History Of Christianity In Africa
Christianity spread in Africa nearly two thousand years ago. The Bible has mentioned the name of Africa in several ways and they have witnessed the life of Jesus Christ. Christianity would have begun as a religion when the people who have met Christ shared their experiences with other Africans. |
A Cyrenian held the cross before Jesus was crucified on it. He was from North Africa. There were several Egyptians and Cyrenian in the crowd of people on the day Jesus was crucified. There have been several acts recording the presence of Christianity in Africa. An act where an Ethiopian eunuch was converted as a Christian has also been mentioned in the book of Acts
The Book of Acts has also mentioned that the apostles undertook a missionary to Cyprus and Cyrene and had preached the Gospel. Christianity spread into North Africa through Egypt. During the first 5 centuries Christianity was growing rapidly and was introduced to Africans through Alexandria. Alexandria had a large Jewish community. It is also believed that the African Jews were converted into Christianity from Judaism and the Jewish revolted around A.D. 115. However, Judaism soon vanished from that region. North Africa was the first to convert to Christianity.
The Church established Catechetical School in Alexandria in many places and built more churches. Christianity had become a prominent religion in Africa until the Muslim arrived in the middle Ages. There were too many Islam converts and also forced several African Christians to leave the place. Several of them left Africa and moved to Europe.
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