Crafted in the fire of tribulation, suffering, and unyielding hope, six Anglican dioceses from Northern Uganda are coming to Namugongo not as separate entities, but as one family, bound by shared history and faith.
These dioceses of Northern Uganda, Lango, West Lango, Madi-West Nile, Kitgum, and Nebbi carry a legacy carved through both pain and purpose. Together, they have borne the weight of war and political upheaval. They have also gifted Uganda three archbishops, one of whom died a martyr’s death, in a sacrifice no less profound than that of the Uganda Martyrs we celebrate today.
The Anglican faith arrived in Uganda when missionaries from the Church Missionary Society came, in 1877, in response to Kabaka Muteesa I’s invitation. While the first seeds were sown in Buganda, after years, the Gospel reached east, west, and north.
The story of the Anglican Church in Northern Uganda stretches back to a time when missionaries were still making their way through uncharted regions in fishing for souls. First the black missionary came, and later in March 1903, the first Church Missionary Society (CMS) arrived in Acholi land, marking a new chapter in Uganda’s religious history.
Jok or Lubanga?
We will not go to length on the story of the early black evangelist Semei Nyanzi; that is already captured in another part. But by and large, by 1904, the first Anglican mission in the area had been established at Keyo (Kumusalaba), laying the foundation for what would eventually become a stronghold of the Anglican faith in the north.
At the start, CMS missionaries had written spirited and enthusiastic accounts of these first trips. Although, as it turned out, high expectations turned to disappointment. As the missionaries wanted to evangelize, the natives were resisting whites in several rebellions like the Lamogi Rebellion, and all that made the work heavier.
Writing in the Uganda Journal, in 1963, renowned scholar Okot p’Bitek would delve into this contradiction explaining that finding an acceptable local name for “God” was at the heart of the problem. He explained that the name “Lubanga/Rubanga” which the missionaries chose was not acceptable to the locals who preferred “Jok”. Other authors weighed in on this. Keith Rusel, who served as assistant bishop of Upper Nile from 1955 to 1960, and as Bishop of Northern Uganda from 1961 to 1964 argued that this failure to use a locally acceptable name for God seemed to create a subconscious bar hindering the spread of the gospel. Kevin Ward called it “a general failure to engage the hearts and minds of the people of Northern Uganda.”
In 1907 the Church Missionary Society (CMS) had established a mission station in Patiko, which was somehow run alongside the colonial administration. However, this was closed after it was essentially isolated and cut off from supplies and workforce by the local chief’s creation of a ‘no-man’s-land’ around the white men.
Henni Alava captured it well in her 2022 book, Christianity, Politics and the Afterlives of War in Uganda. She notes that the CMS station withdrew from the area just a year after being established there, leaving behind a handful of converts shunned by their community. “This turn of events came as a serious disappointment to the CMS, which had initially been invited to Acholi by the most powerful of Acholi chiefs at that point, Rwot Awich of the Payira clan,” Alava writes.
But the evangelists never gave up amid rebellions and other challenges; they kept the work going one way or another.
West Nile, a new frontier
By 1914 only three areas of Uganda were practically untouched by missionary work: West Nile, Kigezi, and Karamoja. In the case of West Nile, which is part of the dioceses that are leading us today, Kevin Ward in A History of Christianity in Uganda, says that this was largely because they were late additions to colonial Uganda.
However, evangelization to West Nile was not a walk in the park since the CMS was overwhelmed with their work in all other parts where they had set foot with the evangelistic thrust of the previous twenty years and could hardly spare finances or personnel to open up new mission fields.
“Thus Bishop Willis was willing to negotiate a special arrangement with the Africa Inland Mission (AIM), a conservative evangelical interdenominational faith mission, largely American in origin and with work in Kenya and Congo,” says Ward. John Willis was Bishop of Uganda from 1912 to 1934.
By the said agreement, AIM undertook to send mainly Anglican missionaries to West Nile and to form congregations which were part of the Native Anglican Church. And with what is described as a smaller community of Protestants, the church was planted. However, Ward says that the AIM were anxious not to confuse evangelism with education and were to come into conflict with their converts over their neglect of schools in contrast to the CMS.
By 1918 a couple, Frank and Edith Gardner, arrived in West Nile to become the non-Catholic Christian missionaries in the area and established their base. Records shared by researcher Christopher Amos Kikomeko show that the mission land was donated to them by a native called Awudele.
It’s from this place that they taught the natives how to read, write and do simple numerals in the first Bush School at Mvara. However, the pioneer Gardners had to leave because of the Blackwater Fever. Their work could be reinforced by a number of missionaries, mostly transferred from the Congo, who kept the work in West Nile going between 1919 and 1923.
In 1926 Uganda Diocese was subdivided into two dioceses: that of Uganda Diocese and Upper Nile Diocese under the jurisdiction of the Metropolitan Church of England at Canterbury. The Upper Nile Diocese covered the areas of Bukedi, Mbale, West Nile, Karamoja, Soroti, Kumi, Sebei, Lango, Northern Uganda – Acholi, Madi, and Southern Equatorial – Sudan (South Sudan). The Diocesan Headquarters was put at Ngora Church, in Teso, which had been consecrated in 1912. The first Diocesan Bishop was Rt. Rev. Arthur Leonard Kitching.
Over the years, the evangelization went on with the then Native African Church caring for the souls, minds, and bodies through preaching the Word, establishing schools, clinics, and the likes. Converts over time grew.
As the Anglican Church expanded across Uganda, six decades of tireless evangelization, there arose the need for more localized leadership and structure became clear. In 1961, the Diocese of Northern Uganda was carved out of the Diocese of Upper Nile, with its headquarters established in Gulu, and the first bishop was Rev. Keith Russel. Also created in 1961, out of the Upper Nile Diocese, were the dioceses of Soroti and Mbale.
In 1964, the Reverend Sylvanus Wani, who had been serving as diocesan secretary, was consecrated Assistant Bishop of Northern Uganda Diocese. Later that year, Wani was installed as Bishop of the same diocese, succeeding Bishop Russel.
Two future archbishops
The turning point for West Nile Diocese came with the arrival of the full Lugbara Bible in 1967, a milestone that energized the local church and led to rapid growth in congregations and local leadership. Just two years later, in 1969, the Diocese of Madi and West Nile was formed. It was placed under the leadership of Bishop Wani who was translated from the Diocese of Northern Uganda.
To succeed Bishop Wani in Northern Uganda, the House of Bishops elected Reverend Canon Janani Luwum who, had been serving as Provincial Secretary of the Church of Uganda and Ruanda-Burundi. Bishop Luwum was installed at Gulu on 25 January 1969.
Fate would reverse the roles eight years later when Bishop Wani succeeded Janani Luwum as Archbishop. Exactly two years after Luwum’s episcopal ordination, on 25 January 1971, there was a military coup in Uganda which brought General Idi Amin to power. This ushered in massive human rights violations. The Acholi and the Langi were among the first victims of the new regime. Meanwhile, in 1974, Archbishop Erica Sabiti retired and the House of Bishops elected Bishop Luwum as the next Archbishop of the Church of Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and Boga-Zaire. The new archbishop chose not to conform to the “powers of darkness”. He spoke against the atrocities committed by the military government for which he paid the ultimate price on 16 February 1977 when he was murdered in the hands of the state. Archbishop Luwum’s courage and ultimate sacrifice placed him among the modern martyrs of the Church. For Northern Uganda, he remains not just a religious hero, but a symbol of conscience and unshakable faith.
Later that year, Bishop Sylvanus Wani, the man Luwum had succeeded as Bishop of Northern Uganda, was elected Archbishop.
The Diocese of Northern Uganda would later give birth to other dioceses as the Church continued to grow. The Diocese of Lango was established in 1976 with its headquarters in Lira. The Diocese of Nebbi followed in 1993, breaking away from Madi and West Nile, with St. Stephen’s Cathedral in Goli as its spiritual center and Reverend Henry Luke Orombi as its first bishop. Kitgum Diocese came into being in 1995, carved out of the original Northern Uganda Diocese. Its cathedral, All Saints’, stands as a beacon in the heart of Kitgum town. More recently, in 2014, the Diocese of West Lango was created after splitting from the Diocese of Lango. Its seat is St. Peter’s Cathedral in Aduku.
Bishop Orombi would go on to walk in the footsteps of both Luwum and Wani when he was elected Archbishop of the Church of Uganda in 2003, going on to lead the church from January 2004 to December 2012.
Through war, dislocation, and recovery, the Church grew into a vital force for healing and unity. Yet the path was not without its trials. Northern Uganda endured some of the darkest chapters in the nation’s history from colonial neglect to the brutality of Idi Amin’s regime and the long, devastating conflict with the Lord’s Resistance Army.
Churches were burned. Congregations were displaced. Priests preached under trees in the bush, sometimes in whispers, sometimes in tears. But the faith endured.
It was from this soil that Uganda’s second, third and sixth African archbishops – Janani Luwum, Sylvanus Wani and Henry Luke Orombi – emerged.
In the years since, the Anglican Church in the north has continued to grow and diversify. As the needs of communities evolved, new dioceses were born—not out of division, but out of a desire to serve better.
Today, each diocese in the cluster has its own story, yet all remain tethered to a common journey of survival, resilience, and spiritual renewal. As the six dioceses gather at Namugongo, they are not only remembering the martyrs of 1886. They also honour their own sons and daughters who walked through fire to keep the faith alive. They are singing, they are praying, and they are testifying not only to the past, but to a future shaped by unity, hope, and the enduring power of belief.
Glory to God!
Additional reporting by Wilson Akiiki Kaija
