St. Matthew's Anglican Church is an

Anglican Anglicanism, also known as Episcopalianism in some countries, is a Western Christianity, Western Christian tradition which developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the ...

church in

Walvis Bay Walvis Bay (; ; ) is a city in Namibia and the name of the bay on which it lies. It is the List of cities in Namibia, second largest city in Namibia and the largest coastal city in the country. The city covers an area of of land. The bay is a ...

Namibia Namibia, officially the Republic of Namibia, is a country on the west coast of Southern Africa. Its borders include the Atlantic Ocean to the west, Angola and Zambia to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south; in the no ...

. It is part of the

Anglican Diocese of Namibia 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 Anglic ...

, which is a

diocese In Ecclesiastical polity, 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 Roman province, prov ...

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 (Anglican), province of the Anglican Communion in the southern part of Africa. The church has twenty-five dioceses, of whi ...

. The church was consecrated on 21 September 1924 by Bishop

Nelson Fogarty Nelson Wellesley Fogarty (1871–1933) was the first Anglican Bishop of Damaraland (Namibia) from 1924 to 1933. Biography Nelson Wellesley Fogarty was born on 13 September 1871 in Canterbury, Kent, England, the son of John Evans Fogarty and his w ...

. It was originally built with wood and placed on stilts but was later covered in chicken mesh and plaster coating. The bell of St. Matthew's dates to 1623. Weighing 600kg, it is now cracked and no longer rings. St. Matthew's is the second oldest still-standing structure in the city. By 2008, it was crumbling and had a dwindling congregation. Despite being the second oldest structure in Namibia's second largest city, it was not registered as an historical monument as of September 2008. The church is one of three in the parish of Walvis Bay; the other two are St. Saviour's and Holy Redeemer.

References

Churches completed in 1924 20th-century Anglican church buildings in Namibia Diocese of Namibia Buildings and structures in Walvis Bay {{anglican-church-stub