Online Reporter
Sifelani Tsiko
Fact Check Editor
Reverend Ernest Paul Mamvura Mwazha, an influential, humble and exacting apostolic church leader affectionately known to his followers as “Mudzidzisi” (Teacher) or “Mutumwa” (angelic messenger), died on Thursday (November 20, 2025) at the age of 107.
He led the African Apostolic Church (Vapostori veAfrica) for nearly seven decades. His ministry announced his death in a statement that widely circulated on various media platforms.
“Good morning! The African Apostolic Church, Va Apostora ve Africa. I regret to inform you that Our Archbishop, Paul Mwazha of Africa our church leader has just passed on today, November 20, 2025. He has departed from us but in spirit we are together with him. More information will be released in due course. Any further announcements will be released in due course. Kudzai Jehovah, Kudzai Jehovah!” said the church’s secretary Bishop Jeshua Mhizha.
Rev Mwazha was among the early African independent church leaders, who included among others – Johane Marange, Johane Masowe among others, who sought to establish autonomous Christian movements that incorporated African cultural elements and addressed local concerns.
This came after this early crop of leaders saw the limitations or paternalism of Western mission-controlled churches. The churches they led were distinguished by their white robes for both men and women.
Early independent African church leaders
Historians say the early African church leaders had no books to read about leadership, no bible colleges and seminaries where they learned about leading people. They did not have the opportunity to attend conferences and seminars on leadership. The means of getting information were scant and despite all these challenges, they commanded thousands and even millions of people today and are influential.
When was Rev Mwazha born?
He was born on October 25, 1918 in Chirumanzu near Mvuma just after a devastating influenza epidemic. According to his biography titled: “The Divine Commision of Paul Mwazha of Africa” and interviews in the media, Rev Mwazha says it was a Catholic priest, Father Schmidt who actually first announced his mission on earth. When he was young he fell sick and his mother gave him the name Mamvura (child of water) because she had resigned to fate that he would die. According to Shona culture traditions at the time, dead infants were buried near streams, hence the name Mamvura. In the biography, when Rev Mwazha became seriously ill soon after birth, his mother rushed to Father Schmidt at Holy Cross Mission to receive last rites at the altar. As the Catholic priest completed the rites of baptising him, Rev Mwazha felt better suddenly. In an interview with The Herald in 2004, Rev Mwazha said the priest shouted excitedly: “Mwana amutsirwa basa! Mwana amutsirwa basa! (The child has been raised to do God’s work).
When did he start God’s work?
When he was aged just 11, he started learning the Catholic Catechism with the assistance of his uncle named Nyamayedenga. He would recite the Lord’s prayer every morning and evening in a development that, Nelson Chenga, a former Herald scribe in a report said, “became the pillar of his faith in God.” In an interview in 2004, Rev Mwazha said since that time, constant prayer, visions, dreams and encounters with the Holy Spirit became part of his apostolic journey.
“The Lord showed my heavenly body to me. The Lord Jesus Christ appeared to me twice in his image. He was almost real in life. It happened, as I was asleep. I was flanked by two angelic figures. We were all clad in long white cloaks and our bodies were as bright as the full moon. We seemed to float up and down in the air. We were in a temple,” wrote Rev Mwazha in his biography, when he was in Standard Two at Maswaure Methodist Church at Kwenda in Chivhu.
Mwazha – the teacher, evangelist and entrepreneur
Rev Mwazha trained as a teacher and rose through the ranks to become a headmaster. He also ran four retail businesses in the 70s and early 80s. When he became a full time evangelist, he sold his four retail businesses in the mid-1980s to devote his life to church he founded in 1959. Rev Mwazha, as one of the first Zimbabweans to establish and run a Zionist independent African church in colonial Zimbabwe, his evangelical work in the post – independence era saw his influence growing in leaps and bound both in Zimbabwe, in Southern Africa and western countries.
His followers who worship outdoors in nature and wear white garments, are now believed to be between one and two million. Rev Mwazha leaves a considerable legacy, not just as a church leader who preached self-reliance and hard work instead of miracles and prophecies, but also held his followers together as a fatherly figure, prophet and unifier.
No to watching television
To buttress the gospel of self-reliance both spiritually and morally, Rev Mwazha discouraged his followers from watching television, which he argued, corrupted their minds. He asserted that television was an instrument of Western domination. Rev Mwazha believed strongly that television played a complex role in cultural imperialism and resistance. He said it was used to spread the dominant western cultures globally, potentially eroding local traditions.
“Our church doctrine prohibits members from watching television. This is because it corrupts our minds and in the process leaves us vulnerable to western ideas and values eventually leading to moral decay,” he was quoted saying at a Holy Communion gathering of his church at Nharikure, in Chirumanzi in 2006.
“Apart from HIV/Aids, cases of rape are on the increase because of some of the dressing habits among women. Muno muchurch yedu vanopfeka hembe refu dzakadzikama. (Our women dress decently).”
In 1998, he was quoted saying: “It is better to shed off those things that are considered by many as making life easier or more enjoyable but remove me from my God.”
Legacy
His teachings and beliefs contain elements of cultural resistance to the colonial project, which were, in many ways similar to the ideological thrust of the early African nationalists groupings ZAPU and Zanu PF – formed to fight for independence.
Rev Mwazha’s ideology ties closely with the black self-reliance and the nationalist ideology of black empowerment. After independence, his church supported the Government’s thrust on land reform, self reliance and black empowerment.
He was an astute and charismatic leader who believed strongly in the gospel that encouraged faith and hard work as opposed to Pentecostalism that emphasises miraculous wealth through tithes and donations. Towards the end of his life, his church was threatened by the splits and schisms that are common among apostolic movements. His presence sustained and grew the church despite the rifts. His contribution to the growth and rise of independent African churches, over 66 years of service, is immense. His gospel appealed to many giving them hope through the most difficult moments of their lives in the country.
