It
is a known fact that other Christian "churches" have
been established in practically all of Africa, since
the middle of the 18th century, through colonization
by European peoples. Apart from the purpose of
exploiting those gold-bearing soils, these
peoples had also arranged to propagate their
religion. Thus, there are Papist christians there
since the middle of the 18th century, Protestants
from the beginning of the 20th century, followed by
latter-day heretical "churches" with a christian or
even a demonic content, that were formed by African
pastors.
These "churches", which are cut off from the
fullness of the Truth and Life, have never managed -
not in the past nor in the present (nor will they
ever manage in the future) - to deliver the
mystically-minded African from his various demonic
influences and convictions. The explanation is
simple: The devil is afraid of the Truth; the
Truth is Christ and Orthodoxy, and there is a vast
chasm between Him and the demonic legions.
The Orthodox Church has long delayed bringing its
Christian message to Africa. Only the more
ardent of the Clergy, from Greece and abroad, who,
with the blessings of their local Bishops, have
settled in various regions of Africa and have
ignited little sparks of spiritual light. And it is
only this light - the light of the Orthodox faith
and life - that is able to animate the indigenous
African and unshackle him from the torments that are
attributed exclusively to witchcraft and idolatry.
My
consecutive travels to Central Africa for missionary
purposes have helped me to acquire an authentic
picture of the pagan element and to reach the
relative conclusions.
In
Africa - at least in the sphere that I am most
frequently preoccupied with - there is no mention of
an atheist African. That is a very encouraging
element, when aspiring to guide them to our true
Saviour Christ and His Church.
Witchcraft involves a faith that within the animal
and plant kingdoms there are invisible, supernatural
powers which act like spirits which have various
characteristics, and which influence a person's
life. One of the most ancient forms is "homeopathic"
witchcraft. As an example, we would like to mention
the practice of the witch doctor who, in order to
harm an enemy, will fashion a likeness of him (a
"doll") out of wood or wax or clay. He shapes it in
such a way as to make it resemble the enemy, as much
as possible. If it does not resemble the enemy, he
"baptizes" the likeness with the enemy's name and
then proceeds to torture it, depending on the result
he wishes to achieve. For example, if he wants to
cause the death of an animal, he has only to
re-enact the death of that animal. To kill his
"customer's" enemy, he stabs a needle into the
"heart" of a doll or a wooden image that supposedly
represents that enemy.
They consider it inconceivable that one can live,
without his life being dependent on some higher
power. This is evident in the various
circumstances in their lives. If, for example, a
relative became sick or died, they believe that
someone hates them and is now taking their revenge.
So, they run to the witch doctor. They tell him what
their problem is, and they seek to discover who
caused that terrible fate in their home.
The basic idolatrous religion in Africa is ancestor
worship. This demonic phenomenon of invoking the
deceased is called Spiritualism in my country. They
believe in the spirits of their ancestors, and they
invoke them. In this way, the devil assumes
the voice of their deceased relative, and responds
to their invocations during the night. The people
believe that they are actually conversing with their
deceased relative, when in fact it is the devil who
is intervening and who tells them whatever he wants.
At
one time I was in Kolwezi of Congo. Once a week, I
would teach to a circle of baptized women. One day,
I spoke to them about the sanctity and the glory of
our saints in heaven. When I told them that
true holy people exist only in the Orthodox Church,
many of the women sprang up from their seats. They
objected very strenuously, saying that they also
have saints in their own, previous religion of
ancestor worship. Despite my attempts to convince
them of the opposite to their belief, they remained
unconvinced. So, that lesson ended, with some of
them not having accepted the uniqueness of our
teaching regarding the Saints.
For those who have not become familiar - empirically
and dogmatically - with the Orthodox Church, in
Africa She is regarded as one of the numerous
religious Protestant Communities. However, they are
amazed at the wondrous work that is performed within
Her, through the Grace of the Holy Spirit. Thus,
they rush to the conclusion that (according to their
steadfast religious mentality) the Orthodox Priests
are awesome witch doctors - far superior to all the
witch doctors of Africa!
When, in July of 1999, we went to the village of
Lwankoko of the Kolwezi Detachment, having been
invited by the villagers themselves regarding a
horrific episode of witchcraft, we witnessed the
following. The devil had brought the
inhabitants of all the surrounding villages to an
impasse and they were on the verge of civil war, on
account of a deceased villager killed by the sorcery
of three witch doctors, who had been baptized
Orthodox two years before. They had become baptized
hypocritically and for self-seeking purposes,
without renouncing their magic implements and their
demonic activities.
When I arrived at their village, the coffin with the
body inside it was "stuck" to the ground and it was
impossible to move it to the place of burial.
The three witch doctors who had killed him were
revealed by the devil himself in an uncanny way, as
they too lay pinned down on the ground, unable to
move.
Upon our arrival there, we could hear comments by
many of the bystanders: "Now let's see what the
Orthodox are going to do...." After
reading the Exorcisms, we untied the rubber strap
with which the coffin was symbolically tied through
magic powers, then we sprinkled Holy Water over the
body of the deceased, as well as all the people who
were standing around us. Many of them
scampered away, because they thought we were witch
doctors and were sprinkling them with a magic potion
that would harm them.
We
then gave instructions for the coffin to be picked
up by 3-4 people and to follow us. But no-one dared
respond. They knew that the coffin was pinned down
and could not be moved, so why should it now agree
to move from its place? In a more
austere tone of voice, 4 of our Christians obeyed,
and we proceeded to go into the forest, at 10
o'clock at night, for the burial. Doubt and
curiosity made many leave the village; they came
along with us, saying among themselves: "Now
we shall see - will the coffin agree to be placed in
a grave, or will it return to the village again,
stuck to the backs of the bearers, like it did
yesterday?" It is a fact, that is exactly what
had happened the day before. The coffin would
not come down from the backs of the bearers,
instead, with a demonic power it sped back to the
village from where they had come, and it demolished
the huts of the witch doctors who had killed the
deceased...
Not only the Orthodox, but also people of other
religions and idolatrous convictions resort to our
Orthodox priests, in order to be rid of the torments
of witchcraft. Our native priest, fr. Jacob
Banza, has been ministering for 20 years in the
Kolwezi Detachment. He has the divine charisma
of opening the hearts of people. With the approval
of the one responsible for the Detachment, he is the
one who is sent to resolve all the complicated
demonic cases. Once, he had been invited by
two orthodox families of a Kolwezi suburb, because a
young witch doctor, barely 12 years old, had
bewitched two of their children. Fr. Jacob spoke to
the young boy. He asked him:
"How do you do your magic?"
"I
have such powers, that if I simply put my finger on
the garment of the one I want to harm, whatever I
wish is immediately done."
"Do you mean that if you touch my cassock, you will
be able to do what you want to me too?"
"You Orthodox priests are all fire. If I
touch you, I will burn. I will lose my power!"
Another time, father
Jacob had told me that he kept company with a
certain compatriot of his - a witch doctor. After
numerous discussions they agreed that when the witch
doctor performed his rituals, father Jacob would
also be present, and when father Jacob would say his
prayers, the witch doctor would also be present.
The outcome was that the witch doctor was unable to
stay in place while father Jacob was saying his
prayers. He admitted: "I can't stay - something is
driving me away."
In
Africa, it is not only the witch doctors who are
preoccupied with witchcraft; many of the people are
also. Even young children can perform signs and
monstrosities with the power of Satan.
Witchcraft in Africa has tremendous powers and
methods of achieving its satanic designs. In the
case of a person's death, the family of the deceased
embark on a persistent search to find the cause of
that death. That is when a scene reminiscent of a
tragedy unfolds. Once, when I went to a village to
buy vegetables for the the children in our boarding
home, I noticed that the house where I used to
purchase the vegetables had a huge hole in one of
its clay walls. I asked around, to find out where
the woman of the house was, and why the house was
demolished. I was told that she was
imprisoned, because they discovered she had
participated in causing the death of a certain
person, who had returned, still in his coffin, and
had demolished the house. People who had seen
that coffin - with the deceased inside it - flying
past them at an incredible speed, had run after it,
out of breath, and saw it smashing through
enclosures and houses and even uprooting trees in
its path, until it reached the house where it
finally stopped. The villagers then arrested the
people living in that house, because they had
"proof" that they were the murderers of the
deceased. That is how tortures, conflicts and
clashes begin. Suffice it to say that within a
single month, 62 people were killed in one village
alone. The devil managed to divide them into two
opposing sides and then prompted them to fight among
themselves, to the death.
In
June of 2002, we received a phone call from one of
our Christians named Pandeleimon, who was severely
wounded. He was taken to the Emergency Ward of the
hospital in Likasi. He told us that he had fallen
victim to witchcraft and that his head was broken in
two. We sent our priest, father Augustine and Deacon
Fotios. Through them, we learnt about the
entire tragic incident. Co-workers of his at
the same worksite had become envious of his skill
and his promotion. He worked as a truck driver,
transporting cobalt and copper which was mined by
the GECAMINES company of Likasi. His envious
co-workers took him to a witch doctor; they paid
him, and he promised he would exterminate the
undesirable worker. So, one evening while
Pandeleimon was transporting copper from the plant
to Likasi, a black dog jumped into his truck,
through the window. The dog began to bite him,
and in fact, in his private parts. The driver
struggled to commandeer the truck with his one hand
and with the other, tried - without success - to
push away the dog. He was unable to get rid of
the dog, which was a devil sent by the witch doctor;
his truck overturned and fell on the right-hand side
of the road into a ditch. The driver fell sideways
and was almost mortally wounded in the head.
Having achieved its purpose, the dog jumped out of
the window and vanished into the forest.
The mistake that our Christian had made, was that it
never occurred to him that the nocturnal aggressor
might have been a devil in the form of a dog. If he
had crossed himself immediately, he would have been
saved. His attempts to stave off the dog with
his own power failed miserably, and led him to be
hospitalized. With the Grace of God, he
escaped death and returned to his family, where his
wife and four children were anxiously waiting for
him.
Witch doctors are so well taught by their master the
devil, that they rarely or never disclose the
secrets underlying their satanic plans and rituals.
This has been observed particularly with women witch
doctors; they prefer to die taking their secrets
with them to the grave, rather than confess them or
disclose them to others.
When the devil revealed the three witch doctors who
had killed Katoka, the guard at the Kolwezi
Detachment's farm in July of 1999, only one of them
had disclosed the following to father Meletios by
way of a confession:
"Before you baptized us father, the spirits came to
us and said the following: We don't mind if you
decide to be baptized; we only demand one thing from
you - do not say anything to the Orthodox priest
about us. You have seen how we have been helping you
so far, in every one of your problems. Do not betray
our friendship. Surely you have no complaints
against us?"
In
Brazzaville there are currently three Orthodox
parishes. From morning to night, father Jacob Banza
receives tens of people who have no links to our
Church. They do not come to ask for material
support, as is the case in Kolwezi - only spiritual
help. They come, looking for a "lifeboat", because
the devil - in whose meshes they have become
entangled - has driven them to an impasse. Father
Jacob truly suffers in his efforts to help them
confess their sins and their setbacks, which are
attributed to witchcraft. He finds it necessary to
tell them that he too, before being baptized, was a
very powerful witch doctor; that he had relations
with not only one woman, but two or even three women
every day. In this way, they are encouraged to
divulge their secrets. They begin to narrate their
own sins. That is how their therapy begins - with
catechesis and their eventual incorporation through
Holy Baptism into the Corpus of our Church.
When Baptisms are to take place, there have been
cases where shocking things have occurred. People
who had any involvement with witchcraft and had not
confessed honestly and thoroughly, would fall down,
screaming and trembling at the sound of the
benedictions of our Church being read. When
the Precious Cross is extended towards them, they
are scared, terrified, and want to escape it by
running away. They admit that this Sign "burns"
them.
One other time in Kolwezi we had a seminar for our
catechism teachers. One of them - as we had heard -
had not entirely renounced the powers of witchcraft
in his life. During the Divine Liturgy one Sunday,
when the procession of the Great Entry (of the
Precious Gifts) was taking place, the catechist
...... collapsed on the floor as if he had died.
After confessing, the unclean spirit departed from
him and he recovered.
Another of our catechists was under the impression
that he could have "the best of both situations".
Whenever the need arose, he would visit his local
witch doctor. The end result was that he eventually
became possessed. He suffered immensely. The people
of his village avoided him. Those
who are demon-possessed
have no place in a community of people. That is
the reason the Authorities of their land oblige them
to live in the forests, far away from other people.
With God's Will, the catechist was cured. He was
again undesired in his village, because people now
said that he was not N., but a foreign spirit with
his form. They were afraid of him and had forced him
to leave for the forest.
In
2001 a government minister had come to Kolwezi. It was the time
when war had broken out on the border between Congo
and Rwanda. Trains would come to pick up soldiers
who were entirely inexperienced for warfare, to
transport them to the war zones. The minister
had made his appearance at the time, in order to
boost the morale of the inhabitants when confronting
the enemy. We were impressed at how he had publicly
encouraged all the enlisted men to go to witch
doctors; to be smeared with the unctions that they
would give them, so that the enemy's bullets would
not "find" them. And we were assured by local
Christians of ours that of all those who had taken
those unctions and obeyed what the witch doctors
prescribed, would actually go to war wearing
shorts, without any other protective garments,
because the enemy bullets did not find them!
At
a time of political confrontations, it is only
normal for the representatives of party candidates
to go on tour. A group of young men, who were
supporters of a certain political party, set up
their grass hut outside a neighbouring village,
Chamboula. Hoping to create an artificial fear to
passers-by, they also manufactured a fake grave,
placing a Christian Cross at the head.
But their behaviour became tyrannical. Not only did
they try to persuade the people passing by to
support their party, they also asked them for money
and from whatever merchandise they may have been
transporting from the city to their villages, they
would forcefully seize a portion of it for their own
survival as well as their families'. Their
presence became a plague to us also, because we
would pass by there every day in order to get to the
nearby farm for our vegetables. One afternoon, one
of our clergymen passed by there, and, after making
sure that no-one was around, he lit a fire and burnt
down their hut. The next day, he departed for
his vacation in Greece.
2-3 days later, I passed by there with another
brother and the driver of our car, as we were
heading for our farm. I was surprised but also
shaken, when three of those young men suddenly
sprang out of the tall grass. They were wearing
shorts only; they had placed feathers in their hair,
they had painted their half-naked bodies with multi-coloured
vertical stripes and each of them was also carrying
a long sword. They raised their hands in the
air and forced our car to a standstill.
"We have something to settle with you Orthodox".
"What's the matter boys? Why did you stop us?"
"Why did you burn down our hut?"
"We could never do something like that. You have
known us for so many years. We love you and have
been caring for you and for your country".
"We went to our chief, and he said that your
Orthodox priest .......... burnt down our hut. So,
you will not pass through; instead, you will come
with us to the village and our chief will pass
judgment on you."
"Listen, my children. Get into the car. Let's go to
our farm together and talk things over with you
peacefully. Whatever it is you want and we can do,
we shall do it."
They agreed, and so we all went together to the
farm.
I
asked Mr. Gerasimos - one of our Orthodox Christians
- to talk to them and then let me know what their
demands were. I withdrew from them, and pretended to
examine the vegetables on the farm. Indeed. They
asked for workers and materials of ours, in order to
rebuild their hut. Then, in order to thank the
witch doctor who had informed them about the burning
of their hut, they also asked for a white rooster,
half a sack of cornmeal, rice, potatoes and beans,
so that they could all dine together. What
could I do? I went to the market, I purchased
a white rooster and gave them the rest of the
supplies. I also sent them our workers to rebuild
their hut and that is how my little adventure ended.
From then on, we became painfully aware that one
should not associate too much with witch doctors,
because they don't take things lightly....
In
the village of Mapendo, 30 kilometers away fom
Kolwezi, there is a massive demonic "hornets' nest".
We frequently go past it, on the way to the next
village of Lwankoko, where the large farm of our
Mission is. One evening, as father Meletios
(currently Bishop) was returning from the farm, he
stopped at the aforementioned village because he
could hear shouting and a general turmoil. The
village's chief and the witch doctor had summoned
everyone to a meeting. Father Meletios got out of
the car and began to approach that demonic
congregation, holding a Crucifix in his hand.
The witch doctor yelled out to him:
"Don't come any closer. You will ruin my work. Leave
quickly..."
"But I won't interfere. I am only coming towards you
to greet you."
"No, no.... You Orthodox
priests are very powerful witch doctors. You are a
hindrance, even by just
being present here!!"
Lacking the fullness of the Truth,
the other "churches" also lack that sanctifying
grace. That is why many of the people
hasten full of hope to our Orthodox priests.
When a certain Papist
priest attempted to read the Exorcisms over a
demon-possessed person, the demon mocked him
sarcastically - and of course did not depart.
Another Papist priest - as father Kosmas
had told me - actually proceeded to exorcise a
demon-possessed individual, and the outcome was
horrific - the priest himself became possessed!
So, as we can see, the only life-saving ark -
everywhere and always, for every person anywhere in
the world - is our Orthodox Church, with our Bishops
and our priests, who are in the canonical, Apostolic
succession, bearing a valid, grace-filled
priesthood. The thanks of the Orthodox of
Congo to all those who work together for the
spreading of Orthodoxy in their land are
innumerable, and life-long.
They now have empirical knowledge that only the
Orthodox Church is the bulwark that can withstand
all the evil currents of witchcraft and idolatry.
All of us
neo-Hellenes will be tremendously accountable, not
only for having generally kicked out the Faith of
our Saints from our lives, but with our selfish and
inadmissible stance have also hindered it from being
broadcast to the fellow-humans "living in the land
and the shadow of death" of Africa and Asia.
It
is time that we recovered from this stance. It is
time that we turned our mind thankfully towards
Jesus Christ, for having the ancestral privilege of
being Orthodox and unaffected by the bonds of
witchcraft and eternal death.
The millions of African brethren are waiting for our
Orthodox presence, with our prayers, the
establishment of edifices that will be beneficial to
them, holy Altars and other missionary buildings
where the faithful can be sanctified and the powers
of darkness driven far away from them.