An Introduction Christianity in Africa: History in Perspective

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There are different accounts on how Christianity came to be an African religion. In North Africa, it is said to have first been introduced at Alexandria, Egypt, by St. Mark the Evangelist. His relics were stolen from there to Venice in a bid to establish the city as a spiritual stronghold in Italy. In Ethiopia, it is speculated that St. Matthew brought the faith. It went through vicissitudes till it was reduced to a fragment of its flourishing past.

Queen Candace is another name brought up usually in the early history of African Christianity. Before Islam ever existed as a religion (circa 600 AD), we can affirm that North Africa was thoroughly Christian from shore to shore.

By this time, prominent African Christians had already made their mark. St. Victor became a bishop of Rome, St. Cyprian of Carthage had already written his important documents while St. Augustine of Hippo had already made his name known.

The acts of the martyrs show Sts. Felicitas and Perpetua, the massa candidae and so on. This was little by little subject matter for devotion and historical study. After the advance of Islam, Christianity receeded till it was restricted to very few places and wiped out in many corners. Carthage became a centre of Christianity once again in the 19th century when the Missionaries of Africa established their headquarters there, and the apostolic administration was suppressed by Pope Leo XIII to create the archdiocese of Carthage. This was suppressee by Paul VI in the following century.

By this time, Christianity had moved further South, becoming firmly established in West Africa, East and Central Africa and further. The Uganda Martyrs who gave up their life under King Mwanga II in the years 1885-1886 left a nascent Christian community after the original evangelization effort of the missionaries.

In this short span of 1879-1885, the White Fathers gained enough followers to establish the Catholic Religion. Within less than forty years they had trained native clergymen who became celibate priests ordained in 1914 (Fr. Victoro Womeraka Mukasa and Basilio Lumu). After twenty-five years of this event, the first native bishop South of the Sahara (Bp. Joseph Nakabaale Kiwanuka) was consecrated by Pius XII just before the Second World War errupted.

It was clear for Rome that after the decline in missionary activity following World War 1, it was no longer possible to mantain only foreign clergy in the missions. When Joseph Kiwanuka assumed his position of bishop of Masaka in 1939, his diocese was composed of an entirely native clergy with more priests than Kabale diocese founded by Paul VI in 1966.

For the rest, many Anglican, Calvinist and Lutheran Protestant missionaries had themselves claimed a number of followers. In the heartland of Africa, the first of these had been Alexander Mackay who came as a missionary but his impact was far less than the Catholics who outnumbered and outwitted him in winning converts. Later on the stage would come Captain Shergold Smith and Rev. C. T. Wilson, one being a soldier and the other an Anglican clergyman. Whatever their coming signified, it is the classical portrait of a gun in one hand and a Bible in the other.

This picture would be concretized by the annexation of many African countries as British colonies where Uganda was just one among many. In any case, those days furnish us with tangible proof of a sort of competition between Church and State in the establishing schools, hospitals and advancing the causw of religion. Naturally, evangelization happened side by side with colonization. French colonies had for their helpers the Catholic missionaries while British colonies gave their protection to the Anglican Church and advanced its mission.

In the next articles, we shall be doing a deep-dive into the concept of Africa as the stage for Christian missionary activity. Thanks for reading!

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