Commontide
Liturgical Color: Red
The 7th Sunday of Epiphany
O God, the strength of all who put their trust in you: Mercifully accept our prayers, and because, through the weakness of our mortal nature, we can do no good thing without you, grant us the help of your grace, that in keeping your commandments we may please you both in will and deed; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
The Lord's Day
Through Jesus Christ our Lord, who on the first day of the week overcame death and the grave, and by his glorious resurrection opened to us the way of everlasting life.
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.
Archbishop of Uganda and Martyr
Anglican Commemoration
Janani Luwum was Archbishop of the Church of Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and Boga-Zaire, killed in February 1977 after he and his fellow bishops delivered a written protest to President Idi Amin over killings and disappearances. The government announced that he had died in a car accident; his body, when it was seen, was full of bullet wounds. He is commemorated across the Anglican Communion as a martyr.
Janani Luwum was born in 1922 in Ngora, Uganda. Educated at Makerere University and ordained to the Anglican priesthood, he became Bishop of North Uganda (1969-1974) and subsequently Archbishop of Uganda (1974-1977). During Idi Amin's brutal dictatorship, Luwum became a courageous voice for the persecuted. In 1977, he and other bishops drafted and signed a memorandum addressed to President Amin documenting the widespread murder of innocent civilians and the persecution of Christians. On February 16, 1977, shortly after delivering the memorandum to Amin personally, Luwum disappeared. The government claimed he died in a car accident, but evidence overwhelmingly indicates he was executed. His martyrdom made him an international symbol of Christian resistance to tyranny and became a defining moment in African Anglican history.
African martyr; defender of the persecuted against state tyranny; symbol of prophetic episcopal leadership in the face of systematic violence; witness to the suffering church in modern Africa.