December 26 marks the 10th anniversary of a powerful and deadly earthquake in the eastern Indian Ocean. It caused an ocean wave, or tsunami, so big it destroyed entire coastal communities.
The deadly tsunami killed about 230,000 people-one-third of them children. The disaster left 5 million people homeless. The tsunami affected at least 12 countries.
During the period after the lethal tsunami the Orthodox Metropolitanate of Hong Kong and South East Asia built a Clinic on Phuket Thailand and kept a program of psychological support for the victims and especially for the children. The Metropolitanate offered material and psychological support to the victims who were treated in the hospitals of Thailand. The Metropolitanate contributed also tones of food and thousand parcels of clothing, shoes, house appliances, medicines and personal effects of hygiene in Thailand and Indonesia.
The Metropolitanate gave freely to people of other faith traditions and with no strings attached. In some ways, this is very different from our usual expressions of giving. The Metropolitanate went outside “the known and expected” and was able to show people that the love of Orthodoxy is without limits and boundaries.
Ten years after the lethal tsunami the Orthodox Metropolitanate of Hong Kong and South East Asia remembers. On Sunday, December 28, 2014, Metropolitan Nektarios of Hong Kong conducted a Trisagion Service after the Divine Liturgy for the victims of the tsunami at the Orthodox Cathedral of Saint Luke in Hong Kong.
May their memory be eternal!