Recognizing the Orthodox in China

Metropolitan Nektarios, newly enthroned at the Orthodox Metropolitanate of Hong Kong and South East Asia, says his priorities include dealing with the Chinese government to bring about the recognition of Orthodox Christians in mainland China. “There are many Orthodox in the port cities in South China. Greeks are working on the ships and they want a place of worship,” Metropolitan Nektarios told Ecumenical News International on 29 February. “The pastoral activities are first for the [Orthodox] Greeks, then for the Chinese. There are only a few Orthodox Chinese there.”

In January, Met. Nektarios told Asia News: “Orthodoxy, as Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew has said, is not anxious about expanding its numerical and geographical extension, but it wants to make man, with his passions and limitations, understand his true worth. Its power is spiritual, and its purpose is the diakonia [service] of man, in order to realise the divine within man. There is great need for this in our little world, which looks only at material realities.”