Zanzibar Anglican Cathedral: Redemption From The Ashes Of Injustice

The Zanzibar Anglican Cathedral, officially the Cathedral Church of Christ, stands on one of East Africa’s most historically significant and spiritually charged pieces of land. Built between 1873 and 1879 on the exact location of old slave market, cathedral is a poignant and powerful symbol of Christian opposition to slavery and a breathtaking display of power of redemption and renewal. For every pilgrim of faith, a visit to this location is not a routine excursion but a profound, soul-testing experience to reflect on Christian response to human suffering,  presence of evil, and triumph of God’s grace over humanity’s darkest corruptions. The religious significance of Anglican Cathedral of Zanzibar rests forever in its connection with David Livingstone and other courageous Christian abolitionists who worked day and night to stop the cruel slave trade in Eastern Africa.

The cathedral was built by the Universities’ Mission to Central Africa, an Anglican society created specifically in answer to Livingstone’s earnest call for Christian missionaries to travel to East Africa not only to spread word, but to battle this great evil. The scariest and most sacred thing about cathedral is that its high altar is built over the very spot where enslaved men, women, and children were brutally whipped before they were sold, their bodies hurt and their spirits shattered. To adore the Eucharist here is to be part of the greater mystery of the Cross, where God gave His life out of a place of torture and death, and new life was created for the world. Cathedral architecture is replete with powerful symbols of freedom and redemption.

The building itself takes cruciform shape, recalling cross of Christ, that very instrument of pain that became that very symbol of salvation. The wooden ceiling is ingeniously designed to resemble the hull of an overturned slave ship, a breathtaking and powerful icon of Christian mission of turning instruments of oppression and death into vehicles of salvation and new life. The stained glass windows, which pour the light of African sun into a kaleidoscope of color, depict scenes from the life of Christ with figures of African Christians who suffered persecution and martyrdom for their belief, creating a beautiful visual link between the sacrifice of Christ and the sacrifice of His servants. One of the strongest and most spiritual areas of the cathedral complex is a small, underground chapel dedicated to the memory of the thousands of slaves who suffered and died on this very soil.

This plain, unlit room has a simple altar and a pool of water representing both the tears of the enslaved individuals and the waters of liberation and baptism. To descend into this space is to enter into a tomb-like place, a place of sorrow and bereavement. And yet, too, a womb, a place from which new life can emerge. Individuals can tarry in silence here, remembering the nameless victims of the slave trade and hoping that an end may come to new slavery and human trafficking afflict our world today. It is a place of sorrow, of atonement, and of deep, earnest prayer for justice and mercy of God.

The cathedral continues as a living center of Christian worship and social service in Zanzibar. Services are conducted daily in English and Swahili, and the cathedral runs a variety of programs of value to the local people, including educational and health programs that extend the work of bringing healing and hope. Not only are guests invited but invited to come in for services and find out more about the cathedral’s modern-day ministries, partaking in the ongoing story of redemption begun on this sacred ground.A Pilgrim’s Reflection in the Zanzibar Cathedral: Spend much time in the underground slave chapel. Let the silence be effective. Touch the stone. Pray the prayer of St. Francis: “Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.” Pray to God to reveal to you any ways you are benefited by contemporary systems of injustice and for the strength to work towards the freedom and dignity of all people.