Prophet (Saint) Moses Orimolade Tunolase, who is revered by millions across Nigeria and the wider world as Baba Aladura (“Father of Prayer”), is one of the most significant figures in the history of African Christianity. He is the founder of the first indigenous African Independent Church movement, generally known as the White Garment Churches: the Eternal Sacred Order of the Cherubim and Seraphim, established in 1925. His life, defined by physical weakness, extraordinary faith, and supernatural power, changed the landscape of Christianity in Nigeria forever.
Birth and Early Life
Moses Orimolade Tunolase was born in 1879 into the quarters of the royal family of Omoba Ode Sodi of Okorun, in Ikare, in present-day Ondo State, Nigeria. His father’s name was Tunolase, a powerful oracle consultant and herbalist and his mother’s name was Abigail Odijoroto. He was the third of six children, with three brothers and two sisters.
From before his birth, those closest to him sensed he was no ordinary child. His mother recounted that while pregnant and working on a farm, she heard a voice directing her on how to lift a bundle of firewood she could not move on her own. She looked around and found no one and the voice, as she came to understand, was the child in her womb.
When he was born, his parents had mixed feelings of excitement at the new addition to their family, but also embarrassment at the strange circumstances of his birth. The midwife who delivered him, frightened by the unusual events, reportedly held him down forcefully. Members of the Cherubim and Seraphim believe this, combined with incantations spoken by his herbalist father to calm the situation, resulted in Orimolade’s prolonged paralysis.
Orimolade could neither stand nor walk until he was well over five years of age. In an effort to get him help, his parents brought him to St. Stephen’s Anglican Church - the only church in the Yoruba town of Ikare at the time. He was often left in the custody of the clergyman at this Church Missionary Society establishment of the Anglican Communion.
A Voice Like Many Waters: Early Signs
It was within those church walls that the first public signs of Orimolade’s extraordinary calling appeared. One night, a minister heard what sounded like a choir singing inside the church. Astonished, he went to investigate - only to find a single boy, about five years old, singing alone yet sounding like a multitude. When the minister asked who was in the church, Orimolade answered, “We are.” Amazed, the minister employed the young Orimolade to teach the church spiritual songs.
Conversion and Divine Commissioning
After his conversion in the 1890s, Orimolade underwent various spiritual experiences associated with his permanent lameness. Although illiterate all his life, he acquired considerable ability to quote the Bible.
Before the start of his public ministry, Orimolade received what can only be described as divine visitations — a vision and a dream. In the vision, he was directed to take water from a flowing stream and wash his legs. He obeyed, and partially regained the use of his legs, though he limped for the rest of his life. In the dream, an angel appeared and gave him three objects: a rod, a royal insignia, and a crown. The rod signified victory; the insignia denoted the unction to make divine utterances; and the crown indicated that God had endowed him with honour such that people would bow before him to receive blessing.
Armed with this commission, Orimolade became a wandering evangelist across Ondo State and then ranged widely across Nigeria, stressing healing, visions, and the power of prayer. He preached in Benin - where, it is said, he rebuked people for worshipping an idol fed with human blood, commanding them to destroy it and teaching them to worship God — and continued through Delta, Kwara, and Niger States before settling in Lagos around 1924.
The Founding of the Cherubim and Seraphim
The event that would ignite one of the most consequential movements in African church history occurred on 18 June 1925. The Aladura Band — the prayer group around Orimolade — was called to the rescue of a young girl named Abiodun Akinsowon, who had fallen into a trance after a Corpus Christi procession. She remained unconscious for 21 days under the care of the Band. When she regained consciousness, she joined them and became the first visioner of the group.
Orimolade received considerable public attention following this event. He and Abiodun Akinsowon subsequently partnered - as father and adopted daughter - to heal and pray for people across Lagos.
The name of the group was formally changed to the Seraph Band on 9 September 1925 by Moses Orimolade. Then, on 26 March 1926, the name Cherubim was added by spiritual injunction - to reflect the heavenly representation of both orders of angels. The band was fully formed and functional by the end of 1925.
The movement’s worship was marked by candles, incense, holy water, and white garments, combining fervent prayer, singing, prophecy, and healing — setting a new tone for indigenous forms of Christian devotion in Africa.
Theological Legacy and Core Teachings
Prophet Orimolade’s approach attracted those who were dissatisfied with the strict formalism of mission churches. He insisted that true deliverance came through prayer, fasting, and reliance on the Holy Spirit - not charms or syncretic practices.
His key teachings included the necessity of moral holiness, the efficacy of persistent prayer and fasting, the immediacy of the Holy Spirit’s guidance, and the centrality of healing and deliverance. He is credited as one of the first Aladura prophets to introduce faith healing into Nigerian Christianity, and a primus inter pares among the earliest itinerant prophets to establish the Aladura spiritual phenomena of clairvoyance and clairaudience.
Growth, Schism, and Incorporation
The movement’s rapid growth brought both blessing and tension. By the late 1920s and into the 1930s, the movement had expanded broadly across southern Nigeria. Rapid growth generated organisational strains and leadership tensions, and from the late 1920s several branches emerged.
In 1930, a committee of elders was chosen to draft Articles of Association in preparation for incorporation. The first draft was rejected by Moses Orimolade because of a clause that transferred executive power and control of the band to its membership. Upset, the authors withdrew to form the Praying Band of the Eternal Sacred Order of the Cherubim and Seraphim under Ezekiel Davies. The northern branches continued as the Holy Order of the Cherubim and Seraphim Movement. The mother band was then renamed and incorporated in 1930 as the Eternal Sacred Order of the Cherubim and Seraphim (ESOC&S), with Moses Orimolade as Sole Founder and Supreme Head - Baba Aladura.
Personal Life and Vow of Celibacy
During his lifetime, Moses Orimolade neither married nor had children. According to a cousin who still lived in the family home, Orimolade told his family that he had chosen to be a eunuch, specifically one who became a eunuch to serve God. He told them that though they could marry, that was not his path. He declared that his children would be like the sand of the seashore, a prophecy his family initially found confusing, but one that has been amply fulfilled as the Aladura sect has multiplied to countless adherents worldwide.
Death and Enduring Legacy
After leaving his earlier base, Prophet Orimolade continued preaching across Nigeria through Benin, Delta, Kwara, Niger, and finally Lagos, where he died in 1933. He was buried at Ikare, and his grave remains a site of veneration.
Before his death, he prophesied that the Cherubim and Seraphim would spread worldwide — a prophecy that has indeed come to pass, with the church now known across continents and with different branches under it.
The Cherubim and Seraphim movement endured, multiplying into numerous branches with millions of adherents across Nigeria, West Africa, and diasporic communities. Its musical forms, prophetic practices, and liturgical creativity influenced the development of later Pentecostal and prophetic movements.
Moses Orimolade is affectionately called Saint Orimolade by members of the Cherubim and Seraphim movement — a man of faith, a charismatic leader, a genius, described as “the mysterious and a truly humble man of God.” He remains, to this day, one of the most towering figures in the history of the African church.
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