Henrique (born Henrique Kinu a Mvemba; 1495 - 1531) was a prince of Kongo and a son of Afonso I. He became a

Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

priest shortly after the Christianization of the kingdom and dedicated his life to the catechism of the Kongolese, being appointed in 1518

titular bishop A titular bishop in various churches is a bishop who is not in charge of a diocese. By definition, a bishop is an "overseer" of a community of the faithful, so when a priest is ordained a bishop, the tradition of the Catholic, Eastern Orthodox an ...

of Utica, in present-day

Tunisia ) , image_map = Tunisia location (orthographic projection).svg , map_caption = Location of Tunisia in northern Africa , image_map2 = , capital = Tunis , largest_city = capital , ...

. He was the first central African

bishop A bishop is an ordained clergy member who is entrusted with a position of authority and oversight in a religious institution. In Christianity, bishops are normally responsible for the governance of dioceses. The role or office of bishop is ca ...

in history.

History

According to the work of

Filippo Pigafetta Filippo Pigafetta (1533–1604) was an Italian mathematician and explorer. Pigafetta's ''Relatione del reame del Congo'' (A Report of the Kingdom of Congo and of the Surrounding Countries) 1591 was translated into English, Latin (as ''Regnum Congo ...

, ''The Kingdom of the Kongo and the Surrounding Regions'' (1591); written from the notes of , Henrique was born in Nsundi in 1495, being the son of Afonso I who was acclaimed King of the Kongo in 1509. Shortly afterwards the king sent many of his children and other nobles to study in

Coimbra Coimbra (, also , , or ) is a city and a municipality in Portugal. The population of the municipality at the 2011 census was 143,397, in an area of . The fourth-largest urban area in Portugal after Lisbon, Porto Metropolitan Area, Porto, and Bra ...

Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic ( pt, República Portuguesa, links=yes ), is a country whose mainland is located on the Iberian Peninsula of Southwestern Europe, and whose territory also includes the Atlantic archipelagos of ...

to aid him in modernizing the kingdom. Among those sent included his own son Henrique, who was sponsored by the king Dom Manuel I, himself. On May 5, 1518, at the age of 24, the prince was elevated by

Pope Leo X Pope Leo X ( it, Leone X; born Giovanni di Lorenzo de' Medici, 11 December 14751 December 1521) was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 9 March 1513 to his death in December 1521. Born into the prominent political an ...

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus (legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

as Bishop of Utica, in present-day Tunisia, thus Henrique of Kongo was the first known bishop from central Africa in history. (Of course, the first black African bishops date from ancient Nubia and Axum during the first centuries of Christianity.) However, he never received the bishopric since it was only titular, since

Tunisia ) , image_map = Tunisia location (orthographic projection).svg , map_caption = Location of Tunisia in northern Africa , image_map2 = , capital = Tunis , largest_city = capital , ...

at the time was dominated by Muslims. In 1521 he returned to Kongo and was appointed governor of Mpangu, a province of the Kingdom. He would continue to serve in the Christianization of the kingdom until his death 10 years later.

References

{{authority control 1495 births 1531 deaths University of Coimbra alumni 16th-century Roman Catholic titular bishops 16th-century Roman Catholic bishops in Africa Kongolese royalty