Vicariate Apostolic of Southern Victoria Nyanza

The Vicariate Apostolic of Southern (Victoria) Nyanza was a Roman Catholic mission territory in Eastern and Central Africa. It was a vicariate apostolic erected from the mission of Nyanza, 13 June, 1894.

It lay north of the Vicariate Apostolic of Unyanyembe, and comprised the land surrounding the southern half of Lake Victoria Nyanza from Lake Kivu in the west to Lake Natron in the east, on the Anglo-German colonial frontier of the time (36º E). The mission thus included the northern portion of German East Africa, and this was in the charge of the White Fathers, who first settled in the district in 1883, when expelled from Uganda (see Vicariate Apostolic of the Upper Nile), among the Wasukuma and the Unyamwezi.

About 1896 a mission was established on the island of Ukerewe. In 1900 the Mission of the Sacred Heart, Isavi, near Lake Kivu, in Ruanda, was established among the Bahutu.

Mgr. John Joseph Hirth, titular bishop of Teveste, born at Niederspechbach, near Altkirch, 26 March, 1854, appointed vicar Apostolic, 13 July, 1894, and resided at Rubia. There was also a coadjutor vicar, Mgr. Joseph Sweens, titular Bishop of Capsa, born at Bois-le-duc, Netherlands, 22 May, 1855. He was ordained 1882, joined the White Fathers in 1889, was appointed director of the lay-brothers at Maison-Carrée, Algiers, in 1891, and was later superior at Marienthal. In 1901 he went to Africa and established the mission of Marienheim; in 1909 he was named visitor of his congregation, was nominated coadjutor to Mgr. Hirth, 1 January, 1910, and consecrated at Bois-le-duc.

References

*Details of the missions in German Africa are in "Gott will es" (Maria-Gladbach), published by the "Afrikaverein deutscher katholiken".
*Le Roy in Piolet, "Les missions catholiques Françaises au xix siècle", V (Paris, 1902), 458-66.