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History of Zion Christian Church

PATIENT CONGREGANTS: Zion Christian Church members in Moria City. PHOTO: EDWARD MAAHLAMELA
PATIENT CONGREGANTS: Zion Christian Church members in Moria City. PHOTO: EDWARD MAAHLAMELA

THE Zion Christian Church is one of the largest African-initiated churches in southern Africa, with members belonging to the ZCC Star and to the Saint Engenas ZCC.

The church's headquarters are at Zion City Moria in Limpopo and the two congregations that compose the church are led by Barnabas Lekganyane and Saint Engenas Lekganyane, the grandsons of the founder of the church.

The ZCC was formed in 1910 by Engenas Lekganyane, who was a former member of the Free Church of Scotland.

ZCC members trace the founding of the church to a revelation which Lekganyane is said to have received from God in 1910.

The church was initially based in Lekganyane's home village of Thabakgone, near Polokwane, in Limpopo.

The ZCC was officially registered as a church in 1942, by which time congregations had also been established in the neighbouring countries of Botswana and Zimbabwe.

The early church was strongly influenced by the doctrines of the Christian Catholic Church of John Alexander Dowie, based in Zion, Illinois in the United States.

- wikipedia

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