Samuel Brako and the Gyidi Church: My little kept secret family history.

In 1914, my paternal great grandfather Samuel Kwame Brako (of blessed memory) founded a church at Osiem in the Eastern Region that today is known in Ghana and the world-over as Gyidi. Gyidi is the first Sabbath-based (Saturday-based) Church to be established in the Gold Coast independently by an African. 

Before founding the Church, my great grandfather was a member of the Methodist Church at Osiem and served as its campanologist. In the second decade of the 20th Century, he received series of revelations from the Lord Jesus Christ that culminated in the founding of the Gyidi Church. For more than three decades, Prophet Samuel Kwame Brako and his associates developed the church and spread it all over Colonial Ghana. Samuel Brako fashioned out a particular liturgy based on the belief of Jehovah God, Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit and the Bible (Old and New Testament).

Many who know the Gyidi Church know it as a respected, Bible-based, Holy Spirit-filled church. It preaches salvation to mankind through Christ and teaches all its members to be God-fearing, honest, objective, and live sin-free life.

Because members of the church wear long red robes in most occasions except on Saturdays where we wear white robes, the church is known to many as Gyidi Kɔkɔɔ. In the scholarly literature, the church is usually called Memeneda Gyidifo (Saturday Believers), Gyidi Kɔkɔɔ (believers who wear red), Saviour Church, and True Faith Church but it is same Gyidi church. 

When my great grandfather died in the 1940s, there was a power struggle among some of his senior aides to succeed him. As a result of the succession struggle, the Church split into two: Saviour Church with its headquarters at Osiem, Akim, and True Faith Church with its headquarters at Kwahu Praso in Kwahu, Eastern Region.

Today, both the True Faith Church and Saviour Church are alive and well and are continuing the work of its founder and leader. Currently both Saviour Church and True Faith Church have a total membership of between 200,000 and 300,000. Saviour Church has more than 375 branches across Ghana. True Faith Church has a similar number in Africa, Europe and North America. 

I was born into the church, have grown in it, have studied its principles and I have come to acknowledge that it is indeed a church that helps its adherents to obtain heaven. Asomdwoe (Peace be unto you all).

Written by Lord Adusei