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Uganda loses second prominent church leader in five months

Kampala, Uganda

A somber mood is hanging over Uganda following the sudden death of a second prominent church leader within five months.

Metropolitan Jonah Lwanga, of the Orthodox Church of Uganda, was pronounced dead on Sunday night. In a brief social media post, the Orthodox Church in Uganda said, “Our spiritual father has gone to be with the Lord.”

Uganda Metropolitan Jonah Lwanga

Metropolitan Jonah Lwanga PICTURE: Via Facebook.

The cause of the death of the 76-year-old cleric was not yet clear by press time.

Metropolitan Lwanga was one of the most vocal religious leaders in Uganda. In 2019, amid a crackdown on opposition political activists and civil society organisations as Uganda headed towards the January, 2021, elections, Lwanga stung the ruling National Resistance Movement government by saying that it would soon collapse for disturbing the nation. 

“We are going to suffer human rights abuses until NRM is dissolved,” he said in his Easter message. “And [NRM] is going to dissolve very soon. I say this prophetically, it’s not going to be there because it has disturbed this nation very much. And when it dissolves, then things will go wonderfully.”

Lwanga died before witnessing the change he prophesied. 

Recently, he also took a swipe at security agencies that shot and killed more than 54 demonstrators during the 2021 election campaigns in Uganda.

“The rampant killings taking place in Uganda today contradict the country’s standards of Christianity,” he said. “Our standard of Christianity must be a little different; must portray growth in a Christian way of life. The rampant killings and corruption must be eradicated among us.” 

Lwanga asked members of Uganda’s security forces to understand that human beings were created in God’s image and to strive to protect lives. To those killing others to amass wealth in the country, he asked them to leave Satan’s ways and return to the lord.  

Lwanga joins a growing list of prominent religious leaders in Uganda who have died suddenly this year including the former Archbishop of the Catholic Archdiocese of Kampala, Cyprian Kizito Lwanga, who died in his sleep in April. Lwanga is also the second Orthodox archbishop in the region to die in the last two months after Metropolitan Nickiphoros of Kinshasa, Congo, succumbed to COVID-19 on 27th July.

 

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