Bishop Crowther to Visit Biafra
Diocesan Press Service. January 27, 1969 [73-10]
NEW YORK, N.Y. -- The Rt. Rev. C. Edward Crowther, former Anglican Bishop of Kimberley and Kuruman, South Africa, left New York January 14 for an official visit to Biafra at the invitation of the Biafran government.
Bishop Crowther, ousted from his post in 1967 by the South African government because of his opposition to apartheid, arrived in the war-torn country January 16 for a 10-day stay.
En route he stopped at Lisbon, Portugal; Luanda, Portugese Angola; and the island of San Tome. He then flew, as a passenger on a food relief flight, to Biafra itself.
The Bishop was one of six Americans invited by the Biafran government to visit the war zone.
"I am going to Biafra because I have been invited," Bishop Crowther said before leaving New York. "I am going as a Bishop of the Church, not as a politician. My concern is strictly humanitarian, and I intend to make a report to the people of Britain and the United States, especially Church people, to arouse the reaction of conscience to the pitiful plight of the thousands of innocent victims of this fratricidal war. "
He is to meet with Lt. Col. C. Odumegwu Ojukwu, Biafran head of state.
"I hope to have a full discussion with him of the efficacy of Church-sponsored relief, and I'm particularly interested in seeing the conditions under which the Christian community is living," Bishop Crowther said.
While there, Bishop Crowther has been asked by the Rt. Rev. John E. Hines, Presiding Bishop, to express his prayers and concerns for all the suffering people of Nigeria and Biafra and his hopes for an early peace.
In a pre-departure interview, Bishop Crowther also stated that he would try to contact all the Anglican clergy in the country while there, and that he was bringing a supply of chalices, patens and wafers for the celebration of the Holy Communion.
He said that he plans to invite the prime minister of Nigeria to join with him in a celebration of the Holy Communion in the combat zone, to which the Biafran head of state also will be invited.
"I will request a safe conduct for this service to take place," Bishop Crowther said. "This puts the Church where the Church belongs, between the violent ones, as an agent of reconciliation. The Church must establish a sacramental presence wherever hatred erupts into war. "
Bishop Crowther received wide publicity last summer when he was the celebrant at an outdoor Communion service in Grant Park, Chicago, during the Democratic national convention.
His trip to Africa will be the first since his eviction.
Bishop Crowther, a British-born American citizen, went to Africa in 1964 to be Dean of the Anglican Cathedral in Kimberley. He was elected Bishop in 1965 and served the Diocese for two years.
Before going to Kimberley, he was senior Episcopal chaplain at U. C. L. A. He is now a fellow at the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions at Santa Barbara, Calif.