Grahamstown may be known as the City of Saints, but Z Street in Tantyi location could be called the Avenue of Churches.
Grahamstown may be known as the City of Saints, but Z Street in Tantyi location could be called the Avenue of Churches.
With nine successive places of worship along the road, this must be some kind of a record.
It is home to the Bantu Church of Christ, African Congregational Church, Presbyterian Church of Africa, Uniting Presbyterian Church, Old Apostolic Church of Africa, Apostolic Faith Mission, St John's Society Methodist Church, SR Taku Memorial of Umzi waseTopia Church and the Ethiopian Church of South Africa.
Z Street elder Welile Mzembe told Grocott's Mail reporter Siphelo Dyongman that he had just started school when the first church opened there.
According to Mzembe these churches have been there for more than 30 years. "Firstly they were in squatter camps. Then they were built in to become these modernised church buildings," he said.
"We went out of the school to watch the singing, dancing and praising of the Lord as the church members played drum kits and the fathers were on their horses," he said.
"There was not much going on in the area then. It was three churches then and other churches that needed space went to the street to locate their churches. because people did not have land so they would rent R5 in the houses of M Street every month and in 1990 people moved out to build a squatter camp behind the church street," added Mzembe.
"Also a number of buses of the Port Elizabeth congregation came to officially open the Bantu Church of Christ."
"I personally think the space was marked for those churches by the municipality of the time, because the Xolani village came there long after the churches been placed," added elder of the Presbyterian Church of Africa, Mthuthuzeli Krwanqa.
"People did not have anywhere to build and they therefore went to build there, the street was not initially full of them, others joined in time" said a Hlalani resident, Vusumzi Makhanda.
"When the first church was opened I was doing Grade 1 and we went out of the school to watch the singing, dancing, praising of the Lord as the members were playing drum-kits and the fathers on their horses, also a number of buses from the Port Elizabeth congregation coming to officially open the The Bantu Church of Christ," Mzembe concludes.
