On 17 February the church remembers Janani Luwum, archbishop, martyr, 1922 – 1977.
But who was Janani Luwum?
Born into a poor Christian family at Acholi in 1922, Luwum spent his youth as a goatherd, but gave this up when the opportunity arose to train as a teacher at Boroboro. Undergoing a conversion experience in 1948, he left teaching to study for the ministry at the new Buwalasi Theological College. He was ordained in 1955 and served as a parish priest for three years. Luwum was once an assistant curate in Bushbury, near Wolverhampton, and was identified then as a future leader of his Church at home. He studied further in England at the London College of Divinity, and returned to Buwalasi as Principal for two years.
In 1969 he was consecrated Bishop of northern Uganda. Five years later he became Archbishop of Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and Bogo-Zaire. But primatial authority was to bring him into open confrontation with an anti-Christian state bent on destroying the Church.
In 1971, three years before Luwum became archbishop, the government of Milton Obote had been overthrown by the Ugandan army under General Idi Amin. Amin initiated a policy of repression which soon escalated into a reign of terror.
In an example of what would become known in the 1990s as ‘ethnic cleansing’, over 50,000 Asians were expelled from Uganda and troops from tribes hostile to Amin’s own were summarily shot. Amin, a Muslim, sought to convert to Islam by force and terror a population with one of the largest percentages of Christians (about 70 per cent) in Africa.
Early in 1977, a small revolt in the army was put down with few fatalities. But the increasingly paranoid Amin determined to stamp out all traces of dissent. His men killed thousands, including the entire population of former President Obote’s home village. One bishop, Festo Kivengere, addressing a congregation including many government officials, accused the government of abusing the authority that God had entrusted to it. Amin responded by ordering a night-time raid on the archbishop’s home, on the pretext of searching for hidden weapons.
Showing considerable bravery, Luwum visited Amin to deliver personally a note of protest from the bishops at the arbitrary killings and the disappearances of many, particularly Christians. An eyewitness at the Archbishop’s trial at the Nile Mansions Hotel, Kampala, likened it to the trial of Jesus: the thousands of soldiers were chanting not “Crucify him! Crucify him!” but “Firing squad! Firing squad!”
Luwum was later found dead, together with two Christian cabinet ministers, the three having ostensibly died in a car crash. Few in Uganda or abroad doubted that he had been murdered on the dictator’s orders.
Leslie Brown, the first Archbishop of the Province of Uganda, told the story how, on the Sunday after Archbishop Luwum’s murder, a grave had been dug for him, appropriately next to that of the martyred Bishop Hannington. The authorities, however, refused to hand over his body. A great crowd filled the cathedral, and, at the end of their eucharist, filed out to gather around the empty grave and sing Easter hymns.
Now, Luwum’s statue stands as one of ten modern martyrs on the west front of Westminster Abbey.
A Prayer
God of truth,
whose servant Janani Luwum walked in the light,
and in his death defied the powers of darkness:
free us from fear of those who kill the body,
that we too may walk as children of light,
through him who overcame darkness by the power of the cross,
Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever. Amen.
Revd Paul A. Carr and extract from ‘Saints on Earth: A biographical companion to Common Worship’ by John H Darch and Stuart K Burns
revPACman 