The Highest Authority: Five Pillars of the Celestial Church of Christ

On 29 October 1982, Papa Oshoffa named five men who together formed the highest authority of the Celestial Church of Christ worldwide. This November, the month the CCC Worldwide Community sets aside to appreciate our heroes, we remember their lives and their labour.

The 1982 declaration

On 29 October 1982 Papa Oshoffa wrote to Baba Philip Ajose, then leading the church’s Overseas Diocese from London, to appoint him a Superior Evangelist. The letter, written in Yoruba and in English on the letterhead of the International Headquarters at Ketu, is signed by Papa Oshoffa, Supreme Evangelist A.A. Bada and Superior Evangelist S.O. Ajanlekoko. In it Papa Oshoffa declared:

“

Yoruba

Ni ibiti emi Prophet Pastor Founder Rev. S.B.J. Oschoffa, Supreme Evangelist A.A. Bada, Superior Evangelist Agbaosi, Superior Evangelist S.O. Ajanlekoko ati ire Superior Evangelist P.H. Ajose ba wa, oju Celestial Church of Christ patapata laje nibe.

English

Where myself Prophet Pastor Founder Rev. S.B.J. Oschoffa, Supreme Evangelist A.A. Bada, Superior Evangelist Agbaosi, Superior Evangelist S.O. Ajanlekoko and you Superior Evangelist P.H. Ajose assemble, we constitute the highest authority in the Celestial Church of Christ world wide.

— Rev. S.B.J. Oschoffa, Prophet Pastor Founder
Letter to Superior Evangelist P.H. Ajose, 29 October 1982

In the same letter Papa Oshoffa told Baba Ajose that “just above you in the order of seniority” stood three men under his own authority: Baba Bada, Baba Agbaossi and Baba Ajanlekoko. “In these,” he wrote, “I have implicit confidence both day and night.”

On 23 April 1984 he wrote to Baba Ajose again: in the whole church there was only one Supreme Evangelist and three Superior Evangelists. That letter was circulated to all the Superior Evangelists, and its full text was later printed in a special edition of the church’s Pastoral Bulletin.

Papa Oshoffa is reported to have restated this order of leadership at the 1984 Christmas convocation at Imeko. He did not name a successor before his death in 1985. Many members read these letters as pointing to who would succeed him, as the historian Afe Adogame records.

The church’s 1980 constitution said the next Pastor could come from any rank, to be named by the serving Pastor when God revealed it to him. Papa Oshoffa’s sudden death left that step undone.

The five were also not the same body as the Board of Trustees. The church’s first trustees were seven men: Papa Oshoffa, Baba Bada, Baba Ajanlekoko, Baba Adefeso, Baba Owodunni, Baba Ogunlesi and Baba Banjo. Baba Agbaossi and Baba Ajose belonged to the highest authority but not to that board.

The letter spells the names “Oschoffa” and “Agbaosi”; this article uses Papa Oshoffa and the more common Agbaossi.

At a glance

Baba Bada and Baba Ajose later served as Pastor of the worldwide church, and the Supreme Headquarters in Porto-Novo recognised Baba Agbaossi as Pastor. Baba Agbaossi, the last of the five, died in 2010.

Prophet, Pastor and FounderPapa S.B.J. OshoffaFounder of the Celestial Church of Christ · 1909–1985

Papa Oshoffa was born in 1909 in French Dahomey, now the Republic of Benin. His father’s family had come from Abeokuta, and his mother, Alake Iyafo, came from Imeko in today’s Ogun State, Nigeria. His father, a Methodist carpenter, had lost many children, and he dedicated this son to God’s work.

Papa Oshoffa learned carpentry from his father. In December 1946 he left carpentry for the timber trade.

On 23 May 1947 he went into the forest near Toffin for ebony and mahogany. An eclipse darkened the sky, he heard a voice cry “Luli, Luli, Luli,” and he stayed in the bush for three months. He came out with gifts of healing; the raising of his dead nephew is remembered among the first signs.

On 29 September 1947 a winged angel appeared to him with the commission to preach and heal in Christ’s name, the day the church keeps as its founding. The name of the church came by revelation through an early follower, Alexander Yanga. His followers called him Prophet, and he took the title Pastor.

Celestial fishermen had carried the church to Makoko, Lagos, by 1950, and Papa Oshoffa arrived there on 3 March 1951. Makoko became the church’s base in Nigeria. From there the church spread across Nigeria and abroad; its International Headquarters is at Ketu, Lagos, and the Celestial City is at Imeko, his mother’s hometown.

On 1 September 1985 his car crashed on the way to a harvest service at the Ibadan Army Barracks parish. He died at First Shadrach Hospital, Ilupeju, Lagos, on 10 September 1985, and was laid to rest at the Celestial City, Imeko, in October 1985. In 2010 Benin gave his name to the church’s pilgrimage site at Sèmè.

Supreme EvangelistAlexander Abiodun Adebayo BadaSecond Pastor · 1930–2000

Baba Alexander Abiodun Adebayo Bada was born in Lagos on 4 December 1930. His father, Chief Benjamin Omotona Bada, was Baale of Ago-Oba in Abeokuta; his mother, Janet Abebi Bada, came from Ijebu-Ode. He grew up in the African Church and finished Ilesha Grammar School in 1949.

In 1952 he was a supervisor in the Stock Control Department of Nigerian Breweries when, in October of that year, he joined the young church at Makoko through the influence of Superior Evangelist S.O. Ajanlekoko. His mother later became Matron-General of the church.

Papa Oshoffa anointed him Senior Elder in 1954, Leader in 1955, and Senior Leader on 25 December 1960 at the Porto-Novo beach. At his anointing as Evangelist in 1964, witnesses recalled that the heavens opened and dew fell. He became Senior Evangelist on 24 December 1972 and, on 25 December 1980, the church’s first and only Supreme Evangelist.

Papa Oshoffa called him Ekejimi, “my second in rank,” and the 1982 letter places him directly below the founder.

After Papa Oshoffa’s death, the Board of Trustees took the initiative to name Baba Bada Pastor, and members acclaimed him at the Imeko Christmas convocation in December 1985. He was enthroned on 25 December 1987. A fellow trustee challenged the appointment in court, and the case was not finally settled until the Supreme Court’s ruling in June 2000.

As Pastor he organised the church into diocesan, state, district and zonal headquarters and created the rank of Most Senior Evangelist. He inaugurated the CCC Press Council in June 1986 and, after a first attempt in 1986, opened the CCC Seminary successfully in 1991.

He visited the parishes abroad every year. One tour, from 9 May to 8 July 1987, took him to Britain, Germany, France, Austria and the United States.

He died in hospital in Greenwich, London, on 8 September 2000.

Superior EvangelistBenoît Dossou AgbaossiShepherd of the Mother Parish · 1930/31–2010

Baba Benoît Dossou Agbaossi was born in Porto-Novo in 1930 or 1931 (sources differ), the youngest of seven children. His father was Zossou Abraham Agbaossi; his mother, Christine Hanmèdé Hinnougbé Gnonlonfoun, was a Catholic. He was baptised into the new church in December 1947, aged 17, in its first months.

From 3 January 1965 he led the Mother Parish in Porto-Novo, the church’s first parish, for 45 years, until his death. While Papa Oshoffa worked in Nigeria, Baba Agbaossi headed the church’s Benin Diocese.

After the founder’s death, the church’s Supreme Headquarters in Porto-Novo chose Baba Agbaossi to lead it. He served as Regent from 31 October 1987, and on 14 September 1996 an extraordinary synod named him Pastor, a choice confirmed on 31 July 2002.

Under his care the Mother Parish became a cathedral, and he built a Celestial City annex at Tchakou, 9 km from Porto-Novo. He led the Nativity pilgrimage to Sèmè-Plage 23 times and the Mother Parish harvest 42 times. On 22 August 2003 the church’s radio station, Radio Alléluia FM 96.5, went on air.

He founded the church’s voluntary blood-donor association, added a maternity ward to the Saint-Samuel health centre, and built a centre for the disabled that was given to the city of Porto-Novo. Every month, the faithful under his leadership took help to prisoners.

On a 2008 tour of the United States, Celestians there called him “The Last Pillar.”

He died on 13 April 2010, in his 80th year, the last of the five named in the 1982 letter. Benin gave him a national funeral in Porto-Novo on 4–5 June 2010, attended by President Boni Yayi and the Central African Republic’s President François Bozizé, and he was laid to rest at Tchakou.

He was made a Commander of Benin’s National Order after his death, and a Porto-Novo street was named after him. Pastor Benoît Benett Adéogun, announced as his successor, led the funeral.

Superior EvangelistSamuel Olatunji AjanlekokoPioneer Leader and Trustee · 1922–1999

Baba Samuel Olatunji Ajanlekoko was one of Papa Oshoffa’s earliest partners in building the church in Nigeria and one of its first seven trustees.

A senior manager at Nigerian Breweries, he drew a young supervisor at the company into the church at Makoko in October 1952: Baba Alexander Bada, who would become its second Pastor.

By the 1982 letter he was a Superior Evangelist, one of only three, and Papa Oshoffa named him among the men in whom he had complete confidence. The church still holds a yearly remembrance of his burial on 22 August.

He was born in 1922 and died on 20 March 1999.

Superior EvangelistPhilip Hunsu AjoseThird Pastor · 1932–2001

Baba Philip Hunsu Ajose was born on 10 August 1932 in Badagry, Lagos State, where his father co-founded the United Methodist African Church at Eleja. He attended St Thomas Primary School, Badagry, and trained in mechanical engineering with the Nigeria Ports Authority.

In 1951 he joined the Electric Corporation of Nigeria, rising to Superintendent District Manager at Badagry. Wherever he was posted he planted Celestial parishes, more than 200 in all. In 1976 he left the corporation to serve the church full-time.

In 1979 Papa Oshoffa sent him to London to lead the Overseas Diocese in place of the pioneer Shepherd Overseas, Paul O. Okuneye. There he received the 29 October 1982 letter naming him a Superior Evangelist.

He succeeded Baba Bada as Pastor in October 2000, was formally declared Pastor on 24 December 2000, and was enthroned on 24 February 2001. He died on 2 March 2001, six days later.

He was buried on 30 March 2001 at the conference centre of the Celestial City, Imeko.

Sources: Papa Oshoffa’s letter to Superior Evangelist P.H. Ajose, 29 October 1982 (original, Yoruba and English); Afe Adogame, CESNUR 2002; Dictionary of African Christian Biography (Oshoffa, Bada); Wikipedia, Philip Hunsu Ajose; Beningate, 2010; ECC Arbre de Vie; ECC Porto-Novo memorial pages.

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