His Eminence Chariton Ilunga Musungayi (born Pavlos Ilunga), Metropolitan of Kananga, Most Honoured and Exarch of Equatorial Africa, was born in Kananga in the Congo (RDC) in 1974 and is the eleventh child of the twelve in the family of Evarestos and Veronica Musungayi.
He is a graduate of the “LIGHT OF THE NATIONS” schools of the Missionary Center in Kananga. He studied at the Law Faculty of the UCKAN University in the same city. He is a graduate of the Theological School of the Kapodistrian University of Athens and a postgraduate of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in the interpretive field of the New Testament. He speaks Greek and French and the local dialects. With the blessing of the then Metropolitan Timotheos Kontomerkos of Central Africa, he joined the Missionary Delegation of Kananga, where he was associated and collaborated with the late Missionary Archimandrite Fr. Ignatius Madenlides, member of the Brotherhood of Theologians “SOTIR”, Metropolitan of Central Africa from 2003 and then of Pentapolis. Attended seminars in radio technology in Greece, Electrical Engineering, car mechanics and typography. In 2001 he took over the technical part of the first Radio Station of the Orthodox Church in Congo "THE VOICE OF ORTHODOXY", of which he later took over the entire management. In 2004 he established the second radio station in Kinshasa, the country's capital, and in 2006 the third in Pointe-Noire, Congo-Brazzaville. In 2003 he was ordained a deacon and in 2005 Priest by the late Metropolitan Ignatius of Central Africa. He bears the name of the late great missionary Fr. Chariton Pneumatikakis, by whom he was baptized in infancy. In 2015 he was granted the office of Archimandrite by the late Metropolitan Nicephorus Mikragiananitis of Central Africa and was appointed preacher of the Holy Metropolis. He worked diligently in the missionary work of his homeland and developed multifaceted action. He made many missionary tours in remote provinces of the Metropolis, Dibaya, Louiza, Tshikapa, Pointe-Noire, Dolisie, Kayi, Κisangani, Isiro, Bazangungu και Kanka. From 2017, he collaborated with the Patriarchal Vicar of Kananga, His Eminence Theodosios, the first Metropolitan of the newly established, in 2018, Metropolis of Kananga. On 24th of February 2019, he was appointed by His Beatitude Theodoros II, Pope and Patriarch of Alexandria and All Africa, as Patriarchal Vicar of the newly established, Diocese of Goma (2018), in eastern Congo. On the 12th of January 2022, by proposal of His Beatitude Theodoros II, Pope and Patriarch he was elected Metropolitan of Kananga by the Holy Synod of the Patriarchate of Alexandria, and was ordained on February 2, 2022.
