Biography of Christain Leaders

Samuel Ajayi Crowther (c. 1809–31 December 1891) was a linguist and the first African Anglican bishop in Nigeria. Born in Osogun (in what is now Iseyin Local Government, Oyo State, Nigeria), Crowther was a Yoruba who also identified with Sierra Leone's ascendant Creole ethnic group.

In 1864, Crowther was ordained as the first African bishop of the Anglican Church; he was consecrated a bishop on St Peter's day 1864, by Charles Longley, Archbishop of Canterbury at Canterbury Cathedral. He later received the degree of Doctor of Divinity from the University of Oxford. Crowther is celebrated with a feast on the liturgical calendar of some Anglican churches, including the Episcopal Church (United States) and the Church of Nigeria, on December 31.

Moses Orimolade Tunolase is the founder of the first African initiated church, the Eternal Sacred Order of the Cherubim and Seraphim, which was established in 1925. The church was born out of the Anglican church community among the Yoruba people in Western Nigeria.

The Order believes in the Holy Bible as the word of God and in salvation through Jesus Christ and in the Trinity in unity, the use of incense, purification by prayer and fasting and resurrection of the dead. Its first and primary work is that of prayer and preaching of the gospel. It believes in the curative effect of prayer for all afflictions, spiritual and temporal, but condemns and abhors the use of charms or fetish witchcraft or sorcery of any kind and all heathenish sacrifices and practices. It is not averse to the judicious use of curative herbs, the engagement of qualified medical practitioners or doctors or the use of patent medicines or other drugs.

Sunday Coffie Mbang was the fourth indigenous leader of the Methodist Church Nigeria. Mbang was born in Idua-Eket in the present Akwa Ibom State of Nigeria on August 26, 1936. His father, Coffie Eka-Mbang, was a pastor of the Qua Iboe Church, and his mother was Judith Udo-Ekpo. Both descended from the royal family. His father and paternal grandfather Ekanem Udo Itak, descended from a royal family so rooted in the Eket royal lineage that they always produced the traditional ruler of the Idua-Eket clan. Judith Sunday's mother was a princess, a member of the royal family of Ikot Eyo.

Eka-Mbang died in 1957 when his son Mbang was just twenty-one years old but he had made a lasting impression on the life of his son. He was a strong disciplinarian, uncompromising on spiritual matters. He used his pastoral gifts to train his many children in the ways of the Lord because he was determined to establish a Christian home amidst the paganism of his society. His father's exemplary lifestyle, his commitment to Christian ideals and church ministry, and the general Christian atmosphere in the family helped to sharpen Mbang's focus in life; it developed and nurtured his call to the ministry and supported him throughout his years of service to God.