The village of Qunu, Eastern Cape, where Nelson Mandela grew up and where his mother founded a Methodist church in the 1960s. Photograph: Per-Anders Pettersson/Getty Images

When Nelson Mandela's mother died in 1968 he was a prisoner on Robben Island and barred from attending her funeral.

Forty three years later Noqaphi Nosekeni – who little knew that her son would become one of the world's greatest statesmen – was honoured on Monday by the restoration of a church she founded in the family's home village.

Mandela's family expressed hope that the tribute in Qunu, Eastern Cape, would bring him some consolation for not being able to say goodbye.

Nosekeni is described as "the centre of my existence" in the former president's autobiography Long Walk to Freedom. On learning of her death from a heart attack, he asked the commanding officer on Robben Island if he could attend her funeral in the then Transkei.

The officer replied: "Mandela, while I know you are a man of your word and would not try to escape, I cannot trust your own people, and we fear that they would try to kidnap you."

Mandela writes: "It added to my grief that I was not able to bury my mother, which was my responsibility as her eldest child and only son."

The Methodist church in Qunu was founded by Nosekeni in the sixties but lay in ruins for years until the local community worked to rescue it.

A ribbon-cutting ceremony on Monday was attended by Mandela's wife Graça Machel and other family members. Mandela himself, a frail 93, remained at home a few miles away.

"Today I can look into the eyes of our mother and tell her, 'Mama, rest in peace'," Machel was quoted as saying in The Times of South Africa.

"Again and again, Madiba thinks about the pain of a son who did not have the chance to say goodbye to his mother. Today, for Madiba and myself, it is a way of telling Mama that we love her and celebrate her life."

In a DVD message Mandela's grandson, Mandla, said the struggle hero "is smiling today".