African Orthodox Theological Institute

The Institute is where African Orthodox Academics does its theological work: research, seminars and workshops, alongside the taught programmes.

Mission demographers project that Africa will be home to the largest Christian population in the world by 2060. If that holds, the centre of Christianity moves to this continent within a generation — and the African Church becomes the Church that sends missionaries rather than the one that receives them: to Asia, to Australia, to Eastern and Western Europe, to the Americas.

That is the question the Institute exists to answer. A Church about to be sent needs clergy, theologians and leaders formed to go, and formation of that kind takes longer to build than the date allows. Scholarships open the schoolroom door. The Institute is the second arm of the same work, and the one with a deadline.

Pew Research Center, 2011; Philip Jenkins, The Next Christendom, 2011.

A three-year study of how Orthodox spirituality forms Christians, leaders, monastics and clergy in Africa — and a deliberate effort to get African Orthodox writers into print.

• 01ResearchResearch projects carried out under the Institute. Orthodox Spirituality and Spiritual Formation in Africa is the first, and runs to 2028.
• 02SeminarsSeminars held for clergy, students and the wider Church. Nothing is currently listed.
• 03WorkshopsWorking gatherings on the life of the Church in Africa. The writers' workshop of August 2026 is the most recent.

4 programmes and 74 courses across 9 departments, from the Certificate of Theology through to the Bachelor of Theology.