St Peter’s Cathedral Preaching Civilisation

MORE THAN JUST A CHURCH: ST PETER'S

 In most primary schools in Blantyre, Sundays are overly devout days—with different denominations scrambling for classrooms and the faithful.

The school-based prayer houses might be a commonplace portrayal of how freedom of worship in both rural and urban areas, but it contradicts the ideals espoused by pioneers of Christianity in Africa, the heaven-and-earth approach aptly exemplified by St Peters Cathedral of the Anglican Church in Likoma District.

Instead of scuttling for limited learning spaces, the mission station owns nearly all schools at Likoma and Chizumulu.

FORMERLY A DEFILED SPOT

“The cathedral gives us a reason to say civilisation started in Likoma,” says group village head Chalunda.

Tongue in cheek, she explained: “When the first missionaries arrived on the island in 1881, the island had a site called Chipsera, a place where our ancestors used to burn villagers suspected of witchcraft and sexual immorality. The place of burning blood and smells of charred bodies is now home to St Peter’s Cathedral, a centre of nearly all developmental activities in Likoma.”

Constructed from 1908 to 1911, the historic stone building, a no mean tourism attraction on the island, is not just the nerve centre of the early missionaries’ vision to teach locals to read and write scriptures.

In the traditional leader’s words, it has remained true to the three Cs—Christianity, civilisation and commerce—that Scottish missionary explorer Dr David Livingstone envisioned when Africa was reeling from slave trade.

History has it that Livingstone himself came a seeable distance short of stepping on Likoma Island in 1873 when he arrived at Chizumulu in search of Universities Missionary of Central Africa (UMCA) messenger Allan Elton.

Universities of Oxford, Cambridge and Dublin formed UMCA in response to Livingstone’s prolific case for Africa in the mid-19^th century.

Also resulting from UMCA cause were Bishop Charles Mackenzie who arrived at Magomero in Chiradzulu in 1861 and Chancy Maples who died in Nkhotakota on the way to Likoma in 1863.
With 85 percent of the island’s population being Anglicans and the remainder belonging to relatively newer churches, healthcare facilities and schools on the hard-to-reach isle bear testimony to fingerprints of the mission station dating back to the 1880s.

The island’s single most important healthcare facility, St Peters Hospital, sees between 100 and 200 patients from Likoma as well as Tanzania and Mozambique daily, according to its head Francis Juma.

The hospital also admits referrals from Chizumulu Health Centre.

On the education front, St Peter’s Cathedral is the mother of teaching and learning institutions that dot the island’s length and breadth.

Apart from Likoma Secondary School which was established in 1964, the count includes St Peter’s, St Michael’s and St Mark’s primary schools at Likoma as well as St John’s and St Mary’s at Chizumulu.

“Besides, the church’s educational exploits include colleges for training the clergy and medical staff as well as an apprenticeship school which used to give the island’s sons and daughters vocational trainings in variety of fields, including printing, carpentry and building,” said Dumisani Chitete, who heads the church’s history committee.

The colleges have been shut down due to funding constraints as their European benefactors left the island when the country attained independence in 1964.

THE AUTHOR'S HOMAGE

However, books printed at the defunct Likoma Press that are still on display at the cathedral’s library show their contribution to the dynamics of the church named after Peter the rock—a bedrock of what the island has become amid what traditional leaders and their people dubbed dribs and drabs of government investment.

According to Chitete, the mission station traces its journey to pioneer British colonial governors, but the stone building was constructed under the supervision of Bishop Cathrew Fisher.

“The station came into being when the British were controlling our islands, but Consul General, Sir Harry Johnston, later left it in the hands of Chaplain Bernard Glopsso who was a trainer of the clergy at the defunct college of theology in its midst,” explains Chitete.

CHITETE, CHALUNDA AND MWASI IN ST PETER'S SHADOW

From Fisher’s term, the cathedral witnessed 24 bishops. Fanuel Makangani, who lives at the headquarters of the Diocese of Northern Malawi in Mzuzu, is the incumbent.

“It’s first homegrown leader was Josiah Mtekateka, a son of Chamba Village in the vicinity, headed the diocese from 1971 to 1989.

Afterwards, Bishop Peter Nyanya divided the dioceses because it was too vast—giving birth to what used to be called the Diocese of Northern Lake Malawi.”

The split marked further demotion of the monolith’s coveted stand as the headquarters of the Diocese of Nyasaland which comprised Nkhotakota, Mpondasi, Malindi in Mangochi and Msumba in Mozambique.

OVER-ARCHING CENTRE OF ENLIGHTENMENT

Apparently, the earliest blow had come in 1932 when a conference of world leaders of the Anglican church meeting in England decided that Likoma could not be the headquarters of the two-nation diocese because it was not a district.

Although former president Bakili Muluzi declared Likoma a separate district from Nkhata Bay on November 5 1999, the cathedral is still responding to St Mark’s cathedral of the Diocese of Northern Malawi in Mzuzu.

 

Its steel arcs and stone walls attract scores of tourists from mainland parts of Malawi and overseas every week.

Its tourism potential has left St Peters Church Committee with plans to build a lodging complex nearby or negotiating a commission from other hospitality businesses that are cashing on organised sightseeing tours of the historic architectural wonder.

INSIDE FRANK GEORGE'S MAGNIFICENT BRAINCHILD

Designed by London-based architect Frank George, the 1 500-seater cathedral usually sits 700 people as some are migrating to newer churches.

Retracing its timeline, St Peter’s congregation was set to commemorate the golden jubilee of Bishop Jackson Biggers, a US missionary who voluntarily relocated to Likoma and got expelled by the one-party rule of founding president Hastings Kamuzu Banda on accusations of instigating the locals to rise against government. They recalled him in 1997 and he now lives in Zomba.

“He may be living elsewhere because he can no longer withstand Likoma’s scorching heat due to his health, but his spirit and first love is here at Likoma where he transformed a lot of souls and lives through his education and  education projects,” village head Mwasi said.