A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF IGBO ANCESTORSHIP AND SAINTHOOD IN CHRISTIAN RELIGION

Sainthood among the Christians and ancestor worship among the adherents of African Traditional religion has been seen as a thing that is very sacrosanct in commemoration of both cults in the religious prototype. Ancestor-ship is charged with intercessory of the living. They are once humans before admittance after death into the comity of ancestors, while sainthood is the belief system of the Christians, which serves as mediators to them through God. In contrast, in the religious worldview among the adherents of the African Traditional Religion, the ancestors act as intermediaries in the extraterrestrial or spiritual landscape. It is one of the Igbo beliefs that life is not terminated after death and that their dead exist in another spiritual realm mirroring the activities of the living and determining their fate; that is why the Igbo ancestors are always remembered in every Igbo religious rituals and worships while they are also presumed to be present in meals with the living. The admittance into the ancestral cult is not automatic as several criteria are first put in place and considered: living a good life and dying at a ripe old age. On the other hand, Sainthood in the Christian worldview is perceived and used as a title of apostles of Jesus Christ having been acknowledged as holy and virtuous during their lifetime, Christian sainthood is believed to be in heaven after death, having lived a pious life also serves as an object of veneration and worship. This paper, a comparative study of Igbo ancestorship in an African traditional Religious context and Sainthood in the Christian religion, brings to bear the attributes/making of Igbo ancestors, their roles and their place in Igbo cosmology. It further looks into the Christian saints, their roles and place in Christian/African worship. This paper also focuses on the features or characteristics that showcase their convergences and divergences which evidently supports the two world religions using deification theory of Hecataeus which was propounded more than 4000 B.C in relation to where the study of comparative religious scholarship is concerned. This article establishes absurd of the Igbo ancestors disparagement by Christians despite sharing the same attribute and investigate these religious steps, using some religious hermeneutic keys, will try to analyze the phenomenon and to show that ancestors and saints are living dead that are venerated by both world religions. This paper also explores those qualities that are used as a yardstick for Sainthood and Ancestorship. It further notes that the condemnation and Christians denotation of Igbo Ancestor-ship to paganism amounts to religious chauvinism.

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