The Celestial Church of Christ is an African Initiated Church

African Initiated Church

An African Initiated Church is any of a number of Christian churches independently started in Africa by Africans and not by missionaries from another continent, in which they sometimes hold to one or more African tribal belief systems syncretised with Christianity.-Nomenclature:A variety of...

 founded by the Rev. Samuel Biléhou Joseph Oschoffa on 29 September 1947 in Porto-Novo

Porto-Novo

Porto-Novo is the official capital of the West African nation of Benin, and was the capital of French Dahomey. The commune covers an area of 110 square kilometres and as of 2002 had a population of 223,552 people.Porto-Novo is a port on an inlet of the Gulf of Guinea, in the southeastern portion...

, Benin

Benin

Benin , officially the Republic of Benin, is a country in West Africa. It borders Togo to the west, Nigeria to the east and Burkina Faso and Niger to the north. Its small southern coastline on the Bight of Benin is where a majority of the population is located...

. Mainly located in Africa and in the Afro-descendant communities in the world, particularly in Benin and Nigeria, the church is one of the most important ones from the movement Aladura

Aladura

Aladura is a religion founded c.1922–1930 in West Nigeria by various people, with around 1 million adherents worldwide."Aladura" means "Praying People" in Yoruba....

.
The movement was founded by Samuel Joseph Bilewu Oschoffa, a former carpenter born in Dahomey

Dahomey

Dahomey was a country in west Africa in what is now the Republic of Benin. The Kingdom of Dahomey was a powerful west African state that was founded in the seventeenth century and survived until 1894. From 1894 until 1960 Dahomey was a part of French West Africa. The independent Republic of Dahomey...

 (now Benin) in 1909.