James Mata Dwane

James Mata Dwane (1848–1916), priest and founder of the Order of Ethiopia

Dwane was born in Kamastone near Whittlesea, Eastern Cape in 1848. He was educated and later taught at Healdtown Methodist Missionary Institution.

After a period as a lay minister, Dwane returned to Healdtown in 1872 to study theology. His studies completed, he began his work as a probationer minister by assisting the Rev'd Robert Lamplough at the Ann Shaw church, Middeldrift. He was ordained as a Methodist minister in Port Elizabeth in 1881. Dwane served as a minister in a number of places in the Eastern and Northern Cape.

In 1892 Dwane went to England to collect money for the work of the Methodist church in South Africa. Dwane hoped to collect money to start an industrial school near Queenstown. His tour successful and he returned with a large amount of money. However, on his return, the Methodist authorities insisted that the money be paid into the general fund. Dwane was thoroughly disillusioned and this dispute over money led directly to his leaving the Methodist Church and joining the Ethiopian Church of Mangena Mokone.

In 1896 when Dwane joined the Ethiopian Church, the amalgamation with the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AMEC) in America was being discussed. Dwane and two others were elected to go to America, but in the end only Dwane could raise the money so he went alone.

Eventually the House of Bishops and the Missionary Board of AMEC agreed to the amalgamation. Dwane was re-ordained (as bishop) and sent back as General Superintendent (GS) of the South African AMEC.

Dwane became suspicious of the validity of the orders into which he had been inducted as bishop. The vicar of the Anglican Church in Queenstown, the Rev'd Julius Gordon, introduced Dwane to the Rt Rev'd Charles Cornish, Bishop of Grahamstown. Dwane became convinced that the Anglicans had the true Apostolic succession and in 1899 he wrote to the Most Rev'd William West Jones, Archbishop of Cape Town to negotiate the admission of the breakaway Ethiopians to the Anglican Church as a separate order.

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