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Samuel Kadungure
Senior Reporter
A WING of the iconic St Augustine’s High School church was on Tuesday night razed by fire, destroying property worth thousands of dollars.
The mission is under the Anglican Diocese of Manicaland and runs a primary and secondary school, a clinic, mission chapel and an orphanage.
St Augustine’s, also known locally as Tsambe, is a leading academic institution.
Anglican Diocese of Manicaland head, Bishop Eric Ruwona said the incident occurred on Tuesday night and engulfed the cathedral which is used to host church masses by the students and local community.
He said no casualties were recorded in the inferno as the church was unoccupied when the fire started as most of students had already retired to bed.
Bishop Ruwona said the fire completely razed down the left wing of the church and property worth thousands of dollars was destroyed by the inferno.
The cause of the fire is yet to be established, while the magnitude of the damage was also being assessed and quantified at the time of going to print.
“I can confirm that the iconic church at St Augustine’s Mission built in 1945 was affected by fire which burnt one of the choir’s galleries. The cause of the fire is unknown.
“I received the report early Wednesday morning and the fire was put out an hour later by the headmaster with the assistance of the students. When the fire tender from Mutare City Council arrived, the fire had already been put out. We are still assessing the extent of the damage,” said Bishop Ruwona.
Manicaland provincial police spokesperson, Inspector Nobert Muzondo confirmed the incident.
He said investigations to establish the cause of the fire are in progress.
“Police attended the scene at St Augustine’s High School and are carrying out investigations to establish the cause of the fire,” he said.
St Augustine’s Mission occupies a special place in the history of the liberation struggle of Zimbabwe and it is the school where the late founding Zanu chairman, Advocate Herbert Chitepo, received his education.
St Augustine’s was literally a base-camp in the liberation war where supplies of food, clothing, medicine and other needs were guaranteed.
This put the school at risk and also put Father Kebble Prosser, the then priest-in-charge’s life, on the line.
Bishop Knight-Bruce founded St Augustine’s Mission in 1891.
With financial support from the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel and the Society for the Propagation of Christian Knowledge (SPCK), as well as volunteers who arrived from England, an industrial training school was opened in 1899.
Under CR’s direction, teacher training was introduced, with the first African teachers graduating in 1923.
By 1937, the three-year program had 78 students in training.
In 1939, St Augustine’s became the first mission to introduce secondary (high school) education.
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