Testimony: The fruits of a happy encounter

Fr. Martin Nag Iked

Better or more authentic testimonies about Mgr. Paul Verdzekov will surely come from more informed people than this one that is very modest, but which is a filial and sincere veneration.When on January 9, 2010, I once again saw Mgr. Paul Verdzekov during the reception of Mgr Samuel Kléda in Douala; I was far from imagining that the Archbishop Emeritus of Bamenda could leave us so soon, precisely on January 26, 2010.

I met Mgr. Verdzekov several times, mainly at the Archbishop’s House in Douala which he visited regularly and where I spent many years working for L’Effort Camerounais which he was a faithful reader and an informed critic. Providence blessed him with a retentive memory. Although an old person, Mgr. Verdzekov could still recite, with astonishing exactitude, long extracts from Shakespeare which he memorised during his days at the seminary.

This scholarly person; a great, intelligent and humble man of culture- discreet but efficient, impressed and enlightened me a lot when I was the editor-in-chief of the national Catholic weekly which he supported resolutely. He struck me by his love for work well done, his mastery of the Church’s teachings, his courage and reserve in taking a position.  I was like other young priests of my age called to serve the Church beside our bishops.  At the time, many of us had the impression that Mgrs Jean Zoa and Paul Verdzekov were the pedestal on which the Assembly of Bishops of Cameroon was leaning.

Having become the secretary of the Episcopal Commission on Social Communication for Cameroon and the Association of Episcopal Conferences for Central Africa, better known by its French acronym, ACERAC, I appreciated the rigour, assiduity, pertinence, incisiveness and sense of humour, in Mgr. Paul Verdzekov. I also came close to him in Rome when I was a communication student-priest. Mgr. Verdzekov came to Rome, I was told, to write Ecclesia in Africa for Pope John Paul II.

Today I recall Mgr. Paul Verdzekov, not at all as someone cold and timid, but happy and omnipresent during the 2000 Jubilee Year celebrated in all the Ecclesiastical Provinces of Cameroon. That year, he was very engaged in Bamenda, in the midst of an enthusiastic crowd, during the Jubilee of the Family which he had meticulously prepared. He was chanting the refrain which comes back to my mind: “Welcome to Bamenda, to the Jubilee of the Family---!”

He had a heightened sense of responsibility of a pastor in his Ecclesiastical Province, in the midst of the College of Bishops of Cameroon, as a priest of the Catholic Church and a Cameroonian citizen. In spite of his human weaknesses, better known to people who were close to him than I was, I am convinced Mgr. Verdzekov has given the best of himself, at the price of unfathomable sacrifices, serving the church and people with honour and fidelity. For sure, he drew his strength from the prayers he said without ostentation, since I met him often praying.

These last years, a kind friend permitted me to travel from Douala to Bamenda to visit Mgr Verdzekov. He received us warmly in his strikingly modest retirement home, far-removed from the Archbishop’s House that the Archbishop Emeritus had left, no doubt, with detachment.

Without knowing perhaps, the Archbishop Emeritus of Douala, Christian Cardinal Tumi, had forged a friendship between Mgr. Paul Verdzekov and Father Martin Nag Iked, by choosing us to write the preface and forward of his widely known book, the Political Regimes of Ahmadou Ahidjo, Paul Biya and Christian Tumi, Priest. For us this honour, of profound significance, from Christian Cardinal Tumi, came to consolidate the mutual esteem we had for each other for a long time. How can I so easily forget the lessons of our warm meetings? Can they resist the test of space and time in prayer through the Eucharist that has brought us together in memory of Fr. Paul Verdzekov?