Catholic Church in Kongo

While initially reluctant to allow the baptism of women, his wife, Nzinga a Nlaza, protested and eventually won him over; she was subsequently baptized as Queen Leonor of Kongo and became a champion of the church, paying expenses from her own income.

When João died, probably in late 1506 or 1507, Afonso's half brother Mpanzu a Kitima, one of the lapsed Christians and a powerful rival, challenged the prince for the throne.

Tradition from the late 17th century onward regarded Afonso as the founder of the church, and also attributes the story that he buried his own mother alive "for the sake of the Savior King" when she refused to take off a small idol she wore around her neck.

Afonso's work to establish the church won him wide praise outside of Africa, and the Portuguese historian João de Barros called him the "Apostle of Congo" in 1552.

Priests were called by the same name as the previous clergy (nganga), and the term ukisi, an abstract noun from the same root that gives the word nkisi (typically used to describe a charm, or in 16th century parlance, an "idol") was used to translate holy.

Many years elapsed between the formal subordination of Kongo to São Tomé and the first actual attempt of the bishop to exercise real control.

Portugal claimed the right of patronage over the new diocese, however and sought to use their control of the bishop to assert their own interests in Kongo, which were linked to the new Portuguese colony of Angola, founded in 1575.

[2] Diogo and the kings that followed established a strong laity, into whose hands the job of education typically fell, while the small numbers of ordained clergy only performed the sacraments.

'masters' in Portuguese), were drawn from the nobility of Kongo, paid salaries by the state, and engaged both in teaching literacy, religious education, and often also secretarial duties.

When he was made mestre of the province of Mpemba, he was paid a salary of 6 lefuku of nzimbu shells a month, and also performed duties as a secretary.

João de Paiva, the rector of the college until 1642, was particularly instrumental in the education of Kongolese, and also wrote an extensive, though now lost, chronicle of the country.

Kongo demanded that its church be separated from that of Portugal and that Angolan interests from the rival and increasingly enemy colony that often controlled the episcopal office.

In fact, this parish priest role put them frequently at odds with the secular clergy, who Capuchins charged were lax in their duties and too tolerant of traditional Kongolese religion.

The Capuchins generally had three or four missionaries in the whole of Kongo, occasionally they had as many as ten, never enough to truly take over the instruction of the people or educate more than an elite of political actors and their own staff.

While travelling they stopped at centrally located villages for a few days while people from neighboring settlements came in, and then they performed the sacraments, especially baptism, to thousands.

The Capuchins' special role in Europe, the Americas and Africa was to purify the religious practice of rural communities, and in Kongo they were particularly keen to destroy what they considered "superstitious" in Kongolese religion, which included the making of charms (minkisi) and healing cults like the kimpasi.

So much so that Axelsen portrayed their relations with the Kongo as something akin to a war until the mid-eighteenth century, when dwindling numbers of foreign clergy allowed the local religious actors to reassert themselves.

The breakdown of order as no one king was able to establish authority over the whole country in the aftermath of the death of Antonio I at the battle, and the abandonment of the capital following its sack in 1678, resulted in the unofficial partitioning of the country into hostile camps led by rival kings and entrenched in the mountains of Mbula and Kibangu or the coastal province of Luvota.

In this atmosphere of crisis, a new spirit of religious fervor arose in the preaching of Beatriz Kimpa Vita, who claimed to be possessed by Saint Anthony of Padua in 1704.

Beatriz preached at the camps of several of the kings and sent her followers to the others, eventually settling in São Salvador and taking up residence in the ruined cathedral.

Brass crucifixes produced in Kongo in the eighteenth and nineteenth century frequently depict Jesus as an African and wearing clothing decorated in designs popular in the country.

Considered an emblem of spiritual authority and power, the Christian cross was integrated into Kongo ancestral cults and burial rituals, and was believed to contain magical protective properties.

Christ is depicted with large protruding oval eyes, a common motif in Kongo art representing the supernatural vision of a human who is possessed by an ancestor or deity.