Members of a Kenyan religious movement gathered in a candlelit room in western Kenya on Christmas Day to celebrate what they believe is the birth of a “Black Messiah.”
Gatekeepers News reports that dressed in white robes, worshippers prayed before a photograph of Mama Maria, the African woman who co-founded the church known as Legion Maria. The movement holds that Jesus was incarnated as a Black man for the salvation of Africans.
Earlier, AFP reporters met Stephen Benson Nundu, who introduced himself as a prophet. He carried a framed photograph of Baba Simeo Melchior — also known as Simeo Ondetto — whom followers revere as the “Black Messiah.” In the image, Melchior looks into the camera with clasped hands and a large medallion around his neck.
“Today is a great day, because the Virgin Mary gave birth to King Jesus in the world of Black people,” Nundu said.
Legion Maria — or Legio Maria in the Luo language spoken by many of its members — was founded in 1966. According to the church’s website, its origins date back to around 1938, when a “mystic woman” reportedly appeared to Roman Catholics with messages about “the incarnation of the son of God as a black man.”
One of the movement’s co-founders, Simeo Ondetto, later known as Baba Simeo Melchior, is described by followers as the “returned son of God” and the church’s “eternal spiritual leader.”
The movement now claims millions of followers in Kenya and at least eight other African countries, including Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Timothy Lucas Abawao, the church’s deputy leader, rejected claims that Legion Maria is a cult.
“A cult essentially is an organisation that… believes in the leader. But we believe in Jesus Christ, and we believe in God,” he told AFP.
AFP interviewed Abawao during Christmas celebrations in Nzoia, one of the church’s places of worship. He said followers believe Baba Simeo Melchior is “truly Jesus Christ.”
“He took on the colour of the Black man so that the Black man could understand him in his own language and receive salvation,” Abawao said, adding that “Baba Messiah came for Africans.”
Legion Maria is one of several African religious movements that centre on a Black divine or messianic figure. In South Africa, followers of Isaiah Shembe say he received divine instructions in 1913 to establish the Nazareth Baptist Church, which still claims millions of adherents decades after his death in 1935.
In the former Belgian Congo, Simon Kimbangu is believed to have performed miraculous healings in 1921, giving rise to the Kimbanguist Church. Convicted by colonial authorities of threatening state security, Kimbangu spent 30 years in prison until his death in 1951.
In Nigeria, the Brotherhood of the Cross and Star regards its late founder, Olumba Olumba Obu, as “the Holy Spirit” and “the Triune God,” according to the group’s website.
Speaking on the sidelines of a Legion Maria gathering, Odhiambo Ayanga emphasised the universality of God’s mission.
“As he came for the white, he also came for the black,” he said.
“He went for the Asian, as he went for other races; God came for us all. That’s why in Africa, he has to be Black.”
AFP
