New Delhi, April 11 -- The founder of one of Africa's largest independent churches spent 30 years in jail and died a prisoner, banished far from his home by Belgian colonial authorities who judged his activities to be dangerous.

Unexpectedly, Simon Kimbangu's religious movement spread across Congo and prospered enough that it now has followers even in Belgium, with pilgrims visiting a quaint village south of the Congolese capital of Kinshasa to pay homage to him.

April 6 has been marked in Congo as Kimbangu Day since 2023, a holiday to celebrate the "struggle of Simon Kimbangu and African consciousness." Some see him as the Nelson Mandela of Central Africa, with comparable suffering but not nearly the fame.

If Kimbangu's articulation o...