To spot the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Abidjan, look ahead for a dramatic building with a sweeping, curving roof and a strikingly tall, white cross rising above the lush green hillside-like a giant reaching for the sky!
Now, imagine yourself in the late 1800s, when this site was more jungle than city, with the future archdiocese just a hope in the hearts of a few daring missionaries. The story starts in 1895, when it was nothing more than an Apostolic Prefecture, carved from the neighboring Gold Coast-today’s Ghana. Fast-forward through a whirlwind of change: in 1911, it became an Apostolic Vicariate, and by 1940, Abidjan finally had its name shining on the ecclesiastical map. The suspense kept building until 1955, when, like an underdog in a football story, it rose to become a Metropolitan Archdiocese! Here, leaders came and went-kind of like coaches, but with more incense. Archbishop Boivin saw it through thick and thin; Cardinal Bernard Yago called plays from the altar for decades; then came Bernard Agré and Jean-Pierre Kutwa, rising to cardinals themselves. Today, Archbishop Ignace Bessi Dogbo takes up the baton. Behind the modern facade and dramatic curves of St. Paul’s Cathedral, this archdiocese watches over Abidjan with a history as layered and lively as the city itself.
