Anambra, Nigeria, October 8, 2026
Photo: exarchate-africa.ru
Fifteen parishes belonging to a large non-canonical Orthodox group in Nigeria are preparing to join the Russian Orthodox Church, following a recent missionary trip by a representative of its Patriarchal Exarchate of Africa.
The matter was discussed during a trip to Nigeria in late September and early October 2026 by Fr. George Maximov, head of the Exarchate’s Missionary Department, and Fr. Daniel Agbaza, dean of the parishes in Nigeria, according to the Exarchate’s website.
The priests visited four of the group’s parishes from September 26 to 30.
“Representatives of neighboring parishes of this same group gathered there, so that in total more than a thousand people heard the preaching,” the Exarchate’s report emphasizes.
Besides Fr. George, Nigerian priests of the Russian Orthodox Church also addressed the faithful of the group, telling them about their own paths to Orthodoxy and their experience of becoming churched.
At the end of the trip, Fr. George gave the community’s leaders Orthodox literature in English. He stressed that their reception into the Russian Orthodox Church will take place only after serious and lengthy catechesis.
OrthoChristian has reported on clergy, laity, and parishes of non-canonical groups joining the African Exarchate several times over the past few years, most recently in Cameroon, where nine former “clerics” from a non-canonical group were received as laymen.
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