Archbishop Njongonkulu Ndungane (65), leader of about four million Anglicans in Southern Africa, has given notice that he intends to step down from the ”extremely demanding” post in 2008.
”What I believe our church needs now is an injection of youthful energy and enthusiasm so that it continues to serve Southern Africans in ways that meet their present-day needs,” he said in a statement issued on Thursday.
Ndungane, a former political detainee, took office in September 1996, stepping into the shoes of Nobel Peace Prize laureate Desmond Tutu as head of an ecclesiastical ”province” that covers 26 dioceses in Angola, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland and the island of St Helena. He also presides over the diocese of Cape Town.
Ndungane said on Thursday that this is his 10th year as archbishop, which had customarily been his predecessors’ maximum term of tenure.
”It is an extremely demanding position with many wide-ranging responsibilities and although, according to the canons of our church, I could continue to fill it until I am 70, I have decided that the time is coming for me to step down.”
He said his successor will be elected during 2007, and will act with him as ”co-adjutor” until he steps down. ”This will allow time for training, mentoring and understanding the archbishop’s ministry,” he said.
After his retirement he will continue his interest in development issues, particularly the African Monitor, a body he has set up to monitor donor funding to Africa.
He will also be keen to be involved in the revival of traditional church schools that produced an educated African elite in South Africa in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, which could be re-established as modern schools and quality training colleges.
During his tenure as archbishop, Ndungane has devoted much of his energies to challenging the structural inequalities of post-apartheid South Africa and, on a wider scale, of global society.
He became a patron of Jubilee 2000, formed to press for cancellation of the unpayable debts of the poorest countries of the world, and spoke out with passion against what he called ”an international financial system that … impoverishes the majority of people of the South, while enriching elites in both North and South”.
He has also been an outspoken champion of the rights of people living with HIV/Aids, playing a leading role in calls for the state to roll out treatment.
Ndungane is respected by the worldwide Anglican Church, having served as an Anglican representative to the Vatican, and in 1998 as one of the four chairpersons of the Lambeth Conference, the largest and most important of all Anglican meetings. — Sapa