Actually, lots of early Church leaders were African. Origen, one of the major early Church historians, was African. In Acts 13 we see: 1 In the Church at Antioch, there were prophets and teachers: Barnabas, Simeon who was called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen who had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch, and Saul. Cyrene is in Africa. Which also means that Simon of Cyrene, who helped Jesus carry the cross, was African!
Three early Popes were directly from Africa.
Three early popes were African. Pope Victor I (AD 189-199) popularized Latin as the common language of the church, thereby making Christianity more democratic and accessible to ordinary people. Pope Melchaides (311-314, sometimes known as Meltiades) was persecuted prior to his reign as pope. He was considered one of the African Christian martyrs. Pope Gelasius I (A.D. 492-496) worked to settle conflicts in church and believed that “both civil and sacred powers are of divine origin, and independent, each in its own sphere.” ( https://www.cbeinternational.org/resource/hidden-africans-bible-and-early-church/ )
True. If you believe the out of Africa theory, everyone is of African descent. In the case of modern Italians and other southern Europeans, studies show that they have a measurable amount of Sub-Saharan African DNA that may be a result of Roman and Arab slave trade.
Perhaps “recent African descent” would be a better description.
Yes. The origin of man in Africa is not traceable in the DNA of most people today because it is too minute. But that’s where the family tree of each of us sprouted.
