Diocese of Damaraland

Diocese of Namibia
Location
Ecclesiastical province	Southern Africa
Statistics
Parishes	24
Information
Rite	Anglican
Cathedral	Cathedral Church Of St George, Windhoek
Current leadership
Bishop	Luke Pato
Website
www.anglicanchurchsa.org

The Diocese of Namibia is part of the Anglican Church of Southern Africa, which is itself part of the Anglican Communion. The diocese, which covers the whole country of Namibia, was originally known as the Diocese of Damaraland. Most of the Anglicans in Namibia live in Ovamboland in the north of the country and speak the Kwanyama language.

Anglicans came late to Namibia. The first Christian missionaries were Methodists, who worked mainly in the South of the country, then called Namaqualand. They were followed by German Lutherans of the Rhenish Mission Society, who were mainly based in the central part of the country around Windhoek, and in Damaraland, immediately north of Windhoek.

In the 1870s Germany claimed Namaqualand, Damaraland, Ovamboland and neighbouring territories as German South West Africa. Lutheran missionaries from the Finnish Missionary Society went to Ovamboland, and settled among the Ndonga-speaking people there.

In 1915, during the First World War, South African forces invaded and the following year an Anglican priest, Nelson Fogarty, established the first Anglican presence, initially to minister to the South African troops and civilians who had followed the military occupation. After the war South Africa administered the territory under a League of Nations mandate and Nelson Fogarty began to think of ways of making the Anglican presence more permanent by evangelising the local people. It was established that the Finnish mission in Ovamboland had not really established churches among the Kwanyama people who lived in northern Ovamboland and southern Angola.

In 1924 the bishops of the Church of the Province of Southern Africa decided to create a missionary diocese in South West Africa, with Nelson Fogarty as bishop based in Windhoek. George Tobias, a missionary priest, went to Ovamboland and established St Mary's Mission at Odibo on the Angola border. Eventually Odibo, as the Anglican centre in Ovamboland, had a church, a school and a hospital.

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Wikipedia