August 29, 2007
By Lucille Davie
SEVERAL significant places of worship reflect the diverse peoples who left their mark on early Johannesburg.
Two mosques in Vrededorp, dating from the 1930s, served the Shafi Malay and the Shufi Muslem communities until they were uprooted in the 1970s and moved away under the apartheid planners' grand scheme. The mosques were saved from the bulldozers, and today still serve the surrounding Muslim societies.
St Peter's Priory in Rosettenville, famous for its illustrious list of former pupils, was a rare thing in early Johannesburg – an exclusive missionary school for black boys. But it too fell victim to apartheid's grand design. It still exists, though, as one of the city's top private schools.
And St Anthony's Catholic Church, one of many churches built by Joburg's immigrant communities, still stands humbly on the western edge of the CBD, serving the Portuguese community 30 years after it was built.
This is the seventh in a series of articles on Johannesburg's splendid places of worship.
Mosques, Vrededorp, 1930s
The mosques on 15th and 23rd streets stand out as lonely reminders of a lively community in a suburb that was ravaged by apartheid in the 1970s – they were not torn to the ground as most of the suburb was.
The simple lines of the 23rd Street mosque
The 23rd Street mosque, also known as the Mohamadan Mosque, originally catered for the Shafi Malay community, immigrants from Indonesia. It is a distinctive building, in white with dark green window edgings and roof. It sits among the old and new homes of Vrededorp, and caters for about 80 worshippers in the suburb.
It dates, says Ebrahim Saeed, an elder of both mosques, from 1914, when it existed as a wood and iron building. In 1935 the present mosque was built, with an adjoining school or madressa.
About 12 years ago, he says, the madressa lost its roof. It now has an eerie, open-to-the-sky look to it, its three walls ending in nothingness. Alongside the school is the mosque. Originally with a tall pressed-steel ceiling, it is now cut in half by a gallery that was added 12 years ago. Fat, round pillars along each side add an element of pomp to the small room.
The restful interior of the 23rd Street mosque
Tall windows are filled with frosted white, green and mustard glass in different shapes, lining each side of the building. White tiles fill the recessed altar and a tranquil green and white carpet, with rows of domes, covers the floor.
The ground floor takes 250 worshippers, the gallery 180 and the open school courtyard 100, bursting with some 500 people on Fridays.
The 15th Street mosque, also known as the Talimul Islam Masjid, catered for the Shufi Muslem community. The building is quite different from the 23rd Street mosque – it is long with a single dome at one end. The hall and washing facilities are downstairs; there is another long room upstairs, with a balcony.
There is a rich green carpet covering the floor downstairs, with arched windows along the building's northern wall. Two chandeliers hang from the ceiling.
The two-storey 15th Street mosque, with dome
Dr Essop Jassat, a trustee of the mosque board, says it is to undergo renovations shortly. It will be extended to take more worshippers, and a hall and school will be built.
St Anthony's, Crown Mines, 1976
Driving into the gates of St Anthony's Catholic Church in Church Street, Crown Mines, one is greeted by two large angled walls of breathtaking blue and white tiles. The tiles show the history of the Portuguese and their seafaring explorations around the world, with a bold Bartholomew Dias.
The tiles come from Portugal but were made in Brazil.
It's a precursor to the church's striking interior. In the front is the marble altar, with Christ on the cross below a pyramid of unusual stained glass, in bright blues and yellows. A row of five praying figures runs up each side of the pyramid, bowing their heads to the figure on the cross.
There are four wings splayed out from the altar and central circular section, giving all congregants a good view of the centre. The wings have striking Gothic arches, and the walls are covered in multi-shaped, stone-coloured tiles, each with an image embossed on it: some of early explorers' ships, others of crosses, still others of Portuguese emblems.
The tiles fill most of the space, right up to a row of small windows running around each wall. Gothic stained-glass windows complete the walls of the central section, and biblical statues have been placed at the end of each wing.
The simplicity of the parquet flooring and plain benches lets the beauty of the altar and stained-glass windows shine. An unusual chandelier hangs from the roof.
Completed in 1976, the church serves the Portuguese community living in southern Johannesburg suburbs like La Rochelle, Turffontein and Rosettenville.
Father Miguel Lemos ministers to around 300 people every Sunday - he is originally from Angola and doesn't speak English. The church runs a crèche and there is housing for four nuns who live on the property.
The church offers a peaceful retreat from its industrial surrounds, with the nuns quietly going about their business, such as filling vases with sprays of white flowers.
St Peter's Priory, Rosettenville, 1903
St Peter's Priory was built in 1903, designed by architect Frank Fleming, who was also responsible for the Christ the King Anglican Church in Sophiatown. There are striking similarities between the two Community of the Resurrection churches.
Both are solid brick buildings, lined inside with rows of white arches running towards simple altars. St Peter's retains its triangular wooden beams in the ceiling, and although there are no windows above the altar, on the opposite end the wall is filled with seven beautiful arched, stained-glass windows.
Another row of windows runs high along both sides of the church. These were all plain glass until 1989, after which departing matrics donated stained-glass windows to replace them. They were made by Lynette Naude, the daughter-in-law of anti-apartheid cleric Beyers Naude.
Two side chapels allow the church to accommodate about 250 worshippers. Father Thabo Katzana ministers to the schoolchildren.
The church was built with local labour and has slight imperfections: the columns and walls don't line up exactly, and the windows are not symmetrical - but this doesn't detract from its simple beauty.
Recently the bougainvillea was cleared off the outside northern wall of the church, and a 30cm by 30cm carved plaque depicting four black biblical figures was discovered. The lettering on the bottom reads: "Jesus is condemned to death".
The peaceful interior of St Peter's Priory, in classical lines
The priory property is almost like a mini village. St Martin's Preparatory School, a secondary boarding school, and St Peter's Theological College, share the well-maintained gardens, with several tall pin oaks trees and a line of well-established pepper trees on the street.
Originally a seminary for black priests, the buildings act now as a retreat and conference centre. Archbishop emeritus Desmond Tutu studied here between 1958 and 1960. The two-storey buildings run around homely quadrangles, defined by tall trees. A tiny oratory or prayer chapel, accommodating only 12 people, gives the buildings an intriguing profile.
For years the school was a missionary school for black boys, until it was closed in 1956 by the apartheid government because the surrounding white suburbs were at its doorstep. It re-opened two years later as a whites-only boys school, but later became a co-ed school, running from grade 00 to matric. It is today a top private school.
The site has ties to interesting history. In the 1950s Oliver Tambo taught physics at the school while Archbishop Trevor Huddleston was the superintendent. Tambo had been a pupil at the school, where he arrived at the age of 16. Huddleston had been parish priest at the Sophiatown church for 10 years before moving to Rosettenville.
He developed a reputation as a fierce anti-apartheid champion before he left Johannesburg in 1955.
Huddleston described his relationship with Tambo at the requiem mass for the former president of the ANC at St Mary's Cathedral on 30 April, 1993: "How can I even begin to express what his friendship has meant to me since we first met in St Peter's Rosettenville, when he was only 26 and I a totally immature and inexperienced 30, sent by CR to Sophiatown and Orlando?"
It was at St Martin's School that jazz musician Hugh Masekela, then a pupil, approached school superintendent Huddleston to ask if he could arrange a trumpet for him, saying that he loved the trumpet. "Anyway, I love it. TOO MUCH."
Prolific author, activist and scholar Es'kia Mphahlele also attended St Martin's.
More places of worship:
Temple Israel, Hillbrow, 1936
St Alban's Anglican Mission Church, Ferreirasdorp, 1928
Johannesburg Melrose Shree Siva Subramaniar Temple, Abbotsford, 1996
Coptic Orthodox Church, Parkview, 1999
ZCC Church, Alexandra
Dutch Reformed Church, Fairview, 1906
Mosque, Kerk Street, mid-1990s
Church of Latter Day Saints, Parktown, 1985
Grace Bible Church, Pimville, 2002
Our Lady of the Cedars of Lebanon, Woodmead, 1991
Greek Orthodox Church, Hillbrow, 1912
Dutch Reformed Church, Cottesloe, 1935
Christ the King Anglican Church, Sophiatown, 1935
St Mary's Cathedral, inner city, 1929
Swaminarayan Mandir, Lenasia, 2004
St Mary's the Less, Jeppestown, 1889
Regina Mundi Catholic Church, Soweto, 1964
The Lions Shul, Doornfontein, 1906
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