Anglican Church of Kenya

Anglican Church of Kenya (ACK), independent Anglican church in Kenya and one of the largest provinces (member churches) in the Anglican Communion. The church’s origins date to the arrival of Christian missionaries in Mombasa in 1844, and its membership has long represented a diverse cross section of Kenyan society, with members of various ethnicities and social strata. In 2025 the Anglican Church of Kenya (ACK) was estimated to have 5 million members. In addition to its ministerial functions, the church has contributed significantly to social services, health care, and education in Kenya.

History

Johann Ludwig Krapf, a German pastor and Anglican missionary, arrived to proselytize in what is now Kenya in 1844. Krapf was affiliated with the Church Missionary Society (CMS), an organization founded by the Church of England in 1799 to encourage missions to Africa and East Asia. However, CMS missionaries of the period had the ultimate goal of establishing “native” churches, which would eventually be operated by indigenous African clergy acting independently of European intervention. The policy was conceived and promoted by Henry Venn, who served as general secretary of the CMS between 1841 and 1872. He expressed a desire for African churches to be “self-supporting, self-governing, and self-extending.” Missionaries thereby invested in training formerly enslaved people and African locals for the priesthood.

The program was slowly implemented, and the first native African ministers ordained in Kenya, Ishmael Semler and William Jones, were ordained in 1885. Both men were formerly enslaved and had completed a course of theological training based on the Anglican tradition in Bombay (Mumbai) in preparation for the priesthood. The church gradually acquired greater autonomy during the 20th century, with leadership passing from European missionaries to Kenyan clergy. Still, there were only eight African Anglican clergy in Kenya by 1920, and the first Kenyan bishops would not be consecrated until 1955. Although CMS missionaries had championed certain progressive causes, most notably the abolition of the slave trade in the region, they also abetted the European imperial conquest of African territories and treated the conversion process as a paternalistic “civilizing” mission.

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In the mid-20th century, Anglican congregations in Kenya swelled in size because of the East African Revival movement. During Kenya’s transition to self-governance from colonial rule, the extensive network of Christian schools and medical institutions established by churches provided education and health care. The church continued to expand after Kenyan independence in 1963, and the number of dioceses grew steadily as new jurisdictions were carved out of older ones to accommodate rising membership.

A major milestone in the development of the Kenyan church came in 1970, when the Province of East Africa was divided into separate ecclesiastical provinces for Kenya and Tanzania. (The Province of East Africa, established in 1960, had united the Anglican dioceses in the two countries under a single archbishop.) The creation of the Church of the Province of Kenya marked the attainment of full provincial autonomy within the Anglican Communion, and Festo Olang’, one of the first African bishops consecrated in Kenya, was elected as the new province’s first archbishop. In 1998 the Church of the Province of Kenya officially adopted the name Anglican Church of Kenya.

Beliefs and worship

Like other churches in the Anglican Communion, the ACK affirms the authority of scripture (e.g., the Old and New Testaments) and accepts the Nicene Creed and the Apostles’ Creed. It teaches a Trinitarian understanding of God and believes in Jesus as the coequal and coeternal Son of God who came for the salvation of humankind. It recognizes two sacraments instituted by Jesus, baptism and the Eucharist (Holy Communion), while also honoring confirmation, ordination, marriage, reconciliation, and anointing of the sick as important religious rites. Although Anglicanism has traditionally been described as occupying the middle ground between Roman Catholicism and Protestantism, the Kenyan church has generally developed a more evangelical character, reflecting the influence of the CMS and the East African Revival.

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Worship centers on prayer, the reading and preaching of scripture, congregational singing, and the celebration of the Eucharist. Services follow authorized Anglican liturgies, including adaptations of the Book of Common Prayer, while incorporating local languages, musical traditions, and cultural practices. English and Swahili are widely used in worship, alongside numerous indigenous languages, reflecting the linguistic and cultural diversity of the church’s membership.

Organization and governance

As with most other Anglican churches, the ACK is governed through a hierarchical system of provinces, dioceses, and parishes. The church is headed by the archbishop of Kenya, who serves as both the primate of the province and the bishop of a designated diocese. The archbishop is elected by representatives of the church’s dioceses and clergy and serves as the principal spokesperson for the province in national and international affairs. Jackson Ole Sapit has served as the sixth archbishop and primate of the church since 2016.

Every province is divided into dioceses, each overseen by a bishop responsible for the pastoral and administrative supervision of clergy and congregations within a defined geographic area. As church membership expanded during the late 20th and early 21st centuries, the number of dioceses increased steadily as existing jurisdictions were subdivided to provide more localized episcopal leadership. In 2026 the church had 39 dioceses. The provincial headquarters are located in Nairobi, and the church conducts much of its work through diocesan offices, educational institutions, health care ministries, and development programs.

Contemporary church

The ACK is one of the country’s largest providers of educational, health care, and community development services. Through its dioceses and affiliated organizations, the church operates schools, hospitals, clinics, orphan care programs, agricultural extension projects, and vocational training centers, particularly in rural and underserved areas. Since the HIV/AIDS epidemic emerged in Kenya in the 1980s, the church has played a major role in prevention, counseling, home-based care, and support for children orphaned by the disease. Although early church responses were often discriminatory and emphasized abstinence and moral teaching, the ACK gradually expanded its approach to include partnerships with government agencies and international organizations to reduce stigma, improve access to treatment, and strengthen community-based health services; it apologized for its early approach to the crisis in 2006. The church has also been active in disaster relief, peacebuilding initiatives, and programs addressing poverty, food insecurity, and gender-based violence, including cultural practices such as forced marriages, female genital cutting, and widowhood rites.

Within the Anglican Communion, the ACK has been a leading voice in the conservative movement known as the Anglican realignment. Together with the Church of Nigeria and the Church of the Province of Uganda, it has opposed the liberalization of doctrine in some Anglican provinces, particularly regarding the ordination of LGBTQ+ clergy and the blessing of same-sex unions. The ACK is currently a participant in the Global Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans (GAFCON), a theologically conservative body established in 2008 to uphold what its members regard as traditional Anglican doctrine. Given that most of the world’s Anglicans live in Africa, the growing influence of the faithful in the Global South has played an increasingly important role in debates and decision-making within the broader Anglican Communion in the 21st century.

Despite its conservative theological stances, the ACK has been among the African Anglican provinces to expand women’s leadership. The church began ordaining women as priests in the 1980s, beginning with Lucia Okuthe of the diocese of Maseno South in 1983. In 2021 Emily Onyango became the first woman consecrated bishop in the ACK, followed by Rose Okeno later that year. These appointments distinguished the Kenyan church from many other GAFCON provinces where the consecration of women bishops remains controversial.

The church continues to play a central role in Kenyan politics and culture. In the 2020s archbishop Ole Sapit has spoken out frequently on national issues, including constitutional governance, political corruption, economic hardship, and the relationship between church and state. He has opposed a proposal by Pres. William Ruto to build an 8,000-seat Anglican chapel on the grounds of the State House in Nairobi, arguing that it would blur the constitutional separation of church and state and could be seen as the establishment of a state religion.