Tanzania

Nikodemos Sarikas was born in Turkey, and became a monk at the age of 17. He stayed with Patriarch Damaios in Jerusalem, and was ordained in Smyrna in 1907 (Mantzaris sa).

In 1907 he went to Johannesburg, and was the first Greek Orthodox priest in the Transvaal. He was unhappy there because the parishioners wanted to confine his ministry to members of the Greek community, and not undertake mission work. In 1911 he moved as a farmer to the Moshi distict of German East Africa (Tanganyika).

He visited Uganda in 1933 at the invitation of Reuben Spartas, who had just been ordained in the African Orthodox Church by Daniel William Alexander. He also made contact with the leaders of the African Orthodox Church in Kikuyu, Kenya. He wrote to the Patriarch of Alexandria asking him to take the AOC under his wing. He took two Baganda back to Moshi to live with him, and teach them about Orthodoxy, and established friendly relations between Spartas’s Church and the Greek community in Kampala (Welbourn 1961:89).

Stephen Hayes

Bibliography

Mantzaris, E. Unpublished MS. Welbourn, F.B. 1961. East African rebels: a study of some independent churches. London: SCM.

This article is generated by the Database of African Church Leaders, which is part of the Database of African Independent Churches maintained by Stephen Hayes. All rights reserved.