Orthodox Church enthrones new bishop for North, East
New. Bishop Silvester Kisitu who is to be enthroned as a new Orthodox Bishop of the Diocese of Gulu and Eastern Uganda tomorrow. COURTESY PHOTO
What you need to know:
- Education. He went to Our Father Nursery School, Kasubi Church of Uganda Primary School, Mengo Senior School, Chwa II Memorial College and UMCAT School of Journalism before he joined Kapodistrian University of Athens.
- Ministry. After studies in Athens, he left for Rhodes Island in Greece where he joined the Monastery of the Ever Virgin Mary in Skiadi.
- Later, he dedicated his whole life to serving the church and he was tonsured a monk. He was then ordained a deacon and after a year in priesthood. It is from there that he was called to serve in the Apostolic Patriarchal See of Alexandria and there by being made a Most Rev Archimandrite.
The Orthodox Church of Uganda is set to enthrone Silvestos Kisitu as bishop for the new Orthodox Diocese of Gulu and Eastern Uganda tomorrow.
Kisitu was elected by the great synods of all bishops from Africa and Europe on December 26, 2018, and was ordained on January 16 in Alexandria Egypt.
He will become the first bishop appointed to lead the Orthodox faithful in northern and eastern Uganda.
Fr Julius Orach, the Dean of the Orthodox Church in Gulu, said Bishop Kisitu will be enthroned at the St Lavestos Cathedral at Rom Village, Koro, Gulu Municipality tomorrow.
He said the enthronement will be presided over by Metropolitan Archbishop Jonah Lwanga. President Museveni is expected to grace the ceremony.
Fr Orach said creation of a new diocese and enthronement of a new bishop is a great joy to the Orthodox faithful in northern Uganda who have yearned for it for long.
“This is a great achievement for us, for six years we have been requesting the Pope to create another diocese to ease leadership,” he said.
Fr Orach said he hopes the new dioceses will transform the leadership in the Orthodox Church of Uganda.
The creation of the new diocese follows a petition by a group of Orthodox leaders from northern Uganda in April 2014 to the Orthodox Pope, His Beatitude Patriarch Theodore of Alexandria and all Africa, requesting him to create a diocese in northern Uganda.
The leaders had fallen out with Archbishop Lwanga, who had been against their move, citing a plot to oust him out of the Orthodox leadership in Uganda.
