The ninth NevskyTalks missionary project lecture in English, held on September 23, 2024, at the premises of the Missionary Department of AEM, attracted a multinational audience and also a number of Belgraders and Serbs from other parts of the country, who wished to hear more about “Orthodoxy in Seychelles: An answered prayer.”
The lecture was presented by Srđana Janosevic, the daughter of Protopresbyter Stavrophore Sergios (Srđan) Janošević, who is celebrating 15 years since the establishment of the Greek Orthodox parish in Seychelles, where he is the vicar and first serving priest, aged 77. He was present to meet members of the audience. The lecture was moderated by Presbyter Dr. Oliver Subotić.
Srđana spoke about the providential journey of her family, who are Serbs and live in Seychelles since 1987, and how her father became a priest when he became a pensioner, when they had prayed that the Serbian Orthodox Church would send them a priest for many years. In a chance encounter in 2006 with the late Bishop Atanasije Jevtić, Srđana asked if the Serbian church would send a priest to the islands but was told by this great Serbian spiritual hierarch to „ask the Greeks“as the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Alexandria and All Africa had a greater outreach and jurisdiction in Africa.
In 2009, several Orthodox people of different nationalities formed an association and formally wrote to the Patriarchate and a parish was formed by His Eminence Metropolitan Demetrios (Zacharegas) of Tanzania and Seychelles in May of the same year. He chose Father Sergios to lead the church.
The audience, in the questions after the lecture, showed an interest in the daily experiences of the parish, the missionary work and the special effort to keep the unity of all the different believers, despite national or political differences, as they are from Serbia, Russia , Ukraine, Bulgaria and Seychelles.
A special reference was made with regards to the efforts and significance of the choir members Srđana met in Reading in the United Kingdom: Dr Vanja Ković, Marija Mitrović and Andrijana Mladenović, who taught her to sing the entire Divine Liturgy, just a year before her father was called to become a priest and was ordained in Thessaloniki. Dr Dragana Rajović also received a special mention as a person who provided spiritual support at the time when she ran TV Logos (the first Orthodox TV station in Serbia) in Trstenik and gave the Janošević family an enormous library of the best Orthodox films and documentaries.
She also paid tribute to her late mother Presbytera Vesna and to her father, Father Sergios, as a calm and humble priest who everybody in their parish deeply respects.
The next lecture in English within the regular NevskyTalks series will be at the end of October.
