Lisbon. On Sunday, November 9, Chief Apostle Wilhelm Leber conducted a divine service in Lisbon, the capital of Portugal. In the presence of the large festive congregation, he went on to ordain an Apostle for the District Church of Guinea-Bissau and a Bishop for Portugal. The Portuguese Apostle Manuel Luiz and his wife Fatima also received a blessing on the occasion of their silver wedding anniversary.

The new Apostle for Guinea-Bissau is Agostinho Indami (53). The District Church on the west coast of Africa numbers some 500 New Apostolic congregations. At the start of the year, the administrative care of the country was transferred to the District Church of North Rhine-Westphalia. The newly ordained Bishop Dimitrios Vassiliadu Diniz (42) will in future support Apostle Manuel Luiz in assuring the pastoral care of the congregations in Portugal.

Chief Apostle Leber, who is still very familiar with the Church’s work in Portugal from his tenure as District Apostle, preached his Sunday divine service on the basis of a Bible text from Matthew 22: 11-12: “But when the king came in to see the guests, he saw a man there who did not have on a wedding garment. So he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you come in here without a wedding garment?’ And he was speechless.” Among other things, the Chief Apostle pointed out that faith and trust in the Lord, warm fellowship with one another, as well as the daily longing for the return of Christ, constitute the wedding garments of our faith.

At the end of the divine service, the Church leader also dispensed a silver wedding anniversary blessing upon Apostle and Sister Luiz. Fatima Luiz has worked for many years as the director of the New Apostolic school in Lisbon.