HOW IS THE GOLD BECOME DIM! Serial 3 of 7: Wednesday April 23, 2025

Chapter Two: A Brief History of the C&S Society 

Chapter Two: A Brief History of the C&S Society

 

Several historical accounts have been written on the C&S Society. Many are excellent and serious works, including the book by Peel: Aladura, A religion Movement Among the Yoruba (O.U.P., 1968) and the three books by Omoyajowo: Cherubim and Seraphim, the History of an African Independent church (NOK Publishers, Lagos, 1982); Diversity in Unity; the Development and Expansion of the Cherubim and Seraphim Church in Relation to Church Nigeria (UPA, NEW York, 1984); and Cherubim and Seraphim Church in Relation to Church, Society, and State (Claverianum Press Ibadan 1976). There are hundreds of other books and booklets on the same subjects, including a good number of myths! We briefly recall here some of the salient points in these scholarly tomes.

 The two central figures in the establishment of the Cherubim and Seraphim Society, no doubt, are Moses Orimolade Tunolase and Captain Abiodun Emmanuel, nee Akinsowon. A third important figure often unacknowledged, would be Chief Jacob Kehinde Coker, “Chief of Founders” of the African Church.

 

2.1.      MOSES ORIMOLADE TUNOLASE

 Moses Orimolade, born in the late1870s, hailed from a ruling house in Ikare in the present Ondo state of Nigeria. There are several mythological accounts surrounding his birth which are rather difficult to verify; but if these were meant to add to his stature by his followers, it certainly would be unnecessary. Afterall, the Lord Jesus Christ Himself chose to come to earth as a very ordinary weak babe. What was generally agreed to however, was that Orimolade was confined for some years of the early part of his life due to an unnamed, mysterious illness, with the expectation that he would die. According to an account;1

“During the period of his illness, he was taught by the Holy Spirit how to read the

Bible and memorize whatever he read. This time of separation consisted of study,

prayer and fasting. It is also recorded that Orimolade stated that he saw continuous

visions for seven years during which he could not get up from one spot as a result of

being unable to walk. At the end of his illness, he became a lame man, but God made

him to walk miraculously. The period spent in confinement represented Orimolade's

heavenly training and preparation for his missionary work. He emerged from his

isolation full of wisdom and the power of God”.

He was reportedly baptized in 1901 at St. Stephens Church Ikare by a priest from Ado –Ekiti.

 Prophet Moses Orimolade spent a huge amount of his early ministry in what can only be likened to the missionary journeys of the early believers who through their itinerant ministries ensured that the gospel was shared to nations previously unreached.

However, before he became an itinerant preacher, he was very much a “church boy.” Here is an account that has been corroborated by many ²;

“At age 5, he went into St Stephen’s Anglican Church (C.M.S)-the only church at Ikare and sang alone. The strange light and sound in the church drew the attention of the resident minister who went to investigate. On opening the door, there was nobody except a young boy, that sat down and was singing alone - yet it sounded like a multitude of people singing. When Orimolade was asked who was in the church singing he answered, “We are”. This incident popularized Orimolade in the town and the Minister asked the young boy to come and teach the church some songs.”

 His love for music cannot be overstated, and it would go on to play a major role in the Cherubim and Seraphim Society.

 By about 1920, Moses Orimolade had visited several towns and villages not only in the Yoruba-speaking areas of Nigeria but as far east into the then Mid-Western state and as far North as Kano. He preached the Christian Gospel and made multitudes of converts. According to virtually all reports available, Moses Orimolade, though a stark illiterate, was quite able to quote very fluently and extensively from the Bible. This ability together with the several miracles, especially healing, attributed to him certainly contributed to his immense success as an itinerant preacher. All his converts he duly directed to already existing Christian churches in the locality or where none existed, he “organized his converts into a small congregation and named it after the predominant Christian denomination in the area”³. The feasibility of this latter assertion is unclear.  However, there is no doubting the fact that Orimolade’s heart was fixed solely on the assignment of spreading the message of the gospel as far as he could take it and he certainly was not interested in starting a denomination of his own. The nobility of this cannot be overstated, although many have argued that this only highlights his limitations as a man. Some critics even saw it as evidence of a very troubling “lack of foresight”

 On July 12, 1924, Orimolade finally arrived in Lagos (supposedly on invitation, so he could pray against the ocean surges), and lived with the sexton of the Holy Trinity Anglican Church, Ebute-Ero, where Archdeacon T.A, J. Ogunbiyi (later arch-critic of the C&S Society, was the Vicar). He was later expelled from the parsonage on September 11 following disagreements with Ogunbiyi, probably because of Orimolade’s close interaction with the African Church. But there were also reports that it was because Orimolade refused to commercialize his activities, especially the holy water. He next moved in with African Church’s Chief J.K. Coker on his Ifako farm and was there till December 20 before moving to the Chief’s residence at Ita-Balogun. He thus continued his ministry in Lagos, with Chief Coker taking him “round the district in his car to preach in African churches”.

 This extensive interaction with Chief J.K. Coker and the African church in general no doubts had considerable influence on Moses Orimolade which will be discussed later on in this chapter; but it was at this stage that he, as an itinerant preacher and faith healer, was invited to help out when Captain Abiodun Emmanuel, who was then a very young lady, apparently became mysteriously sick.

 Mose Orimolade died in the early morning of October 19, 1933, in Ojokoro, Lagos. He was guest of Rev J.D. Oguntolu of the Methodist Church.  Orimolade owned no material properties, and was celibate all his life.

 

 2.2       CAPTAIN ABIODUN EMMANUEL

 Christianah Abiodun Akinsowon (Captain Abiodun) was born on December 25, 1907 in Porto-Novo, now capital of the Benin republic. Her father was a lay preacher and organist in the Methodist church, but he later joined the United Native African Church. Abiodun herself had her education in various Mission schools, first a Catholic school, later Methodist Schools at Ago Ijaye and Ereko, and finally the Baptist Academy where she finished her schooling in the 1920s. She was a member of the choir of St Paul’s Anglican Church, Breadfruit, Lagos, where she was confirmed on May 24, 1925 by the Anglican Bishop of Lagos, Melville Jones, and his Assistant Bishop Isaac Oluwole.

 On June 18 1925, Captain Abiodun went to Campos Square in Lagos to watch the Roman Catholic celebration of “Corpus Christi” where an angel who had been visiting her regularly in her sleep had once again appeared to her and this time followed her home. A week after this, she went into a prolonged trance during which she claimed that she went or had been taken by her angel friend to the “Celestial City” where she had several spiritual experiences. She was taken as afflicted by some strange disease and the Baba Aladura was invited, (some reports say at her request), to come pray for her. She later related in her published book that she was “released” to stay back on earth by the angels that had accompanied her back from the “Celestial City” only because the Baba Aladura was able to answer some spiritual questions posed at him, presumably thus satisfying them she could be entrusted into his care.

 People started to pour in to hear Abiodun’s incredible story and behold the miracles that were being done. It was these gatherings which soon turned to an explosion that led Moses Orimolade to suggest they form a spiritual Society, where people could meet to pray and worship God in a charismatic interdenominational setting, apart from their regular churches which they would still be attending.

  

2.3       THE ROLE OF AFRICAN CHURCH MEMBERS

 From these humble beginning, the C&S Society soon launched out on extensive evangelization missions into the interior of the country apart from Lagos. These were huge successes. Unfortunately, the successes, it would appear, also led to series of negative developments and the Society soon fragmented into three units by the end of 1929. Endless schism and litigations have since become hallmarks of the Society. Unfortunately, because the Appeal Court allowed schismatic factions to still stick to the name “Cherubim and Seraphim”, the C&S ran into the peculiar problem that seventy years after its genesis, it has become a difficult task, determining who is the original C&S and what it looked like. This peculiar situation has led to the emergence of a number of practices, norms and doctrines which this book sets out to examine.

 The question has always been interesting; how is the C&S able to develop into a Church at all given the circumstances of its origins which were by no means special or even unique? There have been many itinerant faith leaders even before Moses Orimolade, and there have been other events as dramatic as Abiodun’s vision.  Indeed, in 1929, another young lady Akanke Igbalaolu, had virtually the same experience at Abeokuta.

C&S apologists will quickly say that the Society was ordained from heaven after 40 years of pleading from Jesus and the Father spending yet another 40 years considering the plea. Granted that this could be true, still the question is what provided the inspiration to Moses Orimolade, who had consistently refused either to form a Church or even join the established ones (e.g. he had persistent offers from the African Church)? What could have prompted him to form an organization which later blossomed into a Church? It is in this light that his many interactions with the African Church and Chief J.K. Coker in particular become pertinent. There can be very little doubts that Moses Orimolade was heavily influenced by the leaders of the African church, an issue that is well discussed by Omoyajowo4

“…..the concept of church which was developed in the urban milieu of Lagos, Agege, with its planters, bred the evangelical school of thought. There, the planters, who remained Yoruba to the core, had combined European economic techniques with African social conditions, thus discovering a system which provided the benefits of Europe without destroying the social fiber of Africa (Weber). The school of thought was not satisfied with the measure of indigenization. Weber observes that to the Agege group, Lagos thinking, which took no account of the interior but only of the few thousands in Lagos, lacked evangelical fire.”

 These postulates of Omoyajowo, derived in part from Weber’s earlier conjectures, are well supported by the fact that on August 13, 1925 ‘The African Church Evangelistic Society (ACES)’ was formed “to evangelize the continent of Africa ordained by God to assist the African church.” This Society took off in the same 10 Balogun street residence of J.K. Coker where Orimolade had stayed. The ACES was strongly resisted by the General Committee of the African Church and according to Dada⁵, on reading the letter sent by the ACES to the General Committee setting out their aims, “…all speakers were against the ACES and passed the resolution:

‘that the General Committee of the African Church cannot accede to the request of the ACES but shall closely watch the activity with interest provided it does not interfere with the Districts already created by the African Church”.

 There, indeed, were interferences between the ACES and the established African church districts, and more relevant to this book, the C&S Society was recognized as one of the creations of the ACES. According to the account by Dada⁶:

“By 1927, the relationship between the ACES and the African Church was then far from normal…The African Church was ready to fight the ACES face to face and to show that it was following its activities so far, when in one of its General Committee Meetings it passed the resolution to bar the “Seraphic” movement from its church”.

Dada explained the implication of this further⁶:

“This was the first conclusive evidence that the Seraphim and Cherubim Society originated from the activities of the ACES and under the support of J.K. Coker on his Agege plantation. The second evidence that the Seraphic movement started from them was then the statement made by Father Ekundayo Coker, a son of J.K. Coker, in an article in a newspaper that, Moses Orimolade, the direct founder of the movement came to his father on August 31 1924, and worked on the farm for many years”.

  The active participation of an African church clergyman, Rev Berber, in receiving and deciphering the name for the Society, is yet another pointer to the fact that the evangelistic minded African Church members saw the Seraphim Movement as their very own organization.

 

 2.4 THE C&S  SOCIETY AFTER 1929

 Thus formed, the C&S Society continued to operate as an evangelistic interdenominational assembly with members still attending their different churches. Even when the Society moved into the interior of the country (away from Lagos), it still continued to operate along this line. One of the early problems in Ondo, for instance, was the allegation by some Anglican Churches that new converts made by the Seraphim Society were being sent to rival parishes.  The District Officer. at Ife in a confidential report on the C&S on 26^th May 1931 had also observed⁷:

“The meetings are in the nature of prayer meetings and the Society counts persons from all Churches in its attendance”

 Describing the C&S of this same year 1931, Rev Josiah Akindayomi, later to found the Redeemed Christian Church of God, noted in his autobiography⁸:

“In 1931, I went to join the Cherubim and Seraphim Society with the hope that this would satisfy my conscience.  At that time the Cherubim and Seraphim church was very good since they stood on the truth to the extent that they did not add to or subtract anything from the word of God.  I was very glad and joyous that I found what my heart needed.

“The Cherubim and Seraphim Society did not take any medications.  If somebody was ill, he or she would be prayed for, and the Lord would hear and the person would be healed.  That was when, I started to hear a silent voice in my heart saying, “You will be my servant.”

 However, the schisms that entered the Society in 1929 soon started bearing negative fruits.  The first schism involved Captain Abiodun separating herself from Orimolade, following Orimolade’s suggestion of that course of action. With the intervention of the police, Orimolade had written to Abiodun⁹:

“I am therefore asking you through this letter to inform you to form your own Society taking with you all the members as are willing to follow and cooperate with you.”

 In July 1929, William Folarin Sosan who was the private Secretary to the Alake of Abeokuta, Oba Ladipo Samuel Ademola, had attempted, at the instance of his principal, to nip in the bud the seething division between Moses Orimolade and Captain Abiodun.  However, the efforts proved abortive, and in December of the same year, the first schism in the C&S Society occurred.  Months later, the Prayer Band of the Society (under the leadership of Ezekiel Davies) also left to form an independent Organization. When further efforts to reconcile the three factions failed to produce any tangible results, the C&S churches from the seven major cities in the Yoruba hinterland in 1933 also proclaimed independence to form the Western Conference of the C&S Society, under the leadership of W.F. Sosan.

 With time, each faction started introducing new innovations and assumed some form of distinctiveness from the others. Later at different times, each faction finally constituted themselves into separate churches by incorporating Sunday morning services and other sacraments of the Church such as baptism and marriage.

 This transformation from an interdenominational spiritual Society into a Church denomination still remains to be perfected. (The PhD thesis by Timothy Baiyewu at the Bayreuth University¹⁰ was partly devoted to studying this transformation). In many C&S factions, the Constitutions are yet to be amended to reflect this big change, and no Articles of Faith are generally issued. Also, even till today sacraments such as the Holy Communion still remains a once-a-year affair in many a C&S church. Seventy years (as at 1995) after the founding of the Society, it still is running after the much elusive “unity”.  Seeing the enormous differences in the various congregations that go by the tag “C&S” and the spirit of the independence that reigns freely, the big question is what would be the price for such a "unity”?

 

NOTES

1.The Malachi Project Wiki. https://themalachiproject.fandom.com/

2. "A Biography of St. Moses Orimolade Tunolase." Kingdomers. https://kingdomers.com/a-biography-of-st-moses-orimolade-tunolase/.

3. "Moses Orimolade Tunolase." Dictionary of African Christian Biography.  https://dacb.org/stories/nigeria/orimolade-moses/

4. Omoyajowo, J. A. Cherubim and Seraphim: The History of an African Independent Church. New York: NOK Publishers, 1982.. pg 9

5. Dada S.A. A History of the African Church. AOWA Printers and Publishers, Ibadan. 1986. Pg 65.

6. Dada. Ibid. pg. 66

7. National Archives, Ibadan.  File OYOPROF1:661

8. Josiah O. Akindayomi: This is my Story (in English and Yoruba).  An authentic posthumous Autobiography of Revered Josiah O. Akindayomi.   One Hour Books, USA, 2010. Pgs 3 – 4.

9.     Institute for Religious Research. African Indigenous Churches — Chapter Ten. https://irr.org/african-indigenous-churches-chapter-ten

10. Timothy Baiyewu. The Transformation of Aladura Christianity in Nigeria A Dissertation submitted in fulfillment of the requirements for the award of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D). Bayreuth International Graduate School of African Studies (BIGSAS) University of Bayreuth, Germany. October 2014.