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BY JENNIFER DUBE
EXCOMMUNICATED Anglican bishop Nolbert Kunonga says those who are against his leadership have “donated” the church’s properties to God.
Thousands of Anglican followers across the country have over the last few years complained that Kunonga was ruthlessly evicting them from church properties. This has in some cases resulted in violent clashes.
Kunonga told journalists on Friday that as long as he was alive, all the 3 800 Anglican properties in the country would remain in his custody.
He said whoever wants to use the property should rejoin his group, because it was impossible to have him and Chad Gandiya as bishops.
“There is always one diocese, one bishop and one throne, not two,” Kunonga said.
“People simply walked out in thousands, they simply walked out on their own after being misled by nonentities. If they want to come back, they are free to do so and we are not going to ask them anything.
“Those who ran away from the church and do not want to come back just have to rest their case, because they donated the properties to the church, they donated to God,”
He said a lot of people had begun retracing their steps back to his faction.
“There was a time when there were only five of us in the hundreds of churches, but now the situation is improving and some churches now have 300 parishioners, and these are the same people coming back after realising they had been lied to,” he said.
While extending a conciliatory hand to ordinary members of the church, Kunonga dismissed possibilities of reconciliation with the Gandiya faction.
“We call for reconciliation, everybody is free to come and worship with us. We invite people and we don’t chase them away,” he said.
“The dispute of bishops has nothing to do with worshippers, as has been said in the media, some people choose to politicise the dispute, others choose to be judgemental.
“The dispute is between ourselves and the Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, and bishops of the Province of Central Africa and it is purely doctrinal and has nothing to do with politics.”
He refuted the widely held perception that he was Zanu PF.
Kunonga said the Anglican dispute was about homosexuality, which he said was “unscriptural”.
He said homosexuality led to the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah and added the Apostle Paul condemned it as unhealthy. He also cited a number of other Old and New Testament scriptures against homosexuality.
Elson Jakazi, Kunonga’s bishop for Manicaland said at an international level, the Anglican church is just a fellowship, saying no diocese or bishop was more powerful than others.
“I am fighting the British, and not any of you, black Zimbabweans when you are also poor and continue being trampled upon,” Kunonga said.
“I will not be silenced, nobody silences a true bishop,” he said. “Those elderly women you see running saying they are being chased from the church are lying, this is about Kunonga, Rowan Williams and the other bishops, it’s nothing to do with 80-year-olds, they don’t understand this.”
Kunonga dismissed allegations that he had support from the police and the judiciary, saying he has never taken anyone to court, but the CPCA has dragged him to court on several occasions since 2007.
He said his interest was to restore order in the church.
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