Bishop Vincent Mduduzi Zungu, OFM, has led the Diocese of Port Elizabeth since 2014, bringing to the role a lifetime of Franciscan formation, pastoral ministry, and leadership within his religious order across Africa.

He was born on 28 April 1966 in the village of Mbongolwane, in the Diocese of Eshowe, KwaZulu-Natal. He entered the Franciscan Order (OFM) on 18 January 1988, making his simple profession the following year and his solemn vows in 1994. He studied Philosophy and Theology at St. John Vianney Major Seminary in Pretoria, and was ordained a priest on 8 July 1995. He later earned a Licentiate in Moral Theology from the Catholic University of Strasbourg, France.

In the years before his appointment as Bishop, he served the Franciscan Order in a range of formation and leadership roles: as assistant priest in the Mission of Hardenberg, as Master of Novices and Guardian of the Franciscan convent at Besters, as a professor and provincial vicar at St. John Vianney Major Seminary, and as Provincial of the Franciscans in South Africa. At the time of his episcopal appointment, he was serving in Rome as Definitor General for Africa and the Middle East within the Franciscan Order’s General Curia.

On 2 February 2014, Pope Francis appointed him Bishop of Port Elizabeth. He was ordained and installed as Bishop on 28 June 2014 at the Missionvale Campus of Nelson Mandela University, by Archbishop Stephen Brislin of Cape Town, at the time.

Bishop Zungu brings the spirituality of St. Francis of Assisi, simplicity, closeness to the poor, and care for creation into his leadership of the Diocese, echoing the very themes of our diocesan Pastoral Plan: evangelization, justice and peace, and care of creation and the environment.