’s canonical territory. The Russian Exarchate has severed canonical communion with the Alexandria Patriarchate for its entry into communion with defrocked and uncanonical, schismatic members of the “Orthodox Church of Ukraine,” formed by the Constantinople Patriarchate amidst protest by the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church and the Moscow Patriarchate. Many African clergy have consciously joined the Moscow Patriarchate, not wishing to remain in the Alexandrian Church, for various reasons.
The Russian Church’s African Exarchate was established in December 2021 and has since expanded rapidly, in many cases drawing clergy and laity away from the Patriarchate of Alexandria, while also baptizing numerous people who had not previously been Orthodox.
The Diocese of Bukoba of the Alexandria Patriarchate calls the actions of the Russian Exarchate divisive, schismatic, and uncanonical, and calls on the Russian clergy involved to leave Tanzania. The diocese states that it will defend itself and its faithful while continuing to pray for those in the Exarchate, expressing hope that they might in the future serve as partners rather than rivals in the spread of Orthodoxy in Africa.
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