The Link
The two dioceses of Oxford and Kimberley & Kuruman formed a partnership in 1993. Over the last sixteen years a number of parish links have developed between the dioceses. Each has been mutually supportive in creating special relationships between churches, offering practical and spiritual help and in the understanding of difference as we live out our Christian faith journey.
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Please click here to download a copy of the Diocese of Oxford booklet about the Kimberley and Kuruman Diocesan Link.
The Link to the Diocese of Oxford
The link between the dioceses of Oxford and Kimberley and Kuruman was set up in 1993 following the announcement of the first democratic elections in South Africa. The relationship has been monitored every five years when new plans and goals are mutually agreed. Oxford has a link committee with individuals having responsibilities: for example, one in each archdeaconry looking after parish-to-parish links; education and training; health; and development issues.
Kimberley and Kuruman is a large diocese comprising most of the Northern Cape and part of the North West Province.
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Its area is roughly one-and-a-half times the size of the British Isles, but only supports just over twenty stipendiary clergy. There are four main centres: Kimberley, Kuruman, Upington and Mafikeng / Mmabatho (formally the capital of the tribal homeland state of Bophuthatswana). Other than that, much of what remains is a vast ‘rural’ area with high unemployment. As with many other parts of Africa, the HIV/Aids pandemic has caused enormous suffering especially among the young and there is a growing problem of orphans. For most of the last few years, the link has been the responsibility of the diocesan administrator / secretary who has direct contact with the bishop (there are no suffragans).
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There is now a link committee formed to take over the responsibility, however due to the large distances to travel, there may still be difficulties.In the current five-year term, Oxford has agreed to provide financial support for the low stipends as Kimberley and Kuruman is not a self-sufficient diocese and has to pay the minimum. This finishes at the end of 2007 when the relationship comes up for review.
Formation of the Diocese of Kimberley and Kuruman
The Anglican presence on the Diamond Fields and in Kimberley’s hinterland, from the early 1870s, was at first administered from Bloemfontein, initially under Bishop Alan Becher Webb, the oldest parish here being St Mary's, Barkly West. By the early 1890s, however, there was a feeling in some quarters that the Diocese of Bloemfontein was too big and there were proposals for the formation of a separate Bishopric with its seat in Kimberley. But in the event the Bishops decided upon establishing the missionary Diocese of Mashonaland instead - an area also up until then administered from Bloemfontein.
From 1907 to 1910 motions were passed and planning and fund-raising initiatives were being conducted in earnest towards founding a new Diocese of Kimberley. These included the “Million Shillings Fund” launched by Bloemfontein’s Bishop Chandler in London on 2 February 1909. It was hoped that all would be in place so that the coming into being of the new Diocese would coincide with the establishment of Union in South Africa in 1910. However it was not before July 1911 that all was ready and a formal resolution could be proposed, as it was at a meeting in the Kimberley Town Hall, that ‘the western portion of the Diocese of Bloemfontein be constituted a new and separate Diocese with Kimberley as its Cathedral Town’ – to which Episcopal Synod, meeting in Maritzburg, gave its final consent in the form of a Mandate dated 11 October 1911. The Elective Assembly for the choosing of a Bishop for the new Diocese was held in Kimberley on 13 December 1911, at which the Very Revd Wilfrid Gore Browne, Dean of Pretoria, was the unanimous choice. Gore Browne was consecrated in Bloemfontein Cathedral on 29 June 1912. He was enthroned the following day as Bishop of Kimberley and Kuruman, at St Cyprian’s Cathedral.
Geographical extent
The Diocese of Kimberley and Kuruman has not been constant in extent and at times less than exactly defined. Taking over the western side of the Diocese of Boemfontein (now "of the Free State"), it also included some of the sparsely populated interior extremities of the Dioceses of Cape Town and of Grahamstown. Added in 1915 was the southern half of Bechuanaland Protectorate, which remained part of "K&K" (as Kimberley and Kuruman is often called) until Botswana's independence in 1966 (interestingly this history flavoured liturgical usage there, which still resembles the style more of the South African Prayer Book than the Central African Prayer Book). The 1952 Diocesan Synod was concerned to establish the boundaries of Parishes; noting also a lack of clarity on “where is the Diocese” – “The Bishop called attention ... to the fact that certain places where at present the Diocese has Clergymen at work are not technically in the Diocese.
Parishes
Cathedral
- The Cathedral Church of St Cyprian the Martyr, Kimberley
Archdeaconry of the North
- St Mary's, Kuruman
- St Michael's, Batlharos
- Mafikeng
- Vryburg
- Taung
Archdeaconry of the South
- Upington
- Prieska
- Postmasburg
- Douglas
- De Aar
- Richmond
- Kimberley
- St Mary's, Barkly West
Spotlight on Christmas
In Kimberley we join our Christian siblings in the Northern hemisphere singing renditions of In The Bleak Mid-winter, writes the Rt Revd Ossie Swartz. And we do so while wiping copious beads of sweat from the brow because it’s almost 40 degrees Celsius over here, which means there’s unlikely ever to be a white Christmas for us.
When Christmas arrives we have already been bombarded by amplified strains of Christmas carols and all shapes and sizes of Father Christmases beckoning us to part with our cash in the department stores. On that level, the commercialism of Christmas here is hardly different from in other parts of the world.
But Christmas is a family time for us in South Africa. It is one of the occasions when Ubuntu comes into its own. Ubuntu is a South African philosophical concept that empasizes the importance of community, sharing and generosity. We visit each other and on the day you are quite likely to be part of a extended family gathered around a laden dinner table.
Ah! The fare. Not exactly what you would have on your table in England Brussels sprouts? Not likely! Turkey? Definitely, yes, in many homes. But we will also have a choice of gammon along with all the meats that will grace our table.
It is a day for feasting, for fun and fellowship. We go absolutely mad in selecting presents and some of these are exchanged after the midnight service. We then do the rest of the exchange of presents when we meet for the great Christmas lunch – usually at Granny’s or the home of another matriarch who represents family unity.
Christmas is a wonderful time of celebrating with lively worship services that can go on for several hours. We also decorate our homes, switch on the fairy lights and make it such a festive occasion. We bring on the mistletoe, but we don’t really go for the kissing bit!
My favourite moment comes after the hurly-burly and mad dash for presents, when I sit in the Cathedral and it’s all nice and quiet. The mad world has come to a stop and suddenly the strains of Once in royal David’s city fill the church. The glorious service of nine lessons and carols is underway – Christmas is here! “Tis the season to be jolly”, yes, but much more a time to hear again the exhortation for us to “hush the noise, ye men of strife and hear the angels sing …”