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Theophilus Naledi is a retired Bishop of Botswana in the Church of the Province of Central Africa, who was born at Bothithong near Vryburg in South Africa in 1936.
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Theophilus Naledi is a retired Bishop of Botswana in the Church of the Province of Central Africa, who was born at Bothithong near Vryburg in South Africa in 1936.
Naledi had his primary education at Bothithong, going to nearby Taung for his secondary schooling. From there he went up to St Bede's Theological College at Mthatha where he studied for three years prior to ordination.
Naledi was ordained as a deacon at St Cyprian's Cathedral, Kimberley, in the Diocese of Kimberley and Kuruman in 1959, and as a priest the following year. He served the diocese for 10 years.
At the end of 1970 Naledi was invited to be a parish priest in Gaborone, Botswana. “Back then, we used the Trinity building and we belonged to the Matabeleland Diocese under Bishop Kenneth Skelton,” Naledi recalled. [1]
Anglicans in Botswana felt at the time that being part of the Diocese of Matebeleland meant that their church remained “foreign in its own country” (previously it had been part of the Diocese of Kimberley and Kuruman). In 1972 the Diocese of Botswana was inaugurated with C. Shannon Mallory, an American, as its first bishop. Malory served for six years and during his tenure Gaborone’s Cathedral of the Holy Cross was built. [2]
Theophilus Naledi was serving at Lobatse (where he was appointed Archdeacon in 1976 [3] ) in the south of Botswana at the time that Mallory was succeeded by Khotso Makhulu in 1978. At this time Naledi furthered his studies, firstly enrolling with UNISA for the degree of Bachelor of Theology. He was appointed principal of the Botswana Theological Training Programme which was founded by a number of churches including the Anglican and Lutheran Churches, the United Congregational Church of Southern Africa and the Church of God in Christ. Naledi served as principal for three years before going, in 1983, to King's College and being awarded, in 1985, a Master of Theology degree by the University of London.
Naledi was ordained to the episcopate and was consecrated as Bishop of Matabeleland in September 1987. He was translated to the Diocese of Botswana as Bishop of Botswana in December 2000.
Naledi was succeeded in 2009 by Trevor Mwamba.
In September 2009 the Anglican Cathedral in Gaborone hosted the 21st anniversary of the consecration of retired bishop Theo Naledi. Trevor Mwamba, Bishop of the Botswana, officiated while the sermon was preached by Raphael Hess, Bishop of Saldanha Bay, South Africa. [4]
Gaborone is the capital and largest city of Botswana with a population of 246,325 based on the 2022 census, about 10% of the total population of Botswana. Its agglomeration is home to 421,907 inhabitants at the 2011 census.
The Church of the Province of Central Africa is part of the Anglican Communion, and includes 15 dioceses in Botswana, Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe. The Primate of the Church is the Archbishop of Central Africa. Albert Chama is the current archbishop, being installed on 20 March 2011, succeeding Bernard Amos Malango who retired in 2007. From 1980 to 2000, Walter Khotso Makhulu, a noted Anti-Apartheid activist, was Archbishop as well as Bishop of Botswana. Archbishop Chama continues to serve as Bishop of Northern Zambia, and is the second Zambian to be Archbishop of Central Africa.
The Diocese of Kimberley and Kuruman is a diocese in the Anglican Church of Southern Africa, and encompasses the area around Kimberley and Kuruman and overlaps the Northern Cape Province and North West Province of South Africa. It is presided over by the Bishop of Kimberley and Kuruman, until recently Ossie Swartz. On 19 September 2021 the Electoral College of Bishops elected to translate the Right Revd Brian Marajh of George to become the 13th Bishop of Kimberley & Kuruman. The seat of the Bishop of Kimberley and Kuruman is at St Cyprian's Cathedral, Kimberley. There had been so far 12 bishops of the See, though one of these served for two different periods of time.
Wilfrid Gore Browne was an Anglican bishop, the first Bishop of Kimberley and Kuruman from 1912 to 1928. He was described as a saintly bishop with "a keen sense of humour" and "a winning courtesy."
Oswald Peter Patrick Swartz is a South African Anglican bishop. He was the twelfth Bishop of Kimberley and Kuruman.
The Diocese of the Free State is a diocese in the Anglican Church of Southern Africa.
St. Cyprian's Grammar School in Kimberley, South Africa, is a co-educational English-medium independent school for Grades R and 1–12, attached to St Cyprian's Cathedral. In its present form it opened to 83 students on 21 January 2009. St Cyprian's is one of the pilot schools within the Historic Schools Restoration Project initiated by Archbishop Emeritus Njongonkulu Ndungane.
The Cathedral Church of St Cyprian the Martyr, Kimberley, is the seat of the Bishop of the Kimberley and Kuruman, Anglican Church of Southern Africa. The building was dedicated in 1908, becoming a Cathedral when the Synod of Bishops mandated formation of the new Diocese of Kimberley and Kuruman in October 1911. The first Bishop, the Rt Revd Wilfrid Gore Browne, was enthroned there on 30 June 1912.
Arthur Henry Attwell was Bishop of Sodor and Man from 1983 to 1988. He served as Dean of Kimberley, South Africa, from 1953 to 1959 and afterwards as Rector of Workington, Cumberland.
Justus Mauritius Marcus was a South African Anglican bishop. He was Regional Bishop of Saldanha Bay in the Diocese of Cape Town from 2002 to 2003, having served as Dean of Kimberley and Rector of St Cyprian's Cathedral from 1992 to 2002. He died from cancer, aged 48, on 1 December 2003. Marcus was predeceased by his first wife, Milly. His second wife and widow is Sarah Rowland Jones, a fellow priest who then fulfilled a research ministry in the Anglican Church of Southern Africa at the behest of two successive Archbishops of Cape Town before returning to Wales in late 2013.
Brian Victor Beck, an Anglican priest in South Africa, served as Dean of Kimberley from 2003 to 2010. He is an Honorary Canon of St Cyprian's Cathedral.
John William Salt, OGS was a British Anglican bishop. He was the Bishop of St Helena from 1999 to 2011. He lived on the island of St Helena, which is situated in the South Atlantic.
Richard Stanley Cutts (1919-1997) was the Anglican Bishop of Argentina and Eastern South America. He acted as Episcopal Commissary for the Falkland Islands, on behalf of the Archbishop of Canterbury, from 1978 until the outbreak of the Falklands War when Episcopal oversight was transferred to the Bishop to the Forces. Cutts was born in 1919 and died in 1997 of a heart attack.
Alan John Butler, a Director of the Kuruman Moffat Mission in Kuruman, South Africa, and Canon of Kimberley Cathedral, was a priest who served in the Diocese of Kimberley and Kuruman for a major part of the second half of the twentieth century. He was responsible for the restoration of the historic Moffat Mission precinct which became renowned as a conservation area and as a beacon of hope in the troubled last years of Apartheid. He was born in the United Kingdom in 1930 and died at Wimborne on 13 January 2011.
Simon Mark Aiken is Dean of Benoni and rector of St Dunstan's Cathedral in the Diocese of the Highveld. He was previously the 12th Dean of Kimberley and rector of St Cyprian's Cathedral, Kimberley, in the Diocese of Kimberley and Kuruman in South Africa. Born in England in 1962, he went to South Africa in 2006, initially as subdean at Bloemfontein Cathedral.
Musonda Trevor Selwyn Mwamba, known as Trevor Mwamba, is an Anglican bishop. He was consecrated Bishop of Botswana on 6 February 2005. He tendered his resignation as Bishop of Botswana on 30 September 2012 – the day on which Botswana marks the anniversary of its independence from Britain. His successor was consecrated on 14 July 2013. On 4 April 2021, he was elected President of the United National Independence Party in Zambia.
The Diocese of Botswana is one of 15 dioceses of the Anglican Church of the Province of Central Africa, a province of the Anglican Communion. It is a member of the Botswana Council of Churches.
Charles Shannon Mallory, styled C. Shannon Mallory, was the inaugural Bishop of Botswana, consecrated in Gaborone in 1972; and afterwards inaugural Bishop of El Camino Real.
Brian Melvin Marajh was the thirteenth and current Bishop of Kimberley & Kuruman in South Africa. He was previously the eighth bishop of George, before, on 19 September 2021, the Electoral College of Bishops elected to translate the Right Revd Brian Marajh of George to become Bishop of Kimberley & Kuruman. He was consecrated as bishop at St Mark's Cathedral, George, on 7 May 2011. Marajh was born in Kimberley in the Northern Cape on 2 April 1960.
Monwabisi Patrick Matolengwe was a South African Anglican bishop.
