Cameroonian Community

Following immigration to the United States of America, many Cameroonians have found it spiritually enriching to establish native church communities where they can experience liturgical worship in ways that are consistent and meaningful to their native cultural experiences. Such immigrant church communities are known to serve as avenues for community building, experiencing togetherness, overcoming cultural isolation, and providing a stronghold for advocacy programs that help children of immigrants and their families. While the American culture might be new to many Cameroonian immigrants, the tenets of the Holy Mass remain the same but many people have expressed that attending regular Mass at the local parishes is not spiritually as uplifting as they experience back home. The isolating nature of their environment, coupled with language difficulties, make appreciating the celebration of Holy Mass in that setting very difficult.

It is for the above reasons that immigrant communities from Africa and other parts of the world have begun working together with the dioceses of their various localities to find ways of experiencing their spirituality within the context of their cultures of origin. This initiative started for the Cameroonian community in the D.C., Maryland and Virginia (DMV) metro area ten years ago, when the Maryland community was able to begin a Cameroonian Catholic Community hosted by the Church of the Resurrection Parish in Burtonsville, MD.

While the community in Burtonsville served all Cameroonians around the wider DMV metropolitan area, the Cameroonian Catholic population in Virginia began growing steadily and the need for their own community became inevitable. Rev. Father Eugen Nkardzedze would be the pioneer priest who would make this dream come true as he worked with the Office of Multicultural Ministries of the Diocese of Arlington. On July 6, 2013, the first Virginian Cameroon Catholic Community Mass would be celebrated at Our Lady of Good Counsel (OLGC) in Vienna, Virginia.

The current location of the monthly Mass celebrations for the Cameroonian Catholic Community is St. Mark Catholic Church in Vienna. Fr. Ignatius Chung, who resides at St. Mark’s as Parochial Vicar, doubly serves the Cameroonian Catholic Community as a spiritual leader.