Apollo Kivebulaya

Apollo Kivebulaya was born around 1864 in Kiymi, Buganda. Initially serving as a soldier in the court of Kabaka Mwanga II during the religious upheavals of the 1880s, his baptism in 1895 inspired him to volunteer for missionary service in the distant western borderlands.

Ordained an Anglican priest, Kivebulaya crossed the Rwenzori Mountains into the dense Ituri Forest of the eastern Congo in 1896, establishing a mission at Boga. Enduring malaria, imprisonment, and death threats, he lived intimately among the Bambuti (Pygmy) communities, championing their human dignity and translating the Gospel of Mark into the indigenous KiKongo and Bambuti languages. Revered as an African saint, he requested to be buried with his head facing the Congo forest he loved.