History of the New Apostolic Church Southern Africa

It is probable that news of the calling of new Apostles, as it occurred within what would be later called the Catholic Apostolic Church, reached Southern Africa for the first time through Edward Irving, who maintained regular correspondence with a close friend and fellow Presbyterian minister, John Pears. John Pears was invited by the Dutch Reformed Church to minister to Scottish settlers and Dutch inhabitants in the Cape. After arriving on 3 March 1829, he also served as a minister in the Eastern Cape, where after a year, he returned to Cape Town in 1830. Here he was offered the position as Professor of Classics in the newly established South African College, which later became the University of Cape Town. According to the brochure, When the fulness of the time was come …, Irving seemed to have informed Pears about the reoccupation of the Apostle ministry in 1832, and the calling of six Apostles, until Irving passed away on 5 December 1834. Pears finally settled in Somerset East in the Eastern Cape where he served as a Dutch Reformed minister from 1841 until his death in 1866. The nearby town of Pearston was named after him.

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