The Rev. Canon Dr. Albert Ncube, headmaster of St Columba’s High School in Bulawayo, has been elected the next Bishop of Matabeleland. He will fill the see left vacant when the Rt. Rev. Cleophas Lunga moved to a parish in south London.
The Elective Assembly of the Church of the Province of Central Africa met on 31 October 2026 at St John the Baptist Cathedral in Bulawayo and chose Canon Ncube, the cathedral announced on Facebook the following day.
“We started the day with a vacant Cathedra in St John the Baptist Cathedral in the Diocese of Matabeleland, Bulawayo in Zimbabwe. By midday we had the Bishop-elect, the Revd Canon Albert Ncube,” wrote the Rt. Rev. William Mchombo, Bishop of Upper Shire in Malawi, on Facebook. “The 28 days Si Quis has begun leading to the Court of Confirmation. By the grace of God, the consecration service will take place in early January 2027.”
The election is not yet final. In its statement of congratulations, St Columba’s said confirmation “is expected at the end of the 28-day Si Quis period, commencing on 31 October 2026.” The Si Quis is a public notice inviting objections to a candidate’s consecration.
Central African bishops are chosen by a joint diocesan and provincial body rather than by the diocesan synod alone. As reported in 2009, the elective assembly had 21 members: six clergy and six lay members from the diocese, plus three bishops, three clergy, and three lay members from the province. Election required a two-thirds majority. If the assembly could not agree, it could hand the appointment to the Episcopal Synod or to the Archbishop of Canterbury.
Congratulations came quickly from across the province. The Diocese of Harare congratulated Matabeleland “on the peaceful election of your Bishop-elect,” and the province’s Green Anglicans environmental network said, “Behold the Bishop-elect of the Diocese of Matabeleland.”
Canon Ncube is the school head at St Columba’s, an Anglican mixed day school founded in 1979 in Makokoba, one of Bulawayo’s oldest suburbs]. At the school’s prize-giving in September, he told The Herald that the school was putting computers in nearly every classroom and had opened an innovation hub. “The world is changing day by day and it is our duty as humans to catch up with new technologies,” he said.
He has also written about the finances and management of the diocese he will now lead. A 2025 article by Albert Mvundla Ncube of the graduate school at the National University of Science and Technology in Bulawayo argued that the Diocese of Matabeleland “has done a lot of programmes that address the spiritual wellbeing of followers, with less effort to address poverty and unemployment engulfing the Matabeleland region.” The article found that “leadership positions are determined on the basis of one’s spiritual acumen rather than a thorough understanding of the dynamics of business models for sustainability.” It recommended that strategic management become part of clergy training.
A companion study, published the same year in the Journal of Humanities, Educational Technology and Innovation, found that the diocese’s existing resources “can be reconfigured, reevaluated and repurposed to achieve social impact and sustainability.” It concluded that “churches should think beyond tithes and donations.”
Bishop Lunga, who was born in Bulawayo, was serving as a team rector in Coventry when the Matabeleland synod elected him in November 2008 to succeed the Rt. Rev. Wilson Sitshebo, who had died in office. In March 2026, the Diocese of Southwark announced that Bishop Lunga would become Vicar of St Laurence, Catford. The Southwark announcement noted that “during his 15 years as Bishop of Matabeleland, Bishop Cleophas has forged close and mutually beneficial links” with Southwark, whose Kingston Episcopal Area is the diocese’s companion link.
Bishop Lunga was licensed as priest-in-charge of St Laurence and as an honorary assistant bishop in Southwark on 24 September 2026. He was scheduled to be instituted as vicar on 26 October, five days before the Bulawayo election.
The diocese, which covers western Zimbabwe and includes Victoria Falls and Hwange National Park, was created in 1952. Its first bishop, William James Hughes, was enthroned in May 1953. The diocese marked its 70th anniversary in September 2023. Canon Ncube will be its eighth bishop.
The Si Quis period closes at the end of November, after which the province’s Court of Confirmation will rule on the election. Bishop Mchombo said the consecration is expected in early January 2027.