This page was last updated on Tuesday, 24 October 2006 17:51:43
The history of the parishes in the Diocese of Eshowe
Mangete is a settlement for the descendants of John Dunn (18331895) north of the Tugela river mouth. The government set aside land for them so that they could establish their own homes. It included an area of four hundred hectares at Emoyeni and of three thousand five hundred hectares at Mangete. The Oblate priests of Emoyeni began relatively late with their pastoral work among the Dunn descendants at Mangete. Mass was celebrated for the first time in John Dunn's house at Mangete in 1920. The priests travelled to Mangete by oxwagon three or four times a year. When the Benedictines took over Emoyeni, they were able to visit Mangete more frequently. The room in Dunn's house was soon too small to accommodate all who came to Mass. Services were therefore temporarily held in a government school. In 1928, a church site was allotted to the Catholics of Mangete. Early in 1929, Bro. Paul Meiller and Bro. Augustine Kleck built a church there. It was blessed and opened by Fr. Ignatius Jutz in August 1929. The place remained an outstation of Emoyeni until Bishop Aurelian Bilgeri established it as a parish on August 14, 1953.
Fr. Florian Hessing OSB became the first parish priest. From the day he arrived at Mangete, he worked tirelessly to raise money for a proper church. With the help of friends and benefactors from Germany he was able to start the project in May 1962. However, Fr. Florian did not see the church completed. He died of a heart attack on December 17, 1962. The first Mass, celebrated in the still unfinished church, was the Requiem Mass for the first parish priest of Mangete. The new church was blessed by Bishop Aurelian Bilgeri on March 15, 1963. One of the main features of the new church is the large, three-piece wall-hanging behind the altar. It depicts the transfiguration of Jesus and the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. The tapestry was made by a Benedictine nun, Sister Ehrentrud Trost of Varensell (Germany), at the request of Fr. Augustine Hessing, a monk of the Abbey of Gerleve (Germany) and brother of Fr. Florian Hessing.
From 1953 until March 1964 the parish priest of Mangete also looked after the Catholic communities at Mandini and Amatikulu. The Leper Home near Amatikulu, too, was under the care of the priest of Mangete until it was closed down in 1982. The Mangete parish comprises an Englishspeaking community at Mangete itself and five Zuluspeaking outstations: Mandikini, Mhlubulweni, kwaMpungose, Whebede and kwaMasinga. The latter was opened on November 9, 1991. The total number of Catholics stood at 1800 in 1992.
Parish Priests of Mangete
Back to the Homepage of Mangete Parish
You are visitor No. on this
site since
13 May 1996.
This page was last updated on
Tuesday, 24 October 2006 17:51:43
