With Kabwe and Solwezi as suffragan dioceses, the new metropolitan see has begun with 187 priests (106 diocesan and 81 religious), 151 religious brothers, 340 religious sisters, 143 major seminarians, and several catechists.
Phiri has been serving as bishop of Ndola since his installation in August 2020.
Born in June 1959 in the Diocese of Chipata, Phiri was ordained a priest of the same episcopal see in September 1986. He holds a licentiate in canon law from the Pontifical Urban University (Urbaniana) in Rome.
Phiri previously served as the national director of the Zambia Conference of Catholic Bishops’ pastoral office and director of the vocational pastoral ministry in his native Diocese of Chipata, where he also began his episcopal ministry as auxiliary bishop in April 2011.
Previously as a priest, he also served as a personal secretary of the former bishop of Chipata, Medardo Mazombwe, who in November 1996 was appointed archbishop of Lusaka and, after his retirement in October 2006, elevated to cardinal in November 2010. He died in August 2013.
In his 2024 Lenten message, Phiri called on Christians in Zambia to nurture a relationship with the person of Jesus Christ and maintain their focus on him amid “many” challenges.
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