Lutheranism in Angola
Lutheranism was first introduced to Angola in the late 1800s, when Finnish missionaries began working in northern Namibia and southern Angola. Following the Portuguese defeat of Mandume Ya Ndemufayo in 1917, the Lutheran church in Angola was repressed by the Roman Catholic Portuguese authorities. In 1956, Lutheranism was reestablished in Angola, and in 1991, the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Angola was organized as an independent church body. In 1997, a smaller group of conservative Lutheran missionaries helped to organize a second Angolan Lutheran church: the Confessional Lutheran Church in Angola.
History
Missionaries from the Finnish Evangelical Lutheran Mission first arrived in the Ondonga kingdom in northern Namibia in July 1870. Two decades later, German missionaries from the Rhenish Missionary Society began evangelizing among the Oukwanyama people in northern Namibia and southern Angola. The latter group established mission plants in Ondjiva, Omupanda, Namakunde, and Omatemba, but these missions were threatened during the reign of Mandume Ya Ndemufayo, leading many converts to flee south to Ondonga. Following Ndemufayo's defeat by the Portuguese, most of the Lutherans who remained in Angola moved to Namibia, while the rest either converted to Roman Catholicism or renounced Christianity entirely. Indigenous Lutheran missionaries from Namibia returned to Angola beginning in 1933, but they were largely driven out by the Roman Catholic Portuguese officials.In 1956, the first permanent Lutheran congregation was established in Angola since the departure of the Rhenish missionaries in 1915. Seven years later, a second congregation was established. Over the next several decades, more congregations were established under the auspices of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Namibia, almost all of them in the Cunene Province. These missions were aided financially by both the ELCIN and the FELM. In 1991, these congregations were organized as the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Angola.