RelZim.org articles about the Anglican Church in Zimbabwe

See also the Special Coverage of the Anglican Crisis.

See also Anglican Church of the Province of Zimbabwe.

See also Anglican Reformed Church of Zimbabwe.

The Church of the Province of Central Africa includes the Anglican dioceses in Zimbabwe, Botswana, Malawi, and Zambia. As of 2000, in Zimbabwe there were 674 Anglican congregations and 128,000 members; 320,000 people were affiliated with the church.

On Feb. 22, 2011 it was announced that the Bishop of Northern Zambia, the Rt Revd Albert Chama, had been elected Archbishop of the Province of Central Africa. He is the Dean of the province, in which capacity he at­tended the Primates’ Meeting in Dublin.  The Province of Central Africa had been without an Archbishop since the resignation in 2007 of the Most Revd Bernard Malango.

The polity of the Church of the Province of Central Africa is Episcopalian church governance, which is the same as other Anglican churches. The church maintains a system of geographical parishes organized into dioceses each headed by a bishop.  There five Anglican dioceses in Zimbabwe:

The Anglican Church continues to go through struggle against the excommunicated former bishop of Harare, Nolbert Kunonga. Although excommunicated from the Anglican church in 2008, after he split from the church in Central Africa in 2007 and gave himself the title of “Archbishop”, Kunonga still controls a number of buildings in Zimbabwe’s capital and elsewhere.

Challenged in the Supreme Court, Nolbert Kunonga ultimately lost the dispute between him and the Church of the Province of Central Africa’s Bishop Chad Gandiya  in November 2012.

Soon after the Supreme Court decision, a faction church emerged out of Kunonga-led Anglican Church of the Province of Zimbabwe. It was called the Anglican Reformed Church of Zimbabwe. It’s current Vicar General is Dr David Kunyongana.

Religious Communities

In 2000, the Anglicans had five communities of religious in Zimbabwe.  The oldest is Chita Che Zita Rinoyera (Holy Name Community, a women’s community founded in Mutare in 1935.  The sisters work at the clinic and at the primary and secondary schools. Some do visiting and help teach the catechism. They also make wafers for several dioceses, including Harare. Other communities are: Chita che Zvipo Zve Moto (Community of the Gifts of the Holy Fire), Community of the Holy Transfiguration, the Community of the Blessed Lady Mary, and the Community of Divine Compassion at Nyanga (a small indigenous Franciscan order).

Social Ministry

The Anglican Relief & Development in Zimbabwe (ARDeZ) in Avondale advises Bishops on development strategy by providing regular briefings of up-to-date information in humanitarian issues. and acts as link between diocesan teams working with marginalized communities and other agencies in relief and development work. There are several Anglican Christian boarding schools. More organizations can be found under Social Ministry.

Organizational history

The first Anglican missionary to Malawi was Bishop Charles Mackenzie, who arrived with David Livingstone in 1861. The Province was inaugurated in 1955 and has a movable bishopric. The Anglican Diocese of Mashonaland was formed in 1891 and its first bishopp was The Rt Rev George Wyndham Hamilton Knight-Bruce. He was succeeded by the Rt Revd William Thomas Gaul (1895–1907), formerly Rector of St Cyprian’s Church in Kimberley. Small in stature, Gaul styled himself “the smallest bishop with the largest Diocese in Christendom.” In 1915 the diocese became “The Diocese of Southern Rhodesia” until 1952 when it reverted to “The Diocese of Mashonaland”.  Two bishops served as Archbishops of the Church of the Province of Central Africa:  1955-57: Edward Francis Paget, Bishop of Southern Rhodesia, later Bishop of Mashonaland (born 1886; died 1971); 1957-61: William James Hughes, Bishop of Matabeleland (born 1894; died 1979).