Centenary in Mozambique: 'To See. What God Is Doing'
Episcopal News Service. December 9, 1982 [82254]
LONDON (DPS, Dec. 9) -- The centenary of the arrival of Anglican missionaries was celebrated in Mozambique in 1982 with the northern diocese of Niassa marking the occasion in July and the southern diocese of Lebombo in October.
Representatives of each diocese hoped to attend the celebrations of the other, despite the great difficulties of travel and enormous fares. Because of these, Bishop Dinis Segulane of Lebombo says he has not been able to see Bishop Paulo Litumbe of Niassa for a year.
Both bishops were consecrated in March 1976: Bishop Dinis had just reached his 30th birthday -- the minimal canonical age for consecration -- and so became the youngest bishop in the Anglican Communion. Paulo, in his 60s, was a veteran of six years in a Portuguese jail, immobile for two of them from thighs broken when the police threw him into the hold of a ship. Since then he has walked much of his huge rural diocese and, with Dinis, by his confidence in his Lord and love of his brethren, Christian or Marxist, has shown the world how the Church can be renewed amid adversity.
Dinis came to Britain in the summer to share with the Churches in Britain the meaning of the theme of the 1983 World Council Assembly in Vancouver: "Jesus Christ, the Life of the World."
Mostly, he told the missionary society, he came to listen: among a number of other places, he visited Brixton and Belfast. Of Northern Ireland he said: "1 found I had to look very seriously at our sometimes triumphalistic attitude when we have our church full of people, which seems to me that we have to distinguish between going to church and being the Church."
The difference would seem to be something which Christians, through adversity, have resolved in his own country, though he refused to be triumphalistic about it. "People are not being very good Christians, but they are being strengthened," he explained. "The prayers of the saints around the world are being heard."
The Mozambique government started closing Anglican churches in Lebombo in January 1979, beginning with the cathedral, "at exactly the same time when we were dedicating a new church elsewhere," said the bishop. "We found that it was really the Cruxifixion and the Resurrection."
The Churches officially closed were those near schools and hospitals. It was said that there would be a confrontation with the Marxist ideology if those were kept open. Children on their way to school would see people going to church, and that might mislead children into believing that there was a God. Or people going to hospital might think that God could cure a disease. Therefore you had to close down all these churches and people would see that the answer to all human problems was in education and science.
At the same time it was forbidden for people to worship anywhere except in church -- example out of doors or in their homes, and for the Sacraments to be administered to children under 18.
The latter ruling has been ignored by the bishops and clergy, who put the laws of God first, and the former, as time has shown, by the congregations.
Of the closure of churches, Dinis' comment to USPG was (typically): "I don't think this is terribly important for us at the moment. It is not important to concentrate on what men are trying to do with God's Church: what is most important for me is to see what God is doing with His Church.
"Before the closing of churches we had one Confirmation a year. After that we had three Confirmations a year. At one church, where there had previously been 80 to 90 people present, there were 500 people at the Confirmation.
"The priests report that they have reached far more people during Lent in 1980 to 1982 than they had done in previous years, and that young people have been far more enthusiastic about evangelism."
Despite the ban, people have been worshipping in the open and in their homes. Some people have had the courage to use their closed churches. They said "Well you know, actually the church has no door, so why don't we just go in and pray and face the consequences?" So they did, and nothing untoward happened.
"They had no feeling of hostility toward the government in any way," said Dinis. The government, for its part, has permitted the reopening of some churches, notably in Maxixe, where four churches had ceased to function, one being pulled down by the militia.
Poverty and the breakdown of family life were greater problems, said Dinis. The diocese had instituted a day of prayer and fasting on the first Friday each month to pray about all their difficulties. Afterwards, the congregations take practical action, distributing clothes and helping the needy repair their houses and grow food.
The other most important aspect of Church life in Mozambique at the moment is training for evangelism, Dinis emphasized.
Each Christian is expected to bring, as a minimum, one other person to Christ each year. A Department of Christian Formation has been created to equip people for evangelism, and the Anglican effort is co-ordinated with that of other Churches by means of combined training.
Theological training goes on apace. They are now 12 men in training at the Anglican seminary in Chamuncula, Maputo (which accommodates 13), most of them in their early 20s (significant in itself in a country whose government has tried to root out religious belief among the young). They are now at the end of their first year's training.
"The main problem has been the food situation," said the bishop. "There is not enough food in Maputo, and the students are not included on the ration. Rut the diocese of Pretoria, with which we are linked, got us in some food, otherwise we would have had to send the students back home."
Nor are there any professional teachers. The bishop takes some of the subjects himself, some of the clergy take others, helped by three laymen. Help is needed with books, and with lay training.
At USPG Dinis was asked -- in effect -- whether Lebombo and Niassa might not find it easier to be members of a Province (such as Tanzania or Central Africa) other than that of Southern Africa.
He replied: "I feel that we in Mozambique are needed by the Province of Southern Africa. The very fact that I can go there from a Socialist country will open the eyes of those people to see that change does not mean that God becomes powerless.
"When I arrived in South Africa some people said 'How did you come here? Did you jump over the fence?' and I had to say, 'Well I went to a travel agent, asked for a flight to South Africa, bought a ticket, went to the airport and got into the flight -- so if anybody jumped the fence it was the airplane.'
"So you only put your clerical collar on when you arrived on our side?' they asked. And I said 'There is nothing which prevents me from walking around in my cassock.'"
USPG Secretary Canon James Robertson, who was present at Sengulane's briefing, commented: "One of the touching things is your lack of emphasis on structures. Have you a message for us about the importance of structures? Do you think they need to be redeemed?"
Dinis replied: "It is true that we need structures as a tool, but we are in danger of becoming the tools of structures. We need to establish structures which can be changed and indeed abolished."
Dinis' firm belief is that "Caring is not just caring for Anglicans or Christians but for all God's people. Both the Church and the Socialist government are here to stay. My role is one of reconciliation. Christians must not be hostile to the government but actually love them."