Bernard Mizeki was a Mozambican catechist, Bible translator, and martyr. Born in Ihambane, Mozambique, he trained as a linguist while living as a migrant worker in Cape Town. G. W. H. Knight-Bruce recruited him in 1891 as a catechist for the new Anglican diocese of Mashonaland in Rhodesia (Zimbabwe). Based near Marondera, he translated into Chishona much of the Bible and Prayer Book. During the war of resistance to colonialism in 1896, Mizeki refused to leave his mission and was stabbed to death. He is remembered as the “Mashonaland martyr,” and his shrine in Zimbabwe has become a place of pilgrimage. In South Africa, the Bernard Mizeki Men’s Guild and numerous churches commemorate him as a symbol of black Anglicanism.

Janet Hodgson

Bibliography

Jean Farrant, Mashonaland Martyr: Bernard Mizeki and the Pioneer Church (1966).

This article is reproduced, with permission, from Biographical Dictionary of Christian Missions, copyright © 1998, by Gerald H. Anderson, W. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, Grand Rapids, Michigan. All rights reserved.