Present Day
Currently there are four Eparchies which are united into a Metropolia headed by Metropolitan Jonah Lwanga. The Metropolia is in Namungona, a suburb of the capital Kampala. The clergy consists of 55 priests and 7 deacons. It has 100 communities, many of which have no priests and are run by catechists. There are 41 brick churches, 17 medical clinics, and Holy Cross Mission Hospital. Many of the parishioners are orphaned children and total 30,000 enrolled. Many temples have parish boarding schools where children not only study, but live and eat at the expense of the parish. They also get professional education from the 13 secondary schools. There are 600 teachers, sometimes teachers from other confessions are hired, some convert to Orthodoxy in this way. At Monde there is the largest Orthodox village, "Fos Christou" (The Light of Christ). Father Antonios Mutyaba is the priest of that parish. At Monde there are 5 orphanages, a dining house, schools, a hospital, a church of Saint Anthony the Great, and the first monastery in Uganda with 2 nuns. The eldest of the nuns, Anastasia, is the first Orthodox nun in Uganda's history. In 1995 a seminary was opened within the Metropolia which is attended by 15 people. Study is 3 years long, and admission is once every two years. The most pressing problem for the church is the poverty of the African people and to keep those educated from leaving. The Russian Orthodox Church also has a Mission Parish, The Annunciation Orthodox Church on Bukasa Island in Lake Victoria. The parish was founded in 1983, and is under the spiritual Omophore of Metropolitan Hilarion of ROCOR. Father Christopher Walusimbi is the Parish Priest.He has taken care of orphans and operates an ambulance service and was instrumental in the establishment of a school and a medical clinic. Both the school and clinic were dedicated to St.Panteleimon, but the Ugandan government took them over and they are now secular.The clinic which was started by Father Gerasimos in 1983 was abandoned after his explusion from Uganda in 1988, however the use of aid from the Government of Japan finished the clinic. Father Christopher planned and built the stone Church which is topped by a multi-colored Russian Dome.
Read more about this topic: Orthodox Christianity In Uganda
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