PASSING OF A MEMBER OF THE CLERGY OF THE HOLY DIOCESE

The Holy Diocese of Congo-Brazzaville and Gabon with great sorrow announces the passing of the late Protopresbyter Bernard Diafouka, Parish Priest of the Hooly Parish Church of the Resurrection of the Lord in Brazzaville.

Father Bernard was born on 3rd January 1959 in the village of Mbamba of the Pool district in the Congo. He studied at the Brazzaville University. He came to know and embrace Orthodoxy from the first missionary and later first native priest of the Congo, the late Floribert Tchizibou. In 1988 he was consecrated as a Reader and Sub-Deacon by the late Metropolitan Irenaios of Accra, and in 1994 he was ordained Deacon and Priest by the late Metropolitan Petros of Cameroon, later Patriarch of Alexandria (1997-2004). In 2013 he received the rank of Protopresbyter by His Grace Panteleimon Bishop of Congo-Brazzaville and Gabon and was also made a Confessor.

The deceased, who passed in the early hours of 27th March 2015 in a hospital in France, was the oldest priest of the local Church, having had a productive service for twenty years in the Parish Community of Brazzaville, capital of Congo-Brazzaville. His remains will be transported to Congo-Brazzaville for the funeral and burial.