The Diocese of Mthatha is a

diocese In church governance, a diocese or bishopric is the ecclesiastical district under the jurisdiction of a bishop. History In the later organization of the Roman Empire, the increasingly subdivided provinces were administratively associa ...

of the

Anglican Church of Southern Africa The Anglican Church of Southern Africa, known until 2006 as the Church of the Province of Southern Africa, is the province of the Anglican Communion in the southern part of Africa. The church has twenty-five dioceses, of which twenty-one are loc ...

in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa. Before 2006 it was known as the Diocese of St John's, and earlier still as that of Kaffraria. The diocese currently has 96 parishes.

History

When the

Diocese of Grahamstown The Diocese of Grahamstown is a diocese of the Anglican Church of Southern Africa. It is centred on the historic city of Makhanda in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa. The diocese extends to East London, in the east and Port Alfred to t ...

in the south under Bishop John Armstrong, and

Diocese of Natal The Diocese of Natal is in the region of Natal, South Africa, the diocese has its northern boundary at the Tugela River. The episcopal leader of the diocese is the bishop of Natal. History The history of the Diocese in the Colony of Nata ...

in the north-east under Bishop

John William Colenso John William Colenso (24 January 1814 – 20 June 1883) was a Cornish cleric and mathematician, defender of the Zulu and biblical scholar, who served as the first Bishop of Natal. He was a scholar of the Zulu language. In his role as an Angli ...

were founded, they each included part of an area which in 1872 became the diocese of St John's. Bishop Henry Callaway was consecrated in Edinburgh in 1873 as the first bishop of the diocese. In Bishop Callaway's new diocese, apart from the mission station he started at Clydesdale, there were five or six other centres of missionary work. The oldest being St Mark's. The first part of Callaway's work was spent trying to find the best way to organise the diocese. The chief problem was to link Clydesdale with the St Mark's group in the south. He first attempted to establish the See at Clydesdale, which was too far north, and then at St Andrew's, not far from Lusikisiki, which turned out to be inaccessible except by sea. He finally settled on a place on the Mthatha River. A town sprang up around the bishop's mission station and Pro-cathedral. The first Pro-Cathedral of the diocese was built of wood and iron and was also the first church in

Mthatha Mthatha , formerly Umtata, is the main city of the King Sabata Dalindyebo Local Municipality in Eastern Cape province of South Africa and the capital of OR Tambo District Municipality. The city has an airport, previously known as the K. D. Matanz ...

. It could seat a congregation of 250. It was dedicated at the Diocese of St John's second synod on 24 June 1876. By the turn of the twentieth century a stone-built cathedral had been erected on the top of a hill leading to the administrative and commercial centre of Mthatha.

George Fellowes Prynne George Halford Fellowes Prynne (1853–1927) was a Victorian and Edwardian English church architect. Part of the High Church school of Gothic Revival Architecture, Prynne's work can be found across Southern England. Biography Early life George Ha ...

was the architect and originally designed an impressive looking cathedral. His plan shows a cruciform church, with a nave 147 feet in length, by 36 feet in width, divided into 7 bays. The chancel is 67 feet long by 30 feet wide. The north and south transepts from chapels accommodating 189 and 146 people respectively. East of the chapels are the vestries and organ chamber, the latter being over the clergy vestry, and speaking into the south chapel and chancel. Only the nave was completed, which is the present cathedral of St John the Evangelist. In 2010 the southern part of the diocese, around

Ngcobo Ngcobo (formerly Engcobo) is a town in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa. Ngcobo is the main town of the Engcobo Local Municipality, which falls within the Chris Hani District Municipality of the Eastern Cape. It is situated in the weste ...

and Butterworth, was separated and constituted as the new Diocese of Mbhashe.

List of bishops

Assistant bishops

In 1962,

Alphaeus Zulu Alpheus Hamilton Zulu (29 July 190526 August 1987) was an Anglican bishop in the second half of the 20th century. Educated at the University of South Africa, he was ordained in 1940. In 1948 he co-founded with the Revd Philip Mbata, '' Iviyo loFak ...

was Assistant Bishop of St John's.

Coat of arms

The diocese assumed arms around the time of its inception, and had them granted by the

College of Arms The College of Arms, or Heralds' College, is a royal corporation consisting of professional officers of arms, with jurisdiction over England, Wales, Northern Ireland and some Commonwealth realms. The heralds are appointed by the British Sovere ...

in 1954: ''Azure, Saint John the Evangelist Argent holding a chalice Or''.

Notes

References

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External links

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Contact details
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mthatha, Anglican Diocese of 1872 establishments in the Cape Colony Anglican Church of Southern Africa dioceses