Archbishop Ndahura Dies of Heart Attack
Episcopal News Service. January 7, 1982 [82005]
BOGA, Zaire (DPS, Jan. 7) -- The Most Rev. Bezaleri Ndahura, Archbishop of the Anglican Province of Burundi, Rwanda and Zaire, died here Christmas Day following a heart attack. He was 51.
Ndahura became Bishop of Bukavu in 1976 and Archbishop of the new Province of Burundi, Rwanda and Zaire in 1980. Active in inter-Anglican affairs, he was a member of the standing committee of the Anglican Consultative Council and a leader of the Primates of the Anglican Communion.
In New York, the Rev. Samuel Van Culin, Executive for World Mission at the Episcopal Church Center, expressed "surprise and grief" on receiving the news of the death of Archbishop Ndahura and praised him as a "man of dedication and courage who undertook his responsibilities with compassion and energy."
Van Culin reported that the Rev. Dean McMann, treasurer of the Province of Kenya and an Episcopal missionary based in Nairobi, has been requested to convey personally the sympathy of the Episcopal Church to the clergy and members of the Church in the Province.
In Washington, D.C., the Rev. Harold T. Lewis, the Archbishop's U.S. commissary, said that a memorial service is being scheduled at St. Monica's Church which the Archbishop visited several times. The service will be held in conjunction with Companion in World Mission, a clergy and lay mission group which helps support the work in Zaire.
He is survived by his widow and seven children.