Namirembe question troubles Anglican Church

The Church of Uganda, a member of the Anglican Communion, is made up of 37 dioceses that are representative of the various regions of Uganda. There are no prizes for guessing which region is at the forefront—Buganda.

The first missionaries who set foot in the geo-political entity that would come to be known as Uganda did so in 1877, and it was in Buganda. 

“The way the Baganda, as a religio-cultural and social-political community, received the faith and later became its transmitters, shaped, to a large extent, the meaning of being and becoming a Christian, and of being and becoming ‘church’ in Uganda,” retired Bishop David Zac Niringiye writes in a thesis titled “The Church in the World: A Historical-Ecclesiological Study of the Church of Uganda with Particular Reference to Post-Independence Uganda, 1962-1992”.

The planting of churches beyond Buganda was simultaneous with the extension of the protectorate borders. This was after the patterns of response in Buganda were taken by the missionaries as a yardstick for the evangelisation of the rest of Uganda. This strategy, however, did not always work as well in all the other areas of the protectorate as it did in Buganda. Bishop Niringiye offers a number of reasons why this was the case. 

It succeeded in Tooro, Bunyoro, and Busoga because they had hierarchical structures. The reverse was true in Acholi, Lango and Kigezi, whose people were organised around clan leaders, who occupied leadership positions due to their capacity to provide military leadership and protection for their clans and chiefdoms.  

“Although chiefs in all cases played an important role in providing leadership and helping in the establishment of Church centres, they did not always have the kind of influence over their people that the chiefs in the other hierarchically organised communities enjoyed,” Mr Niringiye opined.  

A centralised structure of government didn’t always translate into success for the strategy. Bishop Niringiye uses the ethnically based Bahima-Bairu cleavage in Ankole Kingdom to crystallise his point. The Bahima, the ruling class of Ankole at that time and a cattle-herding community, constituted a smaller population than the Bairu. Despite or in fact because of earning their livelihood by land cultivation, the Bairu were ruled by the Bahima. 

It was not just these simmering tensions that the early Anglican Church had to grapple with. While the Baganda were at the centre of spreading the gospel, they were not everyone’s cup of tea, not least because they were perceived as imperialist agents.   

“This provoked resistance in the initial stages of evangelisation in Bunyoro, Tooro, Ankole, Busoga, Bugisu, Teso and Bukedi,” Niringiye says. 

Ethnic tensions

It didn’t take long for ethnic tensions to surface in the Church of Uganda. In 1965, Rev Leslie Brown, the British bishop of the diocese of Namirembe, the cathedral headquarters in Uganda, threw in the towel. The 1961 constitution of the Church of Uganda didn’t stipulate that the diocese of Namirembe should be the archdiocese of the Church of Uganda. That notwithstanding, so long as Dr Brown was archbishop and Namirembe remained diocese, it also functioned as the archdiocese. 

In a paper titled “The Political Crisis of Church Institutions in Uganda”, Prof Akiiki Mujaju argues that this position was strengthened by the fact that Kampala was the capital of the country. Since Namirembe Cathedral was in Kampala, it was recognised as the seat of the Church of Uganda. A one Mr Wamala, who was the chairman of the Namirembe Diocese, was the first to open the can of worms when he suggested that Baganda Christians had been discriminated against in the past.  

The Uganda prayer book, Mr Wamala added, no longer contained references to the monarchy in Buganda. He also claimed that Baganda bishops were unlikely to be considered in the race to replace Rev Brown.   

Consequently, Mr Wamala suggested that Buganda’s two dioceses should break away and form a separate province of the Anglican Church. The statement received a prompt response, this time from Butiti Parish in Tooro, western region, where Mr A Balinda regretted the tribal undertones. He also voiced his worries about its possible effect upon the authority and acceptability to the whole church, of whoever was to be elected archbishop.  

Kamikaze attack

By prematurely introducing the regional issue, Prof Mujaju writes that the Baganda jeopardised their chances. 

“At the time of the dispute, there were nine bishops, three of whom were Baganda. One of these was in the eastern region of Uganda, another in west Buganda, but both of these bishops were old men, and it is doubtful if either really wanted to contest the archbishop’s post,” he offered, adding that Uganda’s third candidate Dr DK Nsubuga, “who has been in Namirembe Diocese under the wings of Archbishop Brown,” would have been a shoo-in for victory.

Eventually, Bishop Erica Sabiiti from Ruwenzori Diocese in the western region of Uganda was elected Archbishop.  Although Bishop Silvanus Wani, who would later be enthroned as Archbishop, asserted that Sabiiti as a choice was unanimous, it emerged that two bishops of the predominantly Baganda dioceses of West Buganda and Namirembe did not cast their vote in his favour. 

Granted, he was more experienced as a bishop than Nsubuga, and respected for his spiritual depth and commitment as a Mulokole (Born Again Christian). For the bishops from Buganda, however, these counted for naught. The fact that the others from Ankole-Kigezi, Mbale, northern Uganda, Soroti and Rwanda-Urundi cast their vote in his favour, however, gives credence to the tribal factor that Wani alluded to.

Election aftermath

With Sabiiti’s election, Mujaju holds that the Baganda generally felt aggrieved. Bishop Nsubuga is said to have hurried to move into the former archbishop’s residence. He is further said to have quickly converted it into his own abode. He denied every conceivable facility to Sabiti except the archbishop’s office.  

The province of the Church of Uganda had to use special provincial funds to build a house for the archbishop still at Namirembe.  The government under Milton Obote was sympathetic enough to furnish that house for the province. Sabiiti retained his position as bishop of Ruwenzori Diocese, but it was difficult to determine the location of the archdiocese. 

An assumption developed that the archdiocese would go to wherever the archbishop happened to be the diocesan bishop. This, ultimately, produced an incongruous situation of an archbishop only having access to Namirembe Cathedral and an office nearby, but nothing else. Since Kampala was the country’s capital, it was difficult to see how the archbishop could administer the affairs of the Church partly from Fort Portal, far away from Namirembe, and partly from Namirembe itself. 

In fact, having access to Namirembe proved hard as demonstrated one Sunday in 1967 when Edita Nassozi Musolooza, one of the cathedral vergers, led other congregants to close the main entrance as soon as Sabiiti arrived for prayers. Nassozi, whose remains are interred at the Cathedral’s cemetery, contended that the land where Namirembe Cathedral lies had been donated by Kabaka Mutesa I and there was no need to bring “a one Sabiiti” instead of a Muganda archbishop. 

More than a Church  

Namirembe Cathedral is more than a church to Buganda. The hill on which it squats was one of the historic sites in pre-colonial Buganda. It has been suggested that the hill was nicknamed Ninamirembe, meaning, “I have peace.” This was especially so because Kintu, the first Kabaka of Buganda, reportedly pitched camp on it after defeating Bemba in the battle of Budo in the 12th Century.  

Kabaka Mwanga gave up the site in 1889 after the defeat of the Muslims by the Christian factions. Later, services to celebrate Daudi Chwa and Mutesa II’s 18th birthdays, when they were recognised to have come of age to ascend the throne, all took place in the cathedral. In fact, Mutesa II referred to it as the “Kabaka’s Church.”

The debate over Nassozi’s actions was reignited in 2015 when then Archbishop Stanley Ntagali implored the Namirembe community to apologise to the Church of Uganda community for blocking Sabiiti back in 1967. The suggestion provoked a scathing response from some Anglican prelates, who insisted that Sabiiti was the architect of his problems.  

Rev John Ssebalugga Kalimi, for instance, alleged that Sabiiti was a supporter of Obote. The latter has never been forgiven by monarchists for ousting Kabaka Mutesa II in 1966.

“He said the function which Sabiiti attempted to attend had been organised to celebrate the decision by Idi Amin, who had ousted Buganda nemesis Obote, to free all political prisoners,” Rev Kalimi, a historian on Church of Uganda issues, said.

Namirembe Cathedral was to host the national thanksgiving celebration and they accordingly lined up the newly released political prisoners to attend.      

“Normally, the Dean of the Cathedral invites the guests of the cathedral, but the nature of Sabiiti’s affiliation with the recently deposed government caused not his being invited,” Rev Kalimi said, adding, “Canon Daniel Lubwama, who was the Dean of the Cathedral at the time, told me Sabiiti’s closeness to Obote was so apparent, his congratulatory message was still rhyming in people’s ears so we surmised that his attendance would make our guests (the former prisoners) uncomfortable so we didn’t invite him.”  

Polarising

Obote’s decision to oust the Kabaka clearly divided the Church of Uganda. Many churches in Buganda took time to reopen. When they eventually reopened, they kept on praying for the Kabaka to return “peacefully”

Bishop Wani, then bishop of Northern Uganda, and the chaplain general of the Uganda Army, Niringiye writes in his peer-reviewed article, held a meeting with Obote after these events. He is reported to have told Obote: “By God’s help, you should forgive such people.” He was referring to the Kabaka and his men in the palace. Although Wani referred to a Church delegation that went to see Obote and condemned the attack on the Lubiri Palace, Bishop Niringiye says, no such delegation is mentioned in the official records of the Church.  

While the battle of Mengo was raging, Archbishop Sabiiti, who had been in office for only five months, having succeeded  Brown, was in Fort Portal, the headquarters of the diocese of which he was bishop. On hearing the news of the battle and the flight to exile of the Kabaka, he travelled to Kampala. Distressed at the arrest and detention of Nalinya and Nabagereka, the Kabaka’s sister and wife respectively, he went to see Obote to plead for their release. 

“This incident, however, was reported in the Buganda press, as a show of solidarity with Obote and his government in subduing Buganda. It was believed by many in the Church in Buganda that Erica Sabiiti agreed with those who attacked the Lubiri,” Niringiye says.  

No end in sight?

The dual identity of Namirembe Cathedral remained a thorny issue until 1971 when a settlement was reached.  Before this, a number of proposals were rebuffed by the Namirembe Diocese. In 1988, George Oguli from Soroti Diocese, proposed to the Canon Law and Constitution Commission “to amend the constitution to provide for the creation of a diocese of Kampala.”  

The matter of creating a diocese for the archbishop was a major recommendation tucked away in the commission’s interim report. It proposed “that the constitution be amended to make possible the creation of the diocese of Kampala of which the archbishop would then become the bishop.” This prompted a stern response from Namirembe Diocese.  

“It cannot be denied that the sole purpose of the proposed amendment to the constitution is to enable the Provincial Assembly to alter the boundaries of the Diocese of Namirembe. Kampala is an integral part of the Diocese of Namirembe, and, therefore, to create the Diocese of Kampala as recommended by the commission, which you set up to consider Mr Oguli’s proposal, would be, to say the least, a serious violation of Article 11(b), which your commission itself appeared to regard as sacrosanct in these words: ‘No such Diocese of Kampala could be contemplated without the consent of the Namirembe Diocesan Synod as laid down in Article 11 (b) of the Provincial Constitution’,” Namirembe Diocese said.   

Next week, the second instalment of Salt of the Earth will explore the contours of the Anglican Church’s relationship with Ugandan politics since the pre-independence times.

Amin casts dice

It was only after Idi Amin took over in 1971, with his theme of bringing harmony to the religious sector of the country in a bid to assert his legitimacy and win popularity, that a dice was cast. It wasn’t, however, easy as a couple of meetings called to resolve the impasse couldn’t prompt the two Buganda dioceses—Namirembe and West Buganda—to entertain the idea of seceding.

Although they denied harbouring such an idea, the two dioceses made steps by purposely defaulting on their obligations, including monetary remittances to the Province.  A document soon started circulating showing how the two dioceses were going to form a breakaway province dubbed “Province of Namirembe”, which, according to the planners, would consist in the first instance the dioceses of Namirembe and West Buganda. 

On November 26, 1971, President Amin, a Muslim, had none of this. He took personal initiative by ordering all bishops of the Church and their diocesan councils to meet him with his entire cabinet. In a lengthy speech, Amin warned the bishops of grave consequences if they failed to resolve the wrangles in the Church. 

“The government of the Second Republic will not accept any constitution in the Church of Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi except that which is agreed upon by the whole province or at least by the majority of the component bodies,” Amin ordered.  

Still, the Anglican prelates who debated for over six hours couldn’t agree. The following day, November 27, 1971, they filled Amin in on the deadlock. Upon hearing this, Amin pointed out the root cause of the issue: the province and Namirembe Diocese offices being on the same hill. Amin and his cabinet suggested this could be cured by relocating Namirembe Diocesan headquarters to a new site in Mukono, 25 kilometres away from Kampala, while the Provincial offices remained at Namirembe. Amin further proposed that a judicial commission of inquiry, headed by the Chief Justice, be appointed to look into all the issues of the conflict.  

At this juncture, Uganda’s third president dismissed the meeting and asked the Anglican prelates to return the next day with a response. 

“The Buganda Church leadership had only two alternatives: either to accept the government decision and lose Namirembe; or accept the creation of Kampala Diocese. The former was inconceivable and the latter might just be acceptable,” retired Bishop David Zac Niringiye writes in a thesis titled “The Church in the World: A Historical-Ecclesiological Study of the Church of Uganda with Particular Reference to Post-Independence Uganda, 1962-1992”. He added that two delegates of the Provincial Assembly Executive to the meeting, the Rev Janani Luwum, the Provincial Secretary, and John Bikangaga decided to consult with the Archbishop of Canterbury.

After the consultation, the two determined that it would be detrimental to the whole Church to “cause Buganda Christians to feel that they have been pushed out of the Cathedral.” 

On November 28, 1971, Bishop Nsubuga proclaimed that they had agreed to the Kampala Diocese being carved out of Namirembe. 

“In revival fashion, each of the bishops took turns in public confession, owning up to his ‘sins,’ walking in the light with his brethren,’ and asking for forgiveness from the Church, “ Niringiye says. 

The Diocese of Kampala was inaugurated and Archbishop Sabiiti was enthroned as its bishop on January 16, 1972. 

The hatchet, though, had only been partially buried.