Bishop Christopher (

secular name A legal name is the name that identifies a person for legal, administrative and other official purposes. A person's legal birth name generally is the name of the person that was given for the purpose of Civil registry, registration of the birth an ...

Ruben Spartas Mukasa, born Reuben Mukasa Mugimba Sobanja; 1899 – 4 June 1982) was an early-20th-century religious reformer in Uganda. He had been part of the

King's African Rifles The King's African Rifles (KAR) was a multi-battalion British colonial regiment raised from Britain's various possessions in East Africa from 1902 until independence in the 1960s. It performed both military and internal security functions withi ...

of the British Army, but came to feel that there needed to be an end to colonial rule in Africa and that this must be obtained through a religious rejuvenation with independent Christian Churches. Mukasa formed the African Progressive Association, the Christian Army for the Salvation of Africa and he also formed a branch of the

African Orthodox Church The African Orthodox Church (AOC), registered as the Holy African Orthodox Church, is an Episcopalian, primarily African-American denomination which was founded in the United States in 1918 by the joint collaboration of its first Patriarch George ...

in Uganda. That later came about in 1932 when Mukasa was ordained a priest by a bishop under

Marcus Garvey Marcus Mosiah Garvey Sr. (17 August 188710 June 1940) was a Jamaican political activist, publisher, journalist, entrepreneur, and orator. He was the founder and first President-General of the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African ...

. However Mukasa later learned that the

was not in line with the

Ethiopian Orthodox Church The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church ( am, የኢትዮጵያ ኦርቶዶክስ ተዋሕዶ ቤተ ክርስቲያን, ''Yäityop'ya ortodoks täwahedo bétäkrestyan'') is the largest of the Oriental Orthodox Churches. One of the few Chris ...

and the

Coptic Orthodox Church The Coptic Orthodox Church ( cop, Ϯⲉⲕ̀ⲕⲗⲏⲥⲓⲁ ⲛ̀ⲣⲉⲙⲛ̀ⲭⲏⲙⲓ ⲛ̀ⲟⲣⲑⲟⲇⲟⲝⲟⲥ, translit=Ti.eklyseya en.remenkimi en.orthodoxos, lit=the Egyptian Orthodox Church; ar, الكنيسة القبطي� ...

. Mukasa split with the western Church and went to Alexandria where he was ordained by

Patriarch Christophoros II Christopher II (Kharalambos Danielidis, modern Greek: Χαράλαμπος Δανιηλίδης; 17 January 1876, Madytos - 23 June 1967) served as the Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Alexandria between 1939 and 1966. References * 20th- ...

. Patriarch Christophoros was the Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Alexandria thus putting Mukasa into the

Eastern Orthodox Eastern Orthodoxy, also known as Eastern Orthodox Christianity, is one of the three main branches of Chalcedonian Christianity, alongside Catholicism and Protestantism. Like the Pentarchy of the first millennium, the mainstream (or "canonical") ...

group present mainly in Εastern Europe, a different religious tradition from the

Oriental Orthodox Church The Oriental Orthodox Churches are Eastern Christian churches adhering to Miaphysite Christology, with approximately 60 million members worldwide. The Oriental Orthodox Churches are part of the Nicene Christian tradition, and represent o ...

that the Coptic and Ethiopian Churches are part of. Bishop Christopher died in 1982.

Sources

* Boahnen, A. Abu. ''African Under Colonial Rule'' Vol. 7 in the History of Africa Series (Paris: UNESCO, 1990) p. 223.
2006 article on Orthodoxy in Uganda
* :orthodoxwiki:Christopher Reuben Spartas {{DEFAULTSORT:Mukasa, Ruben Spartas Ugandan clergy Eastern Orthodox Christians from Uganda Bishops of the Greek Orthodox Church of Alexandria Converts to Eastern Orthodoxy 1899 births 1982 deaths