History of St. Andrew Parish

The Catholic Parish of Ifakara is in the Diocese of Mahenge; it was founded in 1911 by Benedictine Fathers from Germany and took the name St. Andrew Ifakara Parish.

The first Christian was baptized on 3 of July 1911 by Fr. Joseph Damm.

die Kirche von Ifakara

Due to First World War ( 1914 – 1918) the Benedictine Fathers were forced to leave the place. Tanzania by then had been colonized by Germany. After they had lost the war to Britain, missionary activities were very much affected. German missionaries were forced to return home and some of them were imprisoned in the southern part of Tanzania.

From 1918 to 1921 the parish was entrusted to African Missionaries and Fr. Arthur Pineon was put in charge. In 1922, the parish was handed to Capuchin Fathers from Switzerland and Fr. Xaver was the first Capuchin Parish Priest. There were other Parish Priests between 1922 and 1932, Fr. Hieronimus being the most famous among them in the history of the Parish. He was Parish Priest for 33 years, from 1932 to 1965.

eine Erinnerungstafel im Lepraheim Nazarethi an Bischof Paulus Rusch und Dr. Hammerl

On December 26 1976 the Parish was returned to the Diocese of Mahenge and Fr. Beno Hwaya was the Parish Priest till 1993. After his death Fr. Francis Komba was appointed to be Parish Priest. In March 2001, Fr. Komba was transferred, and Fr. Salutaris Mpinge has been Parish Priest since then.

As the town of Ifakara has grown bigger and bigger, the number of Christians has also increased. This has made pastoral activities more and more difficult. Therefore the diocese decided to create new parishes: Kibaoni in 1998, Idete in 2001, Mahutanga in 2002, and Kivukoni in 2003.

The 2006 diocesan data show that the parish of Ifakara is still the biggest parish in the diocese, as far as the number of Christians is concerned. It has almost 28.000 Catholics out of 46.381 inhabitants. In 2006, St. Andrew Ifakara Parish baptized 815 people, 697 received the first Communion, 274 received Confirmation, 41 couples were married.