The brief history of the Presbyterianism

The Presbyterian family of churches, like all Christian churches, trace their roots back to the early church in Jerusalem, to Paul and the Church Fathers like Augustine.

In 1517 Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses to a church door in Wittenberg, Germany.

This public challenge to the practices of the church of his time led to the formation of a new family of churches known as the Protestant Churches.

The two main streams of Protestant churches are the Reformed Churches and the Lutheran Churches. The Presbyterian Church belongs to the Reformed family.

John Calvin has been called the Father of Presbyterianism. He was born in France in 1509. He studied Latin, Logic and Philosophy at the University of Paris. Later he studied law and classical literature.

In 1533 he became convinced of the truth of the Reformation ideas. He was forced to flee from Paris after publicly expressing his new ideas. He found a refuge in Switzerland. There he wrote the first edition of his theological masterpiece, The Institutes of the Christian Religion. This book became the guidebook for many Protestants.

John Calvin visited Geneva in 1536 and became a leader of the Protestants in the city. From 1538 to 1541 he was exiled because of differences of opinion with the city fathers. He was invited to go back in 1541 and under his leadership the city became the centre of the Reformation in Europe and its church a model of basic Presbyterian organisation. Calvin's legacy to us is found in his teaching on the sovereignty of God, the priesthood of all believers, and the Presbyterian church structure. His ideals of morality, ethics and democracy helped shape Western thought.

From Geneva Presbyterians spread to Scotland and Ireland, mainly through John Knox who studied under John Calvin, and to England, the Netherlands and America. In the years 1643 to 1649 a group of Presbyterians in England worked out the doctrinal guide known as the "Westminster Confession". The influence of the Westminster Confession is clearly seen in the Articles of Faith adopted by the Presbyterian Church of England in 1890 and by the Presbyterian Church of South Africa in 1897.

Throughout the world there are some 50 million men, women and children who belong to the Christian family which goes by the name of "Reformed and Presbyterian". About 30 million call themselves Reformed and some 20 million answer to the name Presbyterian. The name Reformed refers to the fact that this group of Christians trace their heritage within the church universal to and through the 16th century reformers. The name Presbyterian came into use as a distinctive title in England in the 16th-17th centuries to distinguish one group within the Church of England from others who held different views on some issues. Reformed therefore is the wider title and Presbyterian that with the more particular reference and used generally in the English speaking world.

Our History

The inception of the Presbyterian Church of Africa: in 1898 by Rt. Rev Mpambani Jeremiah Mzimba.

Mzimba, an ex-Lovedale graduate, was the founder of the Presbyterian Church of Africa. He was born at Ngqakayi in the Eastern Cape halfway through the nineteenth century. His father, Ntibane, was an old Lovedale student and he and his wife were baptised by the Rev. James Laing of the Free Church of Scotland in 1852. Ntibane later became a deacon in the Lovedale Native Church where his son, Pambani, would one day serve as a minister. So it may be seen that Mzimba's roots were firmly grounded in the Lovedale Presbyterian Church.

Mzimba entered Lovedale as a student in 1860. He remained there until 1875 when he was ordained, the first South African-trained black Presbyterian minister to achieve this status. During his time as a student he worked in the telegraph office to help pay his fees. Like Makiwane, he was a teacher of biblical studies.

The year before he was ordained Mzimba married Martha Kwatsha, a member of the Soga family. She came from Burnshill Mission in 1868 and was a pupil at the girls' school until 1875, when she spent a year in Scotland with Mrs. Stewart. She married Mzimba when she returned (Stewart 1887, 435).

Mzimba was ordained on 2 December 1875. Stewart was not among those present and Dr. Waterston chided him saying: 'Your being away for Pambani's ordination gave me great pain ... Mpambani said little about it ... but he felt it. He has such deep feelings ... I have known Mpambani go off like some wounded animal to some solitary spot where no human eye can see his pain' (Waterston 1983, 97).

Although Stewart was absent, there were others who appreciated the importance of the occasion. The Christian Express, for which he had worked for a time, published an account of the ordination and how he had been elected by the Lovedale congregation as their minister. The Rev. Bryce Ross conducted the ordination service and preached on the office of the Christian ministry from Ephesians 4:11. The girls from the school gave him a gold chain and his fellow students a gift of money (Christian Express 1876, 11 ).
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