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Name: CAYZAC, Joseph (Father)
Birth Date: 28.3.1871Séverac-l'Aveyron, France
Death Date: 28.4.1941 Zanzibar. North says France
Nationality: French
First Date: 1899 April
Profession: A Missionary of the Roman Catholic Congregation of the Holy Ghost and worked for many years in the Chania Bridge area
Area: Chania Bridge area, Thika
Book Reference: Gillett, Land 1903, EAHB 1905, KAD, Red 25, Hut, North, Red 22, EAHB 1904, Baur, Red 19
School: Royal University of Ireland
General Information:
Henry J. Koren, Spiritan East African Memorial, 1994: He was one of the 38 young priests who on August 15, 1896 made their vows at Orly. Assigned to Ireland, he taught at St. Mary's College Rathmines for two years.On August 10 1899 he and six others sailed together from Marseille to the Vicariate of North Zanguebar or to Madagascar. Bp. Allgeyer retained him in Zanzibar as his secretary while also looking after the schools and orphanages. In 1902 we find him as pastor of St. Austin's, Simonisdale (now Nairobi). By then there were some 800 non-African Catholics among the people who had settled there from every nation and among them numerous Goans. Thus there was need for a full-time pastor. Fr. Cayzac, however, was interested in working among the Kikuyu and by 1905 his wish could be granted. He had already helped to select a site for the first mission among these people. While Fr. Joseph Muller opened a station at Metumi and Fr. Paul Leconte started another one at Irate, he himself undertook the foundation of one on the Zeka river. In July 1906 they were thunderstruck when a letter arrived telling them that the whole Kenya province had been taken over by the Consolata Fathers and that they should fall back on Kiambu. From there he went on to Mangu, where much remained to be done to give this new mission a good foundation. After a trip to Europe in 1909 to collect funds, he returned as Religious Superior of the Spiritans in the vicariate till the appointment of Bp. John Neville, successor of Bp. Allgeyer, in January 1912. At the same time he continued to be also the local head of the stations in Kiambu and Mangu. During World War One he served as a chaplain to the Allied forces in Kenya and Tanganyika under rugged conditions. His health ruined, he had to return to Europe in 1920. He went back to Kiambu in 1923, but his stay was very brief.
In 1926 we find him in England at the Castlehead, Lancs., junior seminary of the Congregation; he soon became the superior of the house. From 1930 on he entered semi-retirement in France in various localities, still rendering what services he could, notably in the sanatoria of Bligny.