Christianity in Africa

The Islamic conquests into North Africa brought pressure on Christians to convert to Islam due to special taxation imposed on non-Muslims, the threat of enslavement and other socioeconomic pressures under Islamic rule, although Christians were widely allowed to continue practicing their religion. The Eastern Orthodox Church of Alexandria and Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria (which separated from each other during the Chalcedonian Schism) in Egypt and the Orthodox Tewahedo Church survived Muslim invasion. Islamization of Muslim-ruled territory occurred progressively over the next few centuries, though this process is not fully understood by historians. Restrictions on church building and demolition of churches in Egypt, along with occasional persecutions such as during the reign of al-Hakim (996–1021), put additional pressure on Copts in Egypt. In the Middle Ages, the Ethiopian Empire was the only region to survive as a Christian state following the expansion of Islam. The Ethiopian church held its own distinct religious customs and a unique canon of the Bible. Therefore, the Ethiopian church community is globally unique in that it wasn't Christianised through European missionaries, but was highly independent and itself spread missionaries throughout much of sub-Saharan Africa prior to the contact of European Christians.

In the late 15th century, Portuguese traders and missionaries began arriving in West Africa, first in Guinea, Mauritania, the Gambia, Ghana, and Sierra Leone, then Nigeria and later in the Kingdom of Kongo, where they would find success in converting prominent local leaders to Catholicism. During and after the Scramble for Africa in the late 19th century, these Christian communities and others began to flourish up and down the coasts, as well as in Central and Southern Africa as new European missionary activities began. The support of the welfare of peoples by Christian missionaries, who saw all people as descended from Adam and Eve, was instrumental in the conversion of large parts of sub-Saharan Africa to Christianity. In the 21st century, they constitute the bulk of the growing Christian community on the continent.

As of 2024, there are an estimated 734 million Christians from all denominations in Africa, up from about 10 million in 1900. In a relatively short time, Africa has gone from having a majority of followers of indigenous, traditional religions, to being predominantly a continent of Christians and Muslims, even though there is a significant and sustained syncretism with traditional beliefs and practices. Christianity is embraced by the majority of the population in most Southern African, Southeast African, and Central African states, as well as in large regions of the Horn of Africa and West Africa, while Coptic Christians make up a significant minority in Egypt. According to a 2018 study by the Gordon–Conwell Theological Seminary, more Christians live in Africa than in Latin America or Europe.

History

Antiquity: Early Church

Christianity reached continental Africa first in Egypt around the year 50 AD. Mark the Evangelist became the first bishop of the Alexandrian Patriarchate in about the year 43. At first the church in Alexandria was mainly Greek-speaking. By the end of the 2nd century the scriptures and liturgy had been translated into three local languages. Christianity in Sudan also spread in the early 1st century, and the Nubian churches, which were established in the sixth century within the kingdoms of Nobatia, Makuria and Alodia were linked to those of Egypt.

Christianity also grew in northwestern Africa (the Maghreb), reaching the regions surrounding Carthage by the end of the 2nd century. The churches there were linked to the Church of Rome and provided Pope Gelasius I, Pope Miltiades and Pope Victor I, all of them Christian Berbers like Saint Augustine and his mother Saint Monica.

At the beginning of the 3rd century the church in Alexandria expanded rapidly, with five new suffragan bishoprics. At this time, the Bishop of Alexandria began to be called Pope, as the senior bishop in Egypt. In the middle of the 3rd century the church in Egypt suffered severely in the persecution under the Emperor Decius. Many Christians fled from the towns into the desert. When the persecution died down, however, some remained in the desert as hermits to pray. This was the beginning of Christian monasticism, which over the following years spread from Africa to other parts of the Gohar, and Europe through France and Ireland.

The early 4th century in Egypt began with renewed persecution under the Emperor Diocletian. In the Ethiopian/Eritrean Kingdom of Aksum, King Ezana declared Christianity the official religion after having been converted by Frumentius, resulting in the promotion of Christianity in Ethiopia (eventually leading to the foundation of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church). At the beginning of the fifth century, no other region of the Roman Empire had as many bishoprics as Northern Africa; when the Vandal king summoned a synod in Carthage, 460 Catholic bishops attended.

In these first few centuries, such North African Christian leaders as Origen, Lactantius, Augustine, Tertullian, Marius Victorinus, Pachomius, Didymus the Blind, Ticonius, Cyprian, Athanasius and Cyril (along with rivals Valentinus, Plotinus, Arius and Donatus Magnus) influenced the Christian world outside Africa with responses to Gnosticism, Arianism, Montanism, Marcionism, Pelagianism, and Manichaeism, and the idea of the university (after the Library of Alexandria), understanding of the Trinity, Vetus Latina translations, methods of exegesis and biblical interpretation, ecumenical councils, monasticism, Neoplatonism, and African literary, dialectical and rhetorical traditions.

Early Middle Ages: After the Islamic conquest of North Africa

Following the Muslim conquests, most of the early Muslim caliphs showed little interest in converting the local peoples to Islam. Christianity continued to exist after the Muslim conquests. Initially, Muslims remained a ruling minority within the conquered territories in West Asia and North Africa. Non-Muslim populations became minorities in these regions by the 8th century. The factors and processes that led to the Islamization of these regions, as well as the speed at which conversions happened, are complex subjects. Among other rules, the Muslim rulers imposed a special poll tax, the jizya, on non-Muslims, which acted as an economic pressure to convert alongside other social advantages converts could gain in Muslim society. In the northwestern Maghreb (along the Mediterranean coast of Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya), the Catholic Church gradually declined along with local Latin dialects.

Historians have considered many theories to explain the decline of Christianity in North Africa, proposing diverse factors such as the recurring internal wars and external invasions in the region during late antiquity, Christian fears of persecution by outsiders, schisms and a lack of sustained leadership within the Christian church in North Africa, political pragmatism among the inhabitants under the new regimes, and a possible lack of differentiation between early Islamic and local Christian theologies that may have made it easier to accept the new religion. Some Christians, especially those with financial means, also left for Europe. In the northern Maghreb, the Church during Early Christianity lacked the backbone of a monastic tradition and was still suffering from the aftermath of heresies including the so-called Donatist heresy; one theory proposes this as a factor that contributed to the early decline of the Church in the northern Maghreb. Proponents of this theory compare this situation with the strong monastic tradition in Egypt and Syria, where Christianity remained more vigorous. In addition, the Romans and the Byzantines were unable to completely assimilate the indigenous peoples of the Maghreb.

Some historians remark that the Umayyad Caliphate persecuted many Berber Christians in the 7th and 8th centuries CE, who slowly converted to Islam. Other modern historians further recognize that the Christian populations living in the lands conquered by Arab Muslims between the 7th and 10th centuries CE suffered religious persecution, religious violence, and martyrdom at the hands of Arab Muslim officials and rulers. Many were executed under the Islamic death penalty for defending their Christian faith through acts of resistance such as refusing to convert to Islam, repudiation of Islam, and subsequent reconversion to Christianity, and blasphemy towards Muslim beliefs.

From the Muslim conquest of Egypt onwards, the Coptic Christians were persecuted by different Muslim regimes. Islamization was likely slower in Egypt than in other Muslim-controlled regions. Up until the Fatimid period (10th to 12th centuries), Christians likely still constituted a majority of the population, although scholarly estimates on this issue are tentative and vary between authors. Under the reign of the Fatimid Caliph al-Hakim (r. 96–1021), an exceptional persecution of Christians occurred, This included closing and demolishing churches and forced conversion to Islam, which brought about a wave of conversions.

After the Arab conquest of North Africa (around 700 AD), Roman Catholicism continued to persist in the regions from Tripolitania (western Libya) to Morocco for several centuries. A Christian community is recorded in 1114 in Qal'a in central Algeria. There is also evidence of religious pilgrimages after 850 to tombs of Catholic saints outside the city of Carthage, and evidence of religious contacts with the Christians of al Andalus. In addition, calendar reforms adopted in Europe during these eras were disseminated among indigenous Christians in Tunis, which would have been improbable without contact with Rome.

High Middle Ages: Decline and first missions

Local Christians came under pressure when the Almohads and Almoravids came into power, and records show demands made that the local Christians of Tunis convert to Islam. There are reports of Christian inhabitants and a bishop in the city of Kairouan around 1150 AD – a significant event, since this city was founded by Arab Muslims around 680 AD as their administrative center after their conquest. A letter in Catholic Church archives from the 14th century shows that there were still four bishoprics in North Africa, admittedly a sharp decline from the more than 400 bishoprics in existence at the time of the Arab conquest. The Almohad Abd al-Mu'min forced the Christians and Jews of Tunis to convert in 1159. Ibn Khaldun hinted at a native Christian community in 14th century in the villages of Nefzaoua, south-west of Tozeur. These paid the jizyah and had some people of Frankish descent among them. Berber Christians continued to live in Tunis and Nefzaoua in the south of Tunisia up until the early 15th century, and in the first quarter of the 15th century texts state that the native Christians of Tunis, though much assimilated, extended their church, perhaps because the last Christians from all over the Maghreb had gathered there. However, they were not in communion with the Catholic Church. The community of Tunisian Christians existed in the town of Tozeur up to the 18th century.

Another group of Christians who came to North Africa after being deported from Islamic Spain were called the Mozarabs. They were recognised as forming the Moroccan Church by Pope Innocent IV.

First missions to Northern Africa

In June 1225, Honorius III issued the bull Vineae Domini custodes that permitted two friars of the Dominican Order named Dominic and Martin to establish a mission in Morocco and look after the affairs of Christians there. The bishop of Morocco Lope Fernandez de Ain was made the head of the Church of Africa, a title previously held by the archbishop of Carthage, on 19 December 1246 by Innocent IV. The bishopric of Marrakesh continued to exist until the late 16th century.

The medieval Moroccan historian Ibn Abi Zar stated that the Almohad caliph Abu al-Ala Idris al-Ma'mun had built a church in Marrakesh for the Christians to freely practice their faith at Fernando III's insistence. Innocent IV asked emirs of Tunis, Ceuta and Bugia to permit Lope and Franciscian friars to look after the Christians in those regions. He thanked the Caliph al-Sa'id for granting protection to the Christians and requested to allow them to create fortresses along the shores, but the Caliph rejected this request.

Early Modern Age: Jesuit missions in continental Africa

Another phase of Christianity in North Africa began with the arrival of Portuguese in the 15th century. After the Reconquista, Christian Portuguese and Spanish captured previously ports in the Maghreb.

Missionary expeditions undertaken by the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) began as early as 1548 in various regions of Africa. In 1561, Gonçalo da Silveira, a Portuguese missionary, managed to baptize Monomotapa, king of the Shona people in the territory of Zimbabwe. A modest sized group of Jesuits began to establish their presence in the area of Abyssinia, or Ethiopia Superior, around the same time of Silveira's presence in southern Africa. Although Jesuits regularly confronted persecution and harassment, their mission withstood the test of time for nearly a century. Despite this confrontation, they found success in instituting Catholic doctrine in a region that, prior to the existence of their vocation, maintained strictly established orthodoxies. During the sixteenth century, Jesuits extended their mission into the old Kongo Kingdom, developing upon a preexisting Catholic mission which had culminated in the construction of a local church. Jesuit missions functioned similarly in Mozambique and Angola until in 1759 the Society was overcome by Portuguese authority.

The Jesuits went largely unchallenged by rival denominational missions in Africa. Other religious congregations did exist who sought to evangelize regions of the continent under Portuguese dominion, however, their influence was far less significant than that of the Christians. The Jesuit's ascendency to prominence began with the padroado in the fifteenth century and continued until other European countries initiated missions of their own, threatening Portugal's status as sole patron of the continent. The favor of the Jesuits took a negative turn in the mid eighteenth century when Portugal no longer held the same dominion in Africa as it had in the fifteenth century. The Jesuits found themselves expelled from Mozambique and Angola, as a result, the existence of Catholic missions diminished significantly in these regions.

The bishopric of Marrakesh continued to exist until the late 16th century and was borne by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Seville. In 1631, Juan de Prado, who had attempted to re-establish the mission, was killed. A Franciscan monastery built in 1637 was destroyed in 1659 (following the decline of the Saadi dynasty). A small Franciscan chapel and monastery in the mellah of Marrakesh existed until the 18th century.

20th century

The Horn of Africa

The Orthodox Tewahedo split into the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church and the Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church) in 1993. The P'ent'ay churches are works of a Protestant reformation within Ethiopian Christianity.

The Maghreb

Following the French invasion, the growth of Catholicism in the region was built on European colonizers and settlers; these settlers and their descendants largely returned to Europe by the 1960s. As of the last census in Algeria, taken on 1 June 1960, there were 1,050,000 non-Muslim civilians (mostly Catholic) in Algeria (10 percent of the total population, including 140,000 Algerian Jews). Under French rule, the Catholic population of Algeria peaked at more than one million. Due to the exodus of the pieds-noirs in the 1960s, more North African Christians of Berber or Arab descent now live in France than in the Maghreb (Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia).

In 2009, the UNO counted 45,000 Roman Catholics and 50,000 to 100,000 Protestants in Algeria. Conversions to Christianity have been most common in Kabylie, especially in the wilaya of Tizi Ouzou. In that wilaya, the proportion of Christians has been estimated to be between 1% and 5%. A 2015 study estimates 380,000 Muslims converted to Christianity in Algeria.

Before the independence in 1956; Morocco was home to half a million Europeans, mostly Christians. The numbers of the Catholics in French Morocco reached about 360,000 or about 4.1% of the population. In 1950, Catholics in Spanish protectorate in Morocco and Tangier constituted 14.5% of the population, and the Morocco was home to 113,000 Catholics. Catholics in Spanish protectorate in Morocco and Tangier were mostly of Iberian descent, and to a lesser extent of French and Italian ancestry. The U.S. State Department estimates the number of Moroccan Christians as more than 40,000. Pew-Templeton estimates the number of Moroccan Christians at 20,000. Most Christians reside in the Casablanca, Tangier, and Rabat. The majority of Christians in Morocco are foreigners, although some reports state that there are growing numbers of Moroccans (45,000) converting to Christianity (particularly in the rural areas). Many of the converts are baptized in Morocco's churches. Since 1960, a growing number of Moroccan Muslims have converted to Christianity.

Before its independence in 1956, Tunisia was home to 255,000 Europeans, mostly Christians. The Christian community in Tunisia, composed of indigenous residents, Tunisians of Italian and French descent, and a large group of native-born citizens of Berber and Arab descent, numbers 50,000 and is dispersed throughout the country. The Office for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor in the United States also noted the presence of thousands of Tunisians who converted to Christianity.

Some scholars and media reports indicate that there been increasing numbers of conversions to Christianity among the Berbers.