Sudan, Christianity in

Sudan, Christianity in. The ancient Church of Nubia, in Northern Sudan, died out in the 16th cent. Christianity returned to the Upper Nile in the 19th. In 1846 a Vicariate Apostolic of Central Africa was created, and RC missionaries (including D. Comboni) worked to establish the Church in Khartoum and up the Nile. Missionary work came to an end in the Mahdist rising of 1881, but began again when an Anglo-Egyptian condominion over Sudan was established in 1899. No direct evangelization was allowed in the mainly Muslim North, but in the South the Verona Fathers returned and were joined by the CMS and American Presbyterian Mission. All education in the South was in the hands of missionaries. In 1946 government policy changed: the South was to be integrated with the Muslim North in preparation for independence, which came in 1956. In 1957 Church schools were nationalized, and the remaining missionaries expelled in 1964. Although the churches were deprived of clergy outside the main towns, Church membership increased as Southerners found a Christian identity over against the Muslim North. The World Council of Churches and the All Africa Conferences of Churches largely brokered the 1972 Addis Ababa Agreement between the Sudanese government and the South Sudan Liberation Movement. It was, however, steadily abandoned by the government, hostilities were resumed in 1985, and in the 1990s civil war and famine rendered the position of the Christians desperate.