Bishop Christopher (

secular name A legal name is the name that identifies a person for legal, administrative and other official purposes. A person's legal birth name generally is the name of the person that was given for the purpose of Civil registry, registration of the birth ...

Ruben Spartas Mukasa, born Reuben Mukasa Mugimba Sobanja; 1899 – 4 June 1982) was an early-20th-century religious reformer in Uganda. He had been part of the

King's African Rifles The King's African Rifles (KAR) was a British Colonial Auxiliary Forces regiment raised from Britain's East African colonies in 1902. It primarily carried out internal security duties within these colonies along with military service elsewher ...

of the British Army, but came to feel that there needed to be an end to colonial rule in Africa and that this must be obtained through a religious rejuvenation with independent Christian Churches. Mukasa formed the African Progressive Association, the Christian Army for the Salvation of Africa and he also formed a branch of the

African Orthodox Church The African Orthodox Church (AOC) is a predominantly African-American Christian denomination which was founded in the United States in 1918 by the joint collaboration of its first patriarch, George Alexander McGuire, and Marcus M. Garvey. The ...

in Uganda. That later came about in 1932 when Mukasa was ordained a priest by a bishop under

Marcus Garvey Marcus Mosiah Garvey Jr. (17 August 188710 June 1940) was a Jamaican political activist. He was the founder and first President-General of the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League (UNIA-ACL) (commonly known a ...

. However Mukasa later learned that the

was not in line with the

Ethiopian Orthodox Church The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church () is the largest of the Oriental Orthodox Churches. One of the few Christian churches in Africa originating before European colonization of the continent, the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church dates bac ...

and the

Coptic Orthodox Church The Coptic Orthodox Church (), also known as the Coptic Orthodox Patriarchate of Alexandria, is an Oriental Orthodox Christian church based in Egypt. The head of the church and the See of Alexandria is the pope of Alexandria on the Holy Apo ...

. Mukasa split with the western Church and went to Alexandria where he was ordained by Patriarch Christophoros II. Patriarch Christophoros was the

Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Alexandria The Greek Orthodox patriarch of Alexandria has the title Pope and Patriarch of Alexandria and all Africa. The term "Greek" is a religious identifier and not an ethnic one; while many of these patriarchs were ethnic Greeks, some were Hellenized Egy ...

thus putting Mukasa into the

Eastern Orthodox Eastern Orthodoxy, otherwise known as Eastern Orthodox Christianity or Byzantine Christianity, is one of the three main Branches of Christianity, branches of Chalcedonian Christianity, alongside Catholic Church, Catholicism and Protestantism ...

group present mainly in Εastern Europe, a different religious tradition from the

Oriental Orthodox Church The Oriental Orthodox Churches are Eastern Christian churches adhering to Miaphysite Christology, with approximately 50 million members worldwide. The Oriental Orthodox Churches adhere to the Nicene Christian tradition. Oriental Orthodoxy is ...

that the Coptic and Ethiopian Churches are part of. Bishop Christopher died in 1982.

Sources

* Boahnen, A. Abu. ''African Under Colonial Rule'' Vol. 7 in the History of Africa Series (Paris: UNESCO, 1990) p. 223.
2006 article on Orthodoxy in Uganda
* :orthodoxwiki:Christopher Reuben Spartas 20th-century Ugandan clergy Eastern Orthodox Christians from Uganda Bishops of the Greek Orthodox Church of Alexandria Converts to Eastern Orthodoxy from Anglicanism Members of the African Orthodox Church 1899 births 1982 deaths {{EasternOrthodoxy-bishop-stub

See also

Sources