- Nigeria’s first Pentecostal church clocks 100 years
Their patron saint is Moses Orimolade Tunolase (1875-1933), who founded the Aladura (prayerful) Band in 1925. His credo: his prophetic powers were free from God — and freely would he give of them to any one that needed spiritual healing.
This “freeness” would push Orimolade to found Nigeria’s first native Pentecostal movement. An account claimed someone, among his Holy Trinity (Anglican) Church hosts in Lagos, had suggested he should start charging the multitude pouring into his base for prayers, miracles and healing. Orimolade balked — and faced homelessness.
He arrived Lagos, from Ikare-Akoko, on July 4, 1924. He got expelled from the church premises — though the sexton was Emmanuel Olumodeji, a co-Ikare native — on September 11, 1924, with his multitude in tow. That crowd was tagged the “Aladura Band”.
Enter: the Eternal Sacred Order of Cherubim and Seraphim (ESOCS), proclaimed on September 9, 1925. That church just turned 100 years. Its first formal name, though, beyond the generic Aladura Band, was Seraph Band — the “Seraph”, a contribution from a teenage girl-collaborator, Abiodun Akinsowon, later Captain Abiodun Emmanuel (1907-1994).
“Cherubim” would be added to the name on March 26, 1926, because Cherubim and Seraphim, the church elders held, were “Siamese twins” in heaven. Captain Abiodun, though much younger, would appear spiritual “Siamese twin” to Orimolade — she, indeed, was the first visioner of the church, until their forced separation in 1929, when the court ruled that the Band, under Abiodun, could retain the “Seraph” appellation.
ESOCS climaxed decades of racial tension in the orthodox churches in Nigeria, at the turn of the 20th century. But it wasn’t Nigeria’s first native church. That honour belonged to the Ebenezer Baptist Church (1888), which broke from the American Baptist Church, now First Baptist Church. The African Church too, in 1901, left the Anglican Church, just as the United African Methodist Church (Eleja) broke — in 1917 — from the mainstream Methodist Church — all on account of racial politics and prejudices, which plagued church administration.
Read Also: LAUTECH working with police to unravel student’s death off-campus – Registrar
“Piano and drums”, a poem by the late Gabriel Okara, though not directly on the church, reflected the stark spiritual contrast between the European mind — piano — that bossed Orthodox Church administration, and the African mind — drums — that thronged these churches as new converts.
Orimolade himself had tales of his native Ikare Anglican Church members, who have had to abandon their many wives for one decreed by their new faith; aside enduring a rather passive liturgy (with moaning pianos), against frenetic drumming, singing and dancing, that energise the African soul.
So, the ESOCS came to fill a spiritual void: prayers with savage rigour, hard drumming, frenetic dancing and boisterous singing, aside the many gifts of the Pentecost: speaking in tongues, a gift of visions, spiritual healing, routine street evangelising — which they call “iwode” (Yoruba for street parades) — and ceaseless fasting. Indeed, the mid-weekly services, on Wednesdays and Fridays, were nothing short of spiritual discos, soaked in burnt incense!
All of these resonated with the first Yoruba converts: the proud “Kerubu” and “Serafu” sect — with their white long robes; colorful sashes, audacious caps, military-style white prayer drills, and a shoe-less code in the worship chamber.
But not even this new ardour — a syncretism of African and Oriental spirituality, even if European missionaries first brought Christianity — could save the new church from the fashionable schism of the day, with a rash of splits that dogged its earliest days.
From Moses Orimolade Tunolase’s ESOCS (1925), even before the patron saint died in 1933, were: Cherubim and Seraphim Society (Aladura) of Captain Abiodun (1929); Praying Band of the Eternal Sacred Order of the Cherubim and Seraphim, under Ezekiel Davies (1930), and Church of the Lord (Aladura), of Josiah Olunowo Ositelu (1930), with headquarters in Ogere, now in Ogun State. The C and S Movement (aka Ayo Ni o!), came much later.
At the height of its fissuring in the late 1960s and early 1970s, the C and S had become a rash of solo priests, pious or profane, but mouthing adherence to the tenets of Moses Orimolade Tunolase! Often, these atomic players would lead their flock on prayerful sorties to Orimolade’s Ojokoro head church in Lagos, Ositelu’s Ogere spiritual camp in Ogun State, ‘’Ayo Ni O’s’’ international headquarters at Orile-Igbon in Oyo State, or any other centrally recognised Aladura destination!
One of such solo acts was the fictive Prophet Jeroboam, as portrayed in Wole Soyinka’s Jero Plays: The Trials of Brother Jero and Jero’s Metamorphosis, in their Bar Beach, Lagos, bastion. That satire brimmed with spiritual roguery — illicit coitus, ocean bath and all! Such wanton abuse has created huge image problems for the church, these last 100 years.
Yet, the C and S was as deeply spiritual as any, leading to its 1925 nativity. The baby Orimolade was such a miracle child he reportedly chatted with his mother from the womb! The first contact between Orimolade, then 45, and the teenage, Abiodun Akinsowon, 17, was out-and-out spirituality.
From an Encyclopaedia Brittanica “Aladura” account, Akinsowon had fallen into a trance — which lasted 21 days — after her gaze had bored into the Catholic chalice in Lagos, during a Corpus Christi procession. Curiosity might indeed kill the cat but this one sent the maiden Abiodun into a trance! It was from that trance that Abiodun called Orimolade, already a popular Aladura evangelist, for an SOS spiritual rescue.
The Brittanica account is self-explanatory: “It was raining heavily. Abiodun sent word three times, encouraging Orimolade to come, in spite of the rain and telling him: ‘Saint Moses Orimolade Tunolase should not be mindful of the heavy downpour of rain that can only beat the flesh and not the soul.’ As a result, Orimolade came in the rain from home to Saba Court, miraculously without being drenched.”
Orimolade’s Aladura band nursed Abiodun back to normalcy. There then, started their collaboration — with Abiodun becoming the church’s first visioner. Unfortunately, both of them had to part ways four years later.
Meanwhile, in those years, Orimolade had sent Abiodun on missionary sorties to convert new members; and open the first Aladura churches in the Yoruba hinterland.
Despite the split, however, both resonate with the church history. Orimolade was the C and S undisputed founder and eternal patron saint. He neither married nor had any child. A prophesy had assured him that his children would be as many as the sand at the sea shore — the global Aladura church today, numbering no less than 10 million members.
His Ojokoro original base and church, as Holy Land, also hosts yearly pilgrims, aside his Ikare-Akoko native church, to where his remains were transferred from Ojokoro, 40 years after his burial, as he had instructed before his death. Besides, his name, “Mose Orimolade Tunolase …” features in prayers, which always opens with “Oluwa Olorun Olodumare …” Olodumare is the Yoruba Supreme God, a monotheism shared by the Christian Faith. That reinforces C and S as a church with African — Yoruba — roots.
Still, Captain Abiodun’s Cherubim and Seraphim Society (Aladura) also commands a significant membership in spite of the schisms in the ‘’Aladura’’ churches. Many flock to the church whenever the Ark of Apostles (a throwback to the Old Testament, incorporated into the church’s worship mode, even if the sacrifices of the Christ Jesus remains supreme) was on public display.
Over 100 years, the C and S has become a respected religious order, boasting adherents from across all sectors, Nigeria and overseas, all immensely proud to profess its tenets. Though the founding members were Yoruba, the order now embraces all, spreading beyond Nigeria to all over Africa, the Americas and Europe.
It may have lost the battle against its founding bogey — splitting into too many parts. But as its centenary resolution, it should formulate a strict code of conduct among its millions of adherents. If it already has such, it should enforce it with new zeal.
Still, one thing goes for the Aladura at their centenary: they have retained their pristine spiritual core; even while younger Nigerian Pentecostal cousins have gone flabby with prosperity preaching, which borders on the profane.
It’s credit to Orimolade’s solemn credo that the Aladura movement, though highly fissured, has kept faith with that pristine rigour: the straight-and-narrow way to salvation; against the wide-and-merry prosperity preaching, as their latter-day, American-aping Nigerian Pentecostal cousins.
Although Nigeria’s first gift to global Pentecostalism has done well for itself; it has at least survived this far despite all odds, it can still do better.
The ‘’Aladura’’ churches need to put more efforts into their unification process. It is taking too long in coming.
They should go tougher with those of their members that are ‘buying and selling’ in the churches or tarnishing their image within and without.
While the church should hold tight to those aspects of the religion that makes it distinct without compromising its essence, it should strive to improve on its weaknesses as it begins its journey to another century.
Nigeria’s first gift to global Pentecostalism deserves no less rigour.
