Quick Facts
Biography
Monwabisi Patrick Matolengwe (12 May 1937 - 31 May 2019) was a South African Anglican bishop.
Matolengwe was born in Graaff-Reinet in the Eastern Cape. He qualified as a teacher at the Teachers’ College at Lovedale, hetaughtfor a few years, afterwhic he worked as a court interpreter in Laaiplek in the Western Cape. While at Laaiplek he became involved in Christian youth education anddecided to change his career and trained for the Anglican ministry.
After graduation in 1966, he worked Nyanga, Cape Town and in the surrounding rural areas. Inrecognition of his ministry he was made a canon of St. George's Cathedral, Cape Town, he was subsequently electedto be a suffragan bishop of the diocese of Cape Town.
The political and social pressures of life in the Apartheid-era South Africa in the1970s and 80s took their toll on his health. In 1988, he was invited by the bishop of Milwaukee to move to the United States. He was appointed as dean of All Saints Cathedral, Milwaukee and assisting bishop in the diocese of Milwaukee. He studied theology at Nashotah House and at the United Theological Seminary, Dayton, Ohio, where he received a master's degree inTheological Studies degree and doctoral degree in ministry. In recognition of his work in the diocese, Nashotah House conferred on him an honorary Doctor of Divinity degree.
He returned to South Africa in 1998 and worked with the South African Council of Churches. In retirement, he worked in the Anglican parish in Graaff-Reinet in the Diocese of George. In 2011 the bishop of Kimberley and Kuruman invited him to be an assisting bishop in the western part of that diocese. On completion of that assignment he returned to Johannesburg to assist at the parish of Christ the King in Sophiatown.
Matolengwe died on 31 May 2019 in the Helen Joseph Hospital, Johannesburg.