Joburg's great places of worship
TEMPLES and churches have always been places of sanctuary. In Joburg, many of the older ones supported the fight against apartheid. Others are newly built, bringing fresh peace and succour to the city. Their variety reflects the multi-cultural nature of Johannesburg.
JOHANNESBURG'S diverse communities are mapped out in the wide range of places of worship found throughout the city, each with their own history, architecture and social role.
Here, almost every religion is represented and practised in some of the country's most beautiful structures. Some, like Regina Mundi in Soweto, played a significant role in the struggle against apartheid, and have taken on iconic status, drawing tourists and worshippers in equal number.
Others that were once churches are today mosques or temples, serving new communities. And then there are those churches without walls and roofs - many congregations simply meet and worship in the veld and parks.
St Mary's the Less, Jeppestown, 1889
As the mining town grew, with the more affluent moving east of the town centre, Jeppestown, Doornfontein and Belgravia, a couple of kilometres east of the town centre, became the posh suburbs where the Randlords built their mansions.
And they needed a church, so building St Mary's the Less, in Jeppestown. A modest red iron-roofed structure with a wooden-beamed ceiling and wooden floors, today it stands between light industrial buildings and rundown residential blocks.
The church was designed by Arthur and Walter Reid, and additions were made in 1897, 1904 and 1908. It's believed that when St Mary's Cathedral was built in the inner city in 1929, St Mary's bowed to its superior status, and became St Mary's the Less.
There is another St Mary's church in Johannesburg: St Mary's on the Limpopo, on the corner of Empire and Clarendon streets on the edge of Parktown. It was previously the Cathedral of St Mary the Virgin but in 1982, because the Braamfontein Spruit runs under the church on its way to the Limpopo River, its name was changed.
Regina Mundi Catholic Church, Soweto, 1964
Regina Mundi, in Moroka, has quietly offered comfort to those seeking higher redemption and to those seeking refuge from the physical might of the apartheid forces.
Built in 1964, the long A-framed building still bears the scars of the turbulent 1970s and 80s on its walls. At the time, it was a meeting place for activists deprived of any other place to meet.
It played a role in Soweto's most significant day - 16 June 1976 - when students, revolting against the imposition of Afrikaans teaching by the apartheid government, ran into the church. They were followed by police, who shot and injured many, firing teargas and damaging the marble altar and the figure of Christ and leaving bullet holes in the ceiling.
Up to 200 tourists visit the building each day, taking in a tour by one of two permanent guides.
The Lions Shul, Doornfontein, 1906
The Lions Shul in Beit Street is the only active synagogue in Doornfontein, where once there had been seven. The eastern suburb began life as a vibrant Jewish area, attracting new immigrants, mainly from Eastern Europe.
It's an understated but striking building, on a much smaller scale than its neighbour down the road, the former, magnificent Great Synagogue. The Lions Shul gets its name from two impressive gold-painted cast iron lions at its entrance.
Many fourth-generation Jews, long since moved northwards, still attend services at the shul; their great-great grandparents were mostly from Lithuania.
Christ the King Anglican Church, Sophiatown, 1935
The Christ the King Church, in Sophiatown, was made famous by Archbishop Trevor Huddleston in the 1940s and 50s. He was a passionate anti-apartheid campaigner who was eventually recalled by the church to England in 1955, the year the removals started in Sophiatown.
Residents of the historical suburb were removed to Meadowlands in Soweto, in the name of the Group Areas Act. The church, a simple but beautiful building, was one of the few structures in Sophiatown to survive the bulldozers. It was designed by Frank Fleming, who designed 85 churches throughout South Africa.
Its distinctive feature is a mural, no longer visible, painted between 1939 and 1941 by Sister Margaret. It was painted in beautiful colours, the focus of the simple church, with its wooden-beamed ceiling.
In the 1970s, the church was bought by the Nederduits Hervormde Kerk, which used it for Sunday schools. It had already been badly vandalised and the beautiful mural had graffiti and racist slogans sprayed over it. Officials opted to whitewash the painting.
It later belonged to the Pinkster Protestante Kerk, but in 1997, the Anglicans bought the church back and it was largely restored. Many former Sophiatown worshippers travel each Sunday from Soweto to attend services there.
But its unique feature, the mural, still sits quietly beneath the whitewash.
St Mary's Cathedral, inner city, 1929
St Mary's is another Frank Fleming church, designed in a Romanesque-Italian style. Its interior - some four to five storeys high - is dominated by soaring white-plastered columns and arches, glossy parquet floors, beautiful stained glass windows and simple wooden benches.
Generations of Anglican worshippers have come and gone, among them the late Helen Joseph; the late Beyers Naude served as a priest at the church. The story goes that security men wearing their safari suits tried to blend in with the congregation, while spying on Naude.
The cathedral boasts Cecil Skotnes linoprints and Joe Kekana pulpit carvings. An adjoining chapel, designed by Herbert Baker, lists 8 000 names of those who died in World War 1, and the walls are covered with paintings and other religious artefacts, many of them gifts to the church.
Consecrated on 27 September 1929, the church's exterior is finished in stone; although these days it dissolves into the surrounding buildings, when it was built it stood tall and splendid in Wanderers Street.
The church is famous for its strong ties to the struggle against apartheid. In the 1950s, it was one of the few non-racial churches in downtown Johannesburg, according to Luli Callinicos in The World that Made Mandela.
And in April 1993 the body of Oliver Tambo lay in state in the cathedral before he was buried in Benoni.
Swaminarayan Mandir, Lenasia, 2004
One of Joburg's newest places of worship, the Swaminarayan Mandir, or temple, opened in September 2004 in Lenasia.
Mukesh Patel, the chairman of the Swaminarayan Hindu Mission of South Africa, says building the temple was very much a community effort: the R7-million needed was raised entirely by the Swaminarayan Hindu community in the city - some 400 people of a total 700 devotees nationwide.
Our Lady of the Cedars of Lebanon, Woodmead, 1991
South Africa's small Maronite community goes back to 1896, when the first Lebanese immigrants arrived in Durban and Cape Town.
Joburg's first Maronite church was established in 1910 in a converted building in Commissioner Street; it later moved to a building on the corner of Diagonal and Kerk streets. In 1928 a former Dutch Reformed Church was bought in Mint Road, Fordsburg, which still serves the congregation.
The new eye-catching shrine, which can be seen from the M1 north, was dedicated in 1991 and called the Shrine of Our Lady. It sits alongside the octagonal face-brick church, Our Lady of the Cedars. The striking, cone-shaped face-brick shrine has a circular walkway to the top, and a beautiful, revolving 2m-tall statue of the Virgin Mary.
The inside of the shrine has a cave-like atmosphere, with stalactites decorating the roof, uneven pillars and roughly finished white walls adorned with biblical figures.
Greek Orthodox Church, Hillbrow, 1912
At the southern end of Hillbrow, on the corner of Claim and Wolmarans streets, this church is surrounded by high rise blocks of flats and noisy traffic, but it is open most days.
This is complemented by sparkling white walls lined with large pictures of saints in carved wooden frames and rows of immaculate wooden benches, and the blue-painted dome stretching three storeys high.
Dutch Reformed Church, Cottesloe, 1935
This distinctive landmark, perched on the top of Cottesloe Hill, is a Gerard Moerdijk creation, with an attractive Cape Dutch-style façade adjoined by a tall, cone-shaped tower.
The Dutch Reformed Church established itself in Johannesburg in 1895, and Moerdijk, a proclaimed nationalist architect who was also responsible for the Voortrekker Monument, was the perfect choice of designer.
The interior of the church reflects its working class surrounds - plain walls with rectangular windows, with thin strips of stained glass in two tall windows near the pulpit, a dark wooden stepped platform. The pulpit is offset by a piped organ, set in an arched recess, all lit by simple, ball-shaped lights.
Mosque, Kerk Street, mid-1990s
The Kerk Street Mosque is the city's Friday Mosque - the first mosque in the city. However, it is the third mosque on the site. The first one, a wood and iron building, was erected in 1906.
The second was an attractive square, two-storey building with a three-tiered minaret on each corner, opened in 1918. It served the community until the late 1980s, when it became too small.
In 1989, the building was demolished and in its place rose a splendid place of worship. A pure white building with a single tall, elegant minaret and a large, white dome, its square shape is an imposing presence reflected off the glass building alongside it.
The entrance areas are decorated with the exquisite, intricate tile work of North African origin. Inside the main prayer area soars up into the dome, the plain white walls with beautifully carved inlays - completed by North African plasterers - take the breath away. Brass chandeliers hang from the tall ceiling, carved arches soar into the vastness, and light pours in from tall windows.
This mosque has a unique feature: all mosques must face Mecca, and from Johannesburg that is 11° east of the strict northerly pole. This mosque, built along the strict northerly line of the street, has been angled internally to exactly 11°. This means that the thickness of the walls changes - it can be seen in the width of the upstairs windowsills, which vary from very wide to normal width.
Church of Latter Day Saints, Parktown, 1985
There is only one Mormon temple in southern Africa, on the crest of the Parktown ridge, its six tall white spires reaching into the sky. Lit up at night, they are a landmark that can be seen into the far distance.
On the tallest spire - 33m high - is the gold-leafed angel Moroni, draped in a cloak and blowing a long bugle.
The facade consists of dressed Parktown granite and oatmeal-colour face brick, beautifully laid by craftsmen from Portugal, using a diamond-cutting machine. The edges of the building are finished with tiered layers of face brick, immaculately fitted together, giving it an elegance and distinctiveness. With the grey slate roof, the temple makes for a very attractive structure.
The ambience of the interior is clinical, clean and pure.
Grace Bible Church, Pimville, 2002
The Grace Bible Church began in a hall in Soweto in 1983 with 35 congregants; by 2007 it had a membership of 11 000, with the two-hour 9am Sunday church service drawing 5 000 people.
The building, by architects O'Neill & Associates, was completed in 2002 and consists of a huge auditorium, seating 4 200, with a large stage. The roof is supported by a number of thin pillars and is lined with metal struts. Several doors at the back open on to a large foyer, which can seat a further 800 people.
The building is a landmark in Pimville, Soweto - finished in industrial metal sheets and face brick, it is triangular in shape and has a tall brick spire at the apex.
Coptic Orthodox Church, Parkview, 1999
The Coptic Orthodox Church in Parkview has evolved from the original St Winfred's School, dating back to 1922, started by Ethel Marian Burton. In 1992, when the Coptic community bought the school and several acres of land alongside it, the school's three classrooms were turned into the first cathedral.
It's a modest place; rows of wooden benches contrast with the arched altar, decorated with icons of saints. But this small church faced the wrong way - south. Coptic churches must always face east. So between 1994 and 1999 a new building was constructed, facing eastwards.
The Coptic Church is the oldest form of Christianity in Africa, dating back to AD42, when St Mark established it in Alexandria. A Copt is a native Egyptian Christian and the word "Coptic" derives from the Greek word for Egyptian.
The Joburg church has accommodation for priests and monks, as well as for visiting missionaries and students. But its centrepiece is the cathedral, with its one large dome and four smaller ones. The huge oak doors were carved in Egypt and assembled in Parkview, as were carved pillars and an "Apostolic seat", with mother of pearl inlay, at the altar.
ZCC Church, Alexandra
On a dusty patch of ground in 19th Street, Alexandra about 1 000 people meet each Sunday; they are members of the Zion Christian Church (ZCC). The site is the Joburg headquarters of the church.
Most congregants wear the well-known ZCC uniform: the men are in khaki trousers and jackets, with black, flat-topped hats; the women, if in the choir, wear bright blue dresses and green berets, or green skirts and bright yellow blouses, green jerseys and berets. A minority is not in uniform, but all wear the small, distinctive green felt and metal ZCC badge.
The site is about an acre in size. The ZCC, which has about 13 million members countrywide, has its origins in Pentecostalism, which first appeared in Africa in the early 20th century.
The ZCC broke away from the original Pentecostal movement around 1920, largely because of racism - blacks were given subordinate status in white-dominated churches.
It is estimated that there are between 4 000 and 7 000 smaller church organisations of a similar type, spread out across the rural areas of South Africa, but more so in the urban areas, where they are a major source of support for domestic workers and the unemployed.
Dutch Reformed Church, Fairview, 1906
Pastor Mike Lwambwa started the Faith and Victory in Jesus Christ Ministries in Hillbrow in 1993; he was concerned with taking prostitutes and gangsters off the streets. His church was so successful that he had to find new premises and he now occupies one of the city's most beautiful churches - the Dutch Reformed Church in Fairview.
Declared a national monument in 1973, it was built by architect Herman Kallenbach and his partner, Reynolds, in 1906. The cornerstone was laid on 5 May 1906 by General Koos de la Rey and the church was consecrated on 26 January 1907.
Kallenbach designed Dutch Reformed churches across the country: Laingsburg, Barkly East, Hanover, Thaba 'Nchu, and Riversdale. He left his mark with other buildings too: the Benoni shul (1935), office buildings in downtown Joburg - the Lewis & Marks building (1937) and Arop House (1932), and office buildings in Durban and Pretoria. Kallenbach also designed an entire suburb of Soweto.
The Fairview Dutch Reformed Church, on the corner of Op de Bergen and Corrie streets, makes a bold statement in a suburb notable these days for its neglect. Its tall steeple, beautiful recessed windows with white plastered edgings lie in contrast to its plain brick walls. The entrance consists of two solid wooden doors, in an arched frame with an inscription in Afrikaans and Dutch.
Kallenbach and Reynolds designed the church in the shape of a Greek cross, with equal length vertical and horizontal arms.
Temple Israel, Hillbrow, 1936
Temple Israel was built in 1936 in Paul Nel Street in Hillbrow when the suburb still consisted of houses and the Jewish community numbered about 800, a few of whom still live there and in neighbouring Berea and Yeoville.
The synagogue is the mother shul of the Johannesburg Jewish Reform Congregation. It's an impressive, imposing building in a quiet, clean, jacaranda-lined street. It rises up from the pavement in a fortress-like manner, some four storeys into the sky, built in the art deco style with its long, vertical lines.
The architect was Herman Kallenbach, this time with partners Kennedy and Furner. Today, the site houses a pre-school for local children, and runs various outreach programmes. Temple Israel is a Mitzvah synagogue, meaning "good deeds", reaching out to Jew and non-Jew alike.
The Jewish reform movement established itself in South Africa when Eastern Europeans migrated to the country in the 1930s, fleeing the pogroms in their homelands.
St Alban's Anglican Mission Church, Ferreirasdorp, 1928
This beautiful church, on the neglected western edge of the inner city, cuts a lonely, incongruous picture - until you realise that Ferreirasdorp was one of the first mining camps in the tent town that sprung up after gold was discovered in 1886.
The site was first demarcated for the coloured Anglican community in 1898 with a wood and iron building. This was replaced by a solid red brick structure in 1928, which still stands tall and striking almost 80 years later. But now it is surrounded by warehouses and light industrial buildings.
It was designed by architect Frank Fleming, one-time partner to respected architect Herbert Baker.
The finely laid red brick on the outside continues into the church, offsetting the wooden floors and high, wood-lined ceiling. The altar is simple and elegant.
In 1958, the Anglican diocese was stationed here, under bishops Desmond Tutu and Duncan Buchanan.
Johannesburg Melrose Shree Siva Subramaniar Temple, Abbotsford, 1996
The origins of the Melrose temple reach as far back as 1899, when Tamil Hindus working as washermen in the Melrose Steam Laundry built a wood and iron temple near the laundry.
The laundry was established in 1897 in the present Melrose Bird Sanctuary, near the Jukskei River. Reginald Linaker, the laundry's owner, gave the land on which the temple was built to the small community.
This simple structure served the community for 97 years, until 1996. The old structure was decaying and had to be replaced. A single row of outbuildings, possibly built in the 1930s or 40s, nestled behind the temple. They are still there.
The new temple was opened in 1996, with some 50 000 people attending the opening over 40 days. The new building accommodates 400 people standing, and worshippers come from Lenasia and northern suburbs like Midrand and Sandton, but also from as far afield as Pretoria.
It is a neat, rectangular building, finished in face brick, with white plastered edgings and a red metal roof. There are three cone-shaped structures protruding from the back of the temple roof and a new metal veranda covering has been added around the front of the building. Along the river is a small shrine with an onion-shaped rust red roof.
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 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 dates 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, the madressa lost its roof.
The 15th Street mosque, also known as the Talimul Islam Masjid, catered for the Shufi Muslem community. The building 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.
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.
Completed in 1976, the church serves the Portuguese community living in southern Johannesburg suburbs like La Rochelle, Turffontein and Rosettenville.
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