A particularly welcome event took place in our small Orthodox Community (in Mozambique), when last Sunday, 9 June 2013, nine year old Serena was baptized - the youngest member of the Church Choir for our Diocese. Her mother, a psychologist in the state hospital of Maputo, is from Azerbaijan, and her father is from Mozambique and did higher education in Cuba.
Young Serena lives very close to the church and almost daily participates in the Orthodox ecclesiastical life, amid the Youth Fellowship and our Choir. Her enthusiasm is such that she asked the local Bishop herself to be baptized, given the fact that her family does not belong to the Orthodox Church. Her parents gladly gave their consent for their daughter to enter the Orthodox Faith.
This wonderful nine year old girl was catechized for two years, and the name she asked for and received, as a newly illumined, is Soumela, which is the name of the Panagia from Pontus.
The Holy Mystery of Baptism and Chrismation was done according to the ancient typikon, which is during the Divine Liturgy, by Bishop John and a guest priest from Congo. Afterwards the newly illumined Soumela chanted with the choir, and at the end helped the Bishop distribute the antidron to the very moved congregation.
Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos
