We thank you for visiting, and encourage you to take your time browsing through this new internet endeavor. Please take the time to read carefully the pages on our site for a perfect understanding of the short history of True Orthodoxy in Uganda.
It gives me great pleasure to introduce you to the Genuine Orthodox Church. Our church in Uganda and our hierarchy are part of the Genuine Orthodox Church of America, which is a continuation of the Russian Orthodox Church before the revolution of 1917 handed down through the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad. When the communist revolution destroyed the Russian Orthodox Church, the hierarchs who were outside of Russia were instructed by Patriarch Tikhon to form their own higher church authority and to pick a leader, and all the bishops of the Russian Church Abroad were to be obedient to him, because the Bolsheviks will seek to destroy the Church within the homeland. This all eventually happened.
The Russian Church received its hierarchy over a thousand years ago when the Patriarch of Constantinople sent missionaries to convert the people of the great Russian land in 988.
Constantinople on the other hand received its apostolic succession from the great apostle Andrew, the first-called disciple of Christ and brother of Saint Peter. This happened in the year 38 AD when the apostle Andrew ordained a bishop for Byzantium, the future Constantinople.
So we see the unbroken apostolic succession (the uninterrupted transmission of spiritual authority from the apostles, through successive bishops) flows from Christ to the apostle Andrew, to the church of Constantinople, to the church of Russia, to the Church in America whose hierarchs were ordained by those bishops of the Russian Church who did not submit to the communist authority, and from them to us in Uganda through the episcopacy of me, Bishop Nektarios, who was just ordained by the bishops in America.
We call ourselves Genuine because, by the mercy and good pleasure of God, our hierarchs in America have not succumbed to any of the heresies of World Orthodoxy, namely: ecumenism, masonry, phyletism, modernism. We have not changed the Holy Traditions of the Church, such as: the Julian calendar, the iconography, the chanting, the sacred services, the fasting, etc.
It behooves all my brothers and sisters of Uganda to understand that Christ only made one Church. He did not make 50,000 Christian denominations to compete for the souls of men with His One Holy Church. I submit to you all that it is God’s will that all of us come to the knowledge of the Truth; and once we have recognized the Truth, to accept it and submit to everything that is required of us to be part of Christ’s Church, the Orthodox Church. We should never ever think that we have the right to gamble with our salvation by being a part of a Christian denomination that is not the One True Church. God requires Truth from us, and if we are baptized and are united to His Body, the Orthodox Church, our hope of salvation is so great. This is the will of God for us. He shows us the way of life, and He shows us the way of death. It is our free will that determines our destiny.
Feel free to contact us either by telephone, or at the chancellery or via email with any questions you might have.