CLERICS and their families are being evicted from rectories in
Zimbabwe, after a High Court decision giving custodianship of church
property to Nolbert Kunonga, the excommunicated former Bishop of Harare
and ally of President Robert Mugabe.
The distress and chaos predicted by the Bishop of Harare, the Rt
Revd Chad Gandiya, became a reality on Monday when Kunonga’s supporters —
some accompanied by police — delivered stamped copies of the court
judgment to all clerics still in parish rectories.
“They told our priests to move out,” Bishop Gandiya said on Monday. “We do not know who he is going to put in these houses.”
The two-part judgment was promised a year ago.
The diocese had
appealed after attempts were made to stop Bishop Gandiya’s consecration
in July 2009, and Kunonga was given custodianship of the properties by
Justice Ben Hlatshwayo (News, 31 July 2009
).
He has turned all the church buildings into business and other
centres, and some are also being used for living space. Police used
violence and tear gas to prevent worshippers from sharing the buildings
with Kunonga’s “congregations”.
Now they worship in tents, outdoors, or
in the rented buildings of other Churches.
The one positive thing was that the judge had reinstated the 2010
appeal, which Kunonga had tried to prevent, Bishop Gandiya said on
Monday.
“All is not lost. We wait now for the Supreme Court hearing of
everything to do with the property. After that, there’ll be no other
appeal. Our lawyers and chancellors have been instructed to push for the
hearing, and have been working on the argument.”
The litigation has already cost the Church of the Province of
Central Africa $US100,000.
Bishop Gandiya has described Kunonga’s claim
to ownership of the properties as “daylight robbery, now with support
of the law”, and asks: “How can he be custodian of properties of an
organisation he has already left?”
Kunonga, who declared in 2007 that he was setting up his own
province, and who still faces 38 charges, including incitement to
murder, told The New York Times in a recent interview that his “Church”
intended to take control of 3000 Anglican churches, schools, hospitals,
and other properties in Zimbabwe, Zambia, Botswana, and Malawi.
“Mr
Kunonga casts himself as a nationalist leader who is Africanising a
church associated with British colonialism,” the paper said.
The Revd Dzikamai Mudenda and his family were the first to be
evicted after the court judgment. They were forced to leave St James’s,
Mabvuku, in Harare. Friar Joshua, the Principal of Bishop Gaul College,
which serves all five dioceses of the province, was also served notice
to quit.
Kunonga’s people padlocked the library before they left, Bishop
Gandiya said — a matter of great concern as ordinands prepared to
return for the first semester.
“If we lost the books we have, that will
take us back many years.”
But morale was high, despite everything that had happened, the
Bishop said on Monday.
Speaking from Harare before the evictions, he
praised the resilience of worshippers.
“It’s a joy and a blessing,
ministering in this context, because of the support of the diocese,” he
said. “Just this last weekend, the Mothers’ Union had a conference in
neighbouring Manicaland, and the turnout was way beyond expectation —
way beyond 6000 mothers. It wasn’t reported in the local press, but it took place, and it
was tremendous encouragement. As I go round the diocese, the amazing
thing is that people literally regard themselves as like the Israelites
in exile. They say, ‘We are in exile and we will go back home.’”
Emails and letters from around the Anglican Communion helped as
well, Bishop Gandiya said.
“In spite of the challenges we face, we know
we belong to a family, and we are not alone. The encouraging messages we
get from around the world are testimony to that.”