KINSHASA, Congo (AP) — A religious leader who established one of Africa’s most significant independent churches endured three decades behind bars and died in captivity, sent away from his homeland by Belgian colonial rulers who deemed his activities threatening.
Against all odds, Simon Kimbangu’s faith-based movement expanded throughout Congo and flourished to such an extent that it now claims adherents even in Belgium, with believers making pilgrimages to a peaceful village south of Kinshasa to honor his memory.
Congo has officially recognized April 6 as Kimbangu Day since 2023, a national observance celebrating the “struggle of Simon Kimbangu and African consciousness.” Many regard him as Central Africa’s equivalent to Nelson Mandela, sharing similar hardships but lacking comparable recognition.
While Kimbangu’s expression of an indigenous theology focused on Black liberation attracted many Congolese during brutal colonial rule, his teachings now carry different meaning as Congo confronts instability from violent insurgency in its eastern regions.
Many Congolese believe Kimbangu’s movement — characterized by peaceful resistance, independence, strong organization and endurance — serves as an inspiring model for a country experiencing possibly its most severe territorial challenge since gaining independence in 1960. Others argue that the sacrificial spirit Kimbangu demonstrated should guide Congo’s current leadership.
“The first challenge for African leaders, or Congolese leaders, is that they are not free,” said Bwatshia Kambayi, a historian of Congo who sees similarities in the struggles of Mandela and Kimbangu. “African leaders, they do not realize that they have a slavery mindset. We are independent, but we are not free.”
The Kimbanguist Church, formally called the Church of Jesus Christ on Earth Through the Prophet Simon Kimbangu, represents a revival movement. Estimates suggest membership ranges from 6 to 17 million people, predominantly Congolese. The movement’s spiritual center is located in Nkamba, a community southwest of Kinshasa that followers refer to as the New Jerusalem.
While its core doctrine draws from Biblical teachings, the Kimbanguist Church stands apart through its reverence for Kimbangu as the Black manifestation of the Holy Spirit. Proudly autonomous, the organization maintains strict hierarchy and currently operates under its third generation of leadership.
The Kimbanguist Church forbids multiple marriages, despite their social acceptance in Congo. It promotes peaceful conflict resolution among its members. Community spirit manifests through food sharing during collective gatherings, and the church has made substantial investments in educational institutions and other social programs. Women can achieve leadership positions.
“Women are ministering in the church. They have a key role to play because the church is so thankful for what the wife of Simon Kimbangu did when her husband was in prison,” said André Kibangudi, a church elder. “We should have more female leadership.”
In 1921, Congo remained under Belgian control, serving as a supplier of raw materials including rubber, wood and minerals that funded Belgium’s post-World War I rebuilding efforts. Kimbangu, working as a lay Baptist teacher, seemed an improbable choice for leadership. Despite encouraging his followers to pay their taxes, his religious concepts proved too challenging for colonial authorities.
Kimbangu connected God with Nzambi, the divine figure in Kikongo language, and proclaimed himself as God’s messenger on Earth. This suggested God’s Blackness, undermining cultural depictions of the divine as white and potentially European. The healing ceremonies, where Kimbangu would touch the ill while they trembled, frightened European colonists while comforting plantation laborers who journeyed to Nkamba seeking cure.
However, his ministry lasted merely five months. Charged with inciting rebellion, Kimbangu received a death sentence. Belgium’s King Albert I reduced the penalty to lifetime imprisonment, and the prophet was sent into exile in what is now Lubumbashi, approximately 1,000 miles away.
Limited photographs exist of Kimbangu, who was 64 at his death in 1951. The formal image in official records shows him wearing simple prisoner clothing, bald and appearing puzzled. Sometimes artistic depictions place him alongside his wife, Marie Muilu, who guided the movement until her youngest son, Joseph Diangienda Kuntima, assumed control in 1959. Kuntima’s brother replaced him in 1992. Since 2001, Simon Kimbangu Kiangani, the founder’s grandson, has led the organization.
During Easter Sunday, as Kimbanguists readied for the following day’s celebration, church members at the Kinshasa location sang “Simon Kimbangu Kiangani oyee,” honoring their absent leader. The congregation creates its own religious music, melodic compositions that inspire women wearing green-and-white garments to dance energetically. Some members were climbing aboard church-owned vehicles bound for Nkamba.
The church’s guidelines prohibit “dating a married man,” said Chantal Makanga, a widow, describing what she viewed as a notable example of Kimbanguist principles. “It’s not bad to fall in love or to date me, if the final goal is to get married.”
President Félix Tshisekedi’s primary obstacle involves armed violence in eastern Congo, where Goma, the region’s largest city, fell under rebel control in January 2025. These insurgents, the Rwanda-supported M23, have essentially seized the mineral-wealthy North Kivu province and displaced hundreds of thousands of people, raising secession concerns and compelling the president to consider extreme actions.
Significantly, Tshisekedi has proposed granting U.S. corporations access to eastern Congo’s minerals — largely unexploited and valued at approximately $24 trillion — as leverage for American assistance in securing eastern Congo.
Critics, however, anticipate the situation will worsen with another major competitor for resources entering eastern Congo, where Chinese companies have long engaged in mineral extraction. Legal experts and activists have submitted a formal complaint claiming that a mineral agreement with the U.S. endangers Congo’s sovereignty, and the head of the National Episcopal Conference compared such a partnership to “selling off the minerals of an entire nation to save a regime or a political system.”
Tshisekedi has welcomed Kimbanguists; his prime minister, Judith Suminwa, belongs to their faith. This demonstrates the government’s appreciation for Kimbangu as an advocate of Black liberation and underscores the Kimbanguist movement’s significance as a voting bloc.
“The church today is very dynamic, very influential,” said Paul Kasonga, a Kimbanguist pastor serving millions in Mongala province.
What Congo’s leaders can learn from Kimbangu “is that the guy didn’t work for himself. He sacrificed himself to free people who had been in slavery, who had been suffering,” Kasonga said.
Kambayi, the scholar and former higher education minister, described the elite governing Congo as “poor men who want to live as rich people.”
“This is not the fight of Simon Kimbangu,” he said. “None of them has reached the level of fighting for people’s freedom, for people’s liberty.”
Toussaint Mungwala, pastor of Kimbanguists in Kwilu province, said he experienced the power of Kimbangu’s influence in 1981 when he witnessed a German priest praying while holding a photograph of Kimbangu and Muilu. The scene fascinated him and led him to the Kimbanguist Church.
Five years afterward, Mungwala left Catholicism, persuaded that Kimbangu supported the people.
“The lesson that people can learn from the church is that the prophet, the founding prophet, fought for people’s rights,” he said.
