Legio Maria - Continuity and Discontinuity With Christianity

Continuity and Discontinuity With Christianity

The Legio Maria of African Mission Church can be seen in both continuity and discontinuity with orthodox Christianity. While one of the main critiques of the Legio Maria Church from other Christians centers on the claim that Simeo Ondeto is the “Black Messiah,” there are many ways in which the Legio Maria are in continuity with the Catholic Church.

First, the Legio Maria church recognizes salvation through Jesus Christ, the Son of God. The discontinuity with orthodox theology is that the Son of God has been incarnated in multiple contexts, rejecting the orthodox doctrine of Christ taking a human body and soul for eternity. As we have seen in the above research, none of these incarnations are considered exclusive; they only serve to reveal Christ to people of different contexts. All who are saved through any of these incarnations of Christ will worship God together in heaven. Thus, for the Legio Church, salvation is found through Christ, as revealed in their particular Messias Simeo Ondeto.

Second, the Legio Maria church recognizes an active spiritual realm that needs to be dealt with in order to respond to evil and illness. It is God who gives gifts to people for spiritual healing, sometimes through the saints. The Legio specifically recognize the Catholic saints Catherine of Siena and Bernadette of Lourdes in regard to spiritual healing. The Saints Samson and Julian, and the angel Michael help to “guide Legios with gifts for exorcism and battling witchcraft. In seeking guidance from these holy ones they are in continuity with Catholic theology, but this theology is applied to traditional religious understandings of evil and illness.

As stated above, the Legio Maria church is also in continuity with the Catholic Church in its use of Catholic hymns and the Catholic mass. Many Legio Maria communities still celebrate the Latin form of the mass. In addition, original Legio songs are added that reinforce the particularity of the Legio Maria church.

Another sign of continuity with the Catholic Church is that the Legio Maria include a white Catholic priest, Father Philip Chefa, among their saints. Serving at the Asumbi Roman Catholic mission station in the 1930s,

Chefa was said to have practiced a highly charismatic form of Catholicism that addressed his parishioners’ concerns. He had engaged in healing, exorcism, and the burning of paraphernalia associated with ‘witchcraft’ and indigenous spirit-possession. Chefa had treated people who later became Legios well. He had established a chapter of the Roman Catholic Legion of Mary for Luo in 1938.

Not only does the Legio Maria Church acknowledge the Catholic saints as their own, but they have included some European priests who worked in Africa among their cloud of saints.