Blessed Cyprian Michael Iwene Tansi

Blessed Cyprian Michael Iwene Tansi was a Nigerian priest of the Igbo people and a zealous pastor, and later a Trappist monk at Mount Saint Bernard Abbey in England. He is the first Blessed from Nigeria. The Church commemorates him on January 20, the day of his death.

He was born in 1903 in the village of Igboezunu near Aguleri, in southern Nigeria. His parents, Tabansi and Ejikwevi, were poor farmers and were not Christians. They named their son Iwene, and when he was six they sent him to an aunt in a Christian village so that he could go to school. There the boy came to know the faith, and in 1912 he was baptized and received the name Michael.

In his youth he was a catechist and then a teacher: he taught in Aguleri and in Onitsha, and in 1923 he became headmaster of the school in Aguleri. In 1925, encouraged by his pastor but against the wishes of his relatives, he entered the seminary at Igbariam. He was ordained a priest on December 19, 1937, in the cathedral of Onitsha by Bishop Charles Heerey.

For thirteen years he worked in his home diocese: first as an assistant pastor in Nnewi, then as pastor of the parishes of Dunukofia, Akpu, and Aguleri. He preached the word of God, spent long hours hearing confessions, prepared young people for marriage, and defended the dignity of women, taking particular care for the education of girls. He supported the poor, widows, and pupils in need, and visited the sick and lepers. Among those he baptized was Francis Arinze, the future cardinal, who was a pupil in one of his schools. He drew his strength from Holy Mass and from long hours of adoration of the Blessed Sacrament.

Prayer and the reading of the writings of Abbot Columba Marmion awakened in him a desire for monastic life. Bishop Heerey, who hoped to plant contemplative life in Africa, agreed to his departure. In July 1950 Father Tansi arrived at the Trappist abbey of Mount Saint Bernard in Leicestershire. In the monastery he took the name Cyprian. In 1953 he made his first vows, and in 1956 his solemn vows. He asked for no concessions, although it was hard for him to get used to a foreign language, culture, and climate. He worked in the bookbindery, in the refectory, and in the fields, and he never stopped praying for his people.

He longed to return to Africa and help found a monastery there. When the abbey undertook a foundation in Cameroon, he was appointed novice master, but he did not live to make the journey. In January 1964 he fell suddenly ill, and on January 20 he died in a hospital in Leicester of an aortic aneurysm. He was buried at the abbey, and in 1986 his body was brought to Onitsha.

The beatification process began in the Archdiocese of Onitsha in 1986. John Paul II proclaimed Father Cyprian Blessed on March 22, 1998, at Oba near Onitsha. In his homily he called him a man of God and a man of the people who always put others before himself, and he urged the faithful to follow his example in bringing reconciliation with God and among people.