About the Catholic Archdiocese of Johannesburg
The Archdiocese of Johannesburg comprises the following districts: Johannesburg, Alberton, Balfour, Benoni, Boksburg, Brakpan, Carletonville, Delmas, Germiston, Heidelberg, Kempton Park, Krugersdorp, Nigel, Randburg, Randfontein, Roodepoort, Sandton, Soweto, Springs, Vereeniging, Vanderbijlpark, and Westonaria covering an area of 14 517sq.km.
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The Archdiocese is bounded on the West by the Diocese of Klerksdorp; on the South by the Vaal River; on the East by the Lydenburg-Witbank Diocese and the Diocese of Dundee; and on the North by the Archdiocese of Pretoria.
History
From October 1850 the territory of the Transvaal was under the jurisdiction of the Vicar Apostolic of Natal. The first Holy Mass was celebrated in 1854 in what was the former territory of the Transvaal.
In 1886 The Transvaal was separated from Natal and erected into an ecclesiastical Prefecture, under Rt Rev O Monginoux OMI.
The Transvaal became a Vicariate in 1904, with Bishop W Miller OMI as first Vicar Apostolic. The territory has since been subdivided, first in 1910, when the northern part was confided to the care of the Benedictines; then in 1923, when the Lydenburg Prefecture was formed under the Missionaries Sons of the Sacred Hear; then in 1948 when the Pretoria Vicariate was erected, and finally in 1965 when the Prefecture of the Western Transvaal was handed over to the Oblates of Mary Immaculate of the Belgian Province.
With the creation of the Ecclesiastical Hierachy in the Union of South Africa on the 11 January 1951, the previous Vicariate was raised to the status of a Diocese, under the Patronage of the Immaculate Conception.
On June 5, 2007, The Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, raised the Diocese of Johannesburg to the status of a Metropolitan Archdiocese and appointed the Most Reverend Buti Joseph Tlhagale, OMI, as its first Metropolitan Archbishop. The suffragan Sees of Manzini (Swaziland), Klerksdorp and Witbank fall under the Archdiocese of Johannesburg.
