Zion Apostolic Faith Mission Church

The Zion Apostolic Faith Mission Church is one of the earliest Zionist sects in southern Africa. It was formed out of a secession from the Pentecostal Apostolic Faith Mission in 1919, and attempted to create southern Africa's second "Zion City" in emulation of John Alexander Dowie. Although ZAFM was initially an influential church in Zionist circles, it failed to develop and prosper over the decades. It is best known today for spawning two secessions of its own that grew into large churches—the Zion Christian Church and the Zimbabwean Zion Apostolic Faith Mission.

Edward Lion (d. 1938) founded ZAFM in 1919 as a secession from the White-led Apostolic Faith Mission of South Africa. Lion was an early convert to Zionist Christianity, having joined John Alexander Dowie's organization around 1905 soon after leaving his native Lesotho. After the formation of the Pentecostal movement and the Apostolic Faith Mission, Lion joined this movement and was groomed as a leader by its President John G Lake. After earlier being ejected from Lesotho by irate citizens, Lion established a successful Lesotho branch of the AFM in 1912.

During the 1912-19 period Lion became famous for conducting faith healings. He is said to have healed numerous lepers, and to have been visited by the afflicted from far and wide. During these years he chafed under White control and became increasingly independent, although he still received a salary and other support from the AFM. In 1919, however, a Sotho Chief who he had converted gave him a large block of communal land at a place called Kolonyama. Lion then seceded from the AFM and named his new church the Zion Apostolic Faith Mission. He renamed Kolonyama "Zion City" and encouraged his followers to join him there. By the early 1920s he had several hundred followers in residence, although he claimed almost one hundred congregations in southern Africa.

Other than Lion, the most famous ZAFM member was Engenas Lekganyane. Lekganyane, who had spent some years with Lion in Boksburg before 1912 as a fellow member of an AFM congregation, ventured to Kolonyama in 1920 and joined ZAFM with several hundred Transvaal-based members. Lion in turn made Lekganyane his Transvaal leader. Around 1923, Lekganyane converted two Zimbabwean migrant workers, namely Samuel Mutendi and Andreas Shoko, in Pretoria, South Africa. Although Mutendi himself did not join ZAFM, Andreas Shoko did. He remained with the organization for eight years in South Africa, before returning to Zimbabwe in 1931 to lead its branch there.

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