The Church in Egypt is held to have been founded by Mark in about 42, but by 381 its prestige had been surpassed by Constantinople, the Empire's new capital, whose Patriarch was accordingly given precedence over that of Alexandria.
Though the Patriarchs are regarded as the leaders of the Orthodox Church, their pre-eminence is more a matter of organisation than of authority, as all its bishops are considered to have equal rights and powers. Orthodox bishops therefore have perhaps a more independent sphere of action than do their Roman Catholic and Protestant counterparts.
In 1990 the late Petros became Metropolitan of Accra and West Africa, a diocese that spanned 22 countries, but a year later he was translated to the archdiocese of Irinoupolis and East Africa as its Exarch. Based in Nairobi, he served one of the most remarkable congregations on the continent, the 70,000 Greek Orthodox adherents who live around the shores of Lake Victoria. Presently the Orthodox Church in Uganda numbers 200,000 faithful with 23 priests and 70 communities and includes two minor seminaries, schools, medical clinics and a hospital.
This community, located largely in Uganda, but with significant churches in Kenya and Tanzania, was founded independently in the 1920s by two black Anglicans who came to Orthodoxy through their own reading. It is now one of the liveliest, and largest, elements of the Alexandrine see and when, in 1994, Petros was elected Metropolitan of Cameroon and West Africa, he was succeeded, as the first Metropolitan of Uganda, by Theodore Nagiama, the first black bishop to be appointed to an Orthodox diocese.
bump
bump
Thanks for posting this. Very interesting.
Just wanted to point this out in advance of protestants coming around and fulminating that the title is blasphemous.
Of course, the Popes of Alexandria, like the Popes of Rome and the Patriarchs of Antioch, all can rightly claim petrine foundations for their sees: Antioch and Rome because St. Peter occupied the see, Alexandria because he consecrated his secretary, the Evangelist Mark, to be its first bishop.