The Church of the Province of West Africa is a province of the Anglican Communion, covering 17 dioceses in eight countries of West Africa, specifically in Cameroon, Cape Verde, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Liberia, Senegal and Sierra Leone. Ghana is the country with most dioceses, now numbering 11. History Missionary work began in Ghana in 1752. The Church of the Province of West Africa was established in 1951 by the bishops of five West African dioceses (Accra, Lagos, Niger, Sierra Leone and the Diocese of Gambia and Guinea) with the consent of the Archbishop of Canterbury. In 1977 they were joined by the Diocese of Liberia. In February 1979, the new Church of Nigeria was inaugurated as a separate province. In 1981 Sierra Leone was divided into the Diocese of Freetown and the new missionary Diocese of Bo and four new Ghanaian dioceses of Cape Coast, Koforidua, Sekondi and Sunyani/Tamale were formed. In 1985 the Gambia and Guinea diocese was partitioned into English-speaking Gambia and French-speaking Guinea. The Diocese of Asante Mampong, previously a suffragan see to Kumasi, was inaugurated in November 2014. The final total of 17 represents 11 dioceses in Ghana and 6 in the other seven nations. For this reason actions are in hand to move towards making Ghana a separate province. The country already has the status of an "internal province", the archbishop of which was until 2019 the Primate of the whole Province of West Africa. Today, the church has to survive in areas of civil unrest where Christians remain a small minority. List of archbishops 1951–1955 Leslie Gordon Vining (Bishop of Lagos) 1955–1961 James Lawrence Cecil Horstead (Bishop of Sierra Leone) 1961–1969 Cecil John Patterson (Bishop on the Niger) 1969–1981 Moses Nathanael Christopher Omobiala Scott (Bishop of Sierra Leone) 1981–1982 Ishmael Mills Le-Maire (Bishop of Accra) 1982–1989 George Daniel Browne (Bishop of Liberia) 1993–2003 Robert Garshong Allotey Okine (Bishop of Koforidua, Ghana) 2003–2012 Justice Ofei Akrofi (Bishop of Accra) 2012–2014 Solomon Tilewa Johnson (Bishop of Gambia and the Rio Pongas, and Archbishop of the internal province of West Africa) 2014–2019 Daniel Sarfo (Bishop of Kumasi, and Archbishop of the internal province of Ghana) 2019–2022 Jonathan B. B. Hart (Bishop of Liberia and Archbishop of the Internal Province of West Africa) 2022–present Cyril Kobina Ben-Smith (Bishop of Asante Mampong and Archbishop of the Church of the Province of West Africa) Membership Today, there are over one