Vatican City  - Africa can claim some of history's greatest biblical centres, but today the holy scriptures remain unaffordable to many of the continent's people, a Nigerian cleric on Tuesday told the Roman Catholic bishops Synod meeting.

"Some of the earliest centres of Christianity both in terms of theology and theologians as well as of martyrs and confessors are in Northern Africa: Alexandria, Carthage and Hippo to mention a few," Archbishop John Olorunfemi Onaiyekan of Abuja, Nigeria said.

So while Africa "can boast to be a 'biblical land' in a way that many great Christian nations of today dare not," the price of a Bible can be as high as a month's wages in many places, Onaiyekan told the gathering.

"The result is that many people do not have enough money to own a Bible," he told his fellow clerics from around the world attending the Synod - a gathering some describe as the closest the Vatican comes to having a "parliament."

Pope Benedict XVI convened the current Synod on the topic of The Word of God in the Life and Mission of the Church. Discussions which will last until October 26 focus on how the faithful can be encouraged to read the holy scriptures more closely and frequently.

Onaiyekan said that besides money, for many Africans the Bible remained in inaccessible on language grounds.

"Many languages still do not have an adequate translation of the Bible text. ... But even after hearing the Word of God read in our languages, there is still the task of interpreting this word so as to imbibe the true meaning of the message that the Holy Spirit intends for those to whom the Word is addressed," he said.

African Catholics - which represent some 14 per cent of the continent's population - also needed to become well-versed in the contents of the Bible in order hold their ground against "attacks" from members of other denominations.

These were of a "fundamentalist type but clearly anti-Catholic," Onaiyekan said, without specifically naming them. (dpa)