Roman Catholic Cardinal. Born in the small village of Mfinkabitoungou which has since ceased to exist, Émile Biayenda was the son of a farmer of the kòongó tradition. Frequenting the Catholic school of Mpangala between 1935 and 1937 and successively at Kindamba's Catholic mission from 1937 until 1942, he was received into the Catholic faith on May 7, 1938 receiving the name Émile on his baptism. Furthering his studies to Boundji's Catholic mission, he entered seminary in Brazzaville, being ordained priest there on October 26, 1958. Named vicar of the Sainte Marie of Ouenzé parish in August of the following year, he took care of the construction of the Saint Jean de Vianney parish church in Mouléké between March 1962 and July 1965 of which he was subsequently named its curate. National chaplain of the Legion of Mary between 1960 and 1965, he was put under house arrest and tortured along with two other priests after the said movement was deemed dangerous by some politicians. Eventually acquitted and freed, he was sent to Lyon to further his studies, earning a doctorate in sociology and a licentiate in theology in 1969. Back in Brazzaville, he was appointed episcopal vicar for apostolic works and archdiocesan commissions of Brazzaville on February 18, 1970 and assigned as vicar at Holy Spirit parish of Moungali. Appointed coadjutor to the see of Brazzaville with right of succession, he received his episcopal consecration with the titular archbishopric see of Garba on May 17, 1970 in Rome. Succeeding to the metropolitan see of Brazzaville on June 14, 1971, he was named president of the Episcopal Conference of Congo later that year. Pope Paul VI created him cardinal priest in the consistory of March 5, 1973 with the title of San Marco in Agro Lauretino becoming thus the first cardinal from Congo. On March 23, 1977, the Cardinal fell victim to tribal rivalries when he was assassinated in Brazzaville, becoming the second of eventually three cardinals who were murdered during the course of the twentieth century. Interred inside cathedral of Brazzaville, his cause for beatification was initiated on March 20, 1995.