Commontide
Proper 25
Liturgical Color: Red
The 21st Sunday after Trinity
Almighty and everlasting God, you govern all things both in heaven and on earth: Mercifully hear the supplications of your people, and in our time grant us your peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Most liturgical texts are from the Book of Common Prayer (2019) of the Anglican Church in North America.
The New Coverdale Psalter, © 2019 by the Anglican Church in North America. Used by permission.
Bishop of Eastern Equatorial Africa, and his Companions, Martyrs
Anglican Commemoration
James Hannington was the first bishop of the Church of England's newly formed see of Eastern Equatorial Africa, consecrated in 1884 for the mission around Lake Victoria. In October 1885, traveling toward the kingdom of Buganda (in what is now Uganda) by an eastern route his own missionaries had begged him to avoid, he was seized on the order of the young king, Kabaka Mwanga II, held for over a week, and speared to death with several of his porters on October 29, 1885, his feast day. His death came the year before the much larger group of young Christian pages of the Bugandan court, Catholic and Anglican alike, were martyred under the same king in 1886, and it is remembered as the opening act of that same season of persecution.
James Hannington was born in 1847 and trained for Anglican priesthood. He was ordained in 1875 and quickly distinguished himself through missionary zeal and theological acuity. In 1884, the Church of England appointed him Bishop of Eastern Equatorial Africa, giving him responsibility for the burgeoning Christian mission in the Kingdom of Buganda and surrounding territories.
Hannington arrived in Buganda during a period of intense religious and political flux. Kabaka Mwanga II, who had recently come to power, initially welcomed Christian missionaries but soon perceived them as a threat to traditional authority structures and his own control. Tensions escalated as converts grew more numerous and Christians (Catholic and Anglican alike) refused to perform traditional rites and questioned established power hierarchies.
In 1885, Hannington was captured while traveling toward Buganda. He was held prisoner and subsequently executed by order of Mwanga, along with a group of companions, including African catechists and church workers. His martyrdom, though less widely publicized in the West than the earlier Uganda Martyrs (primarily Catholics), became foundational to the narrative of East African Anglicanism and witness in the face of persecution.
Hannington's Last Journals, kept until his capture and published posthumously, provide an extraordinary firsthand account of missionary spirituality, physical hardship, theological reflection, and the increasing political danger. His final entries reflect profound faith, trust in God's providence despite approaching danger, and a clear-eyed understanding of the political and religious forces arrayed against the Christian mission. The journals do not present a simplistic martyr narrative but rather an honest account of a missionary's doubts, prayers, hopes, and eventual acceptance of his fate.
Hannington's memory is preserved in two interconnected traditions: the Uganda Martyrs tradition (which emphasizes the witness of African Christians and foreign missionaries to Kabaka Mwanga's persecution) and the broader Anglican missionary tradition of faithful witness even unto death. Annual commemorations in East African Anglican churches, particularly the Church of Uganda, keep his memory alive. His journals became widely read in missionary circles as exemplary of a pastor's spiritual formation under trial. In ACNA and other Anglican realignments, Hannington represents authentic African Anglican indigeneity and the cost of the Christian mission in contexts of hostile political authority.