This page was last updated on Sunday, 08 June 2003 19:41:08
The history of the parishes in the Diocese of Eshowe
In October 1957, Fr. Waldemar Dröber (19051988), the parish priest of Empangeni, began to hold regular church services for the Catholics in Nongwelesa (later called Ngwelezana). The area was later developed as a black township of Empangeni, the industrial and business centre of the Lower Umfolozi district. The Diocese of Eshowe acquired a church site in the township in 1968, but had to wait a few years before the local authorities gave their permission to erect as building. An architect from Empangeni drew up the plan for the new church. The contract was awarded to M. Minicchiello Builders (Emangeni). The church is built on a slope and has a large basement which is used as a parish hall. The church and priest's house were completed in June 1971.
Fr. Natalis Mjoli became the first resident parish priest of Ngwelezana in February 1971. After he resigned from this post in 1977 he stayed at Ngwelezana and was elected as the mayor of the town in municipal elections held in December 1980. Ngwelezana emerged as a flashpoint of political violence in the late eighties and the early nineties as members of Chief Buthelezi's INKATHA party and Nelson Mandela's AFRICAN NATIONAL CONGRESS vied with one another for support among the people in the township. They fought bloody battles which claimed a number of lives.
The parish of Ngwelezana is dedicated to the memory of St. Lwanga and his companions who died for their faith during the persecution of Christians in Uganda in the nineteenth century. St. Lwanga's parish had one outstation and about 2300 Catholics in 1990.
Parish Priests of Ngwelezana
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