DISGRACED Anglican clergyman, Nolbert Kunonga and the priests who remained loyal to him have been served with 48-hour eviction notices.
NQABA MATSHAZI
They have been ordered to leave the church’s property by the end of Tuesday.
Reverend Clifford Dzavo, the Church of the Province of Central Africa (CPCA) diocesan secretary confirmed that they had sought the issuance of the eviction notices, as the Anglican moves to end a saga that has blighted it for the past five years.
Dzavo said they had served notices on at least 64 properties and the eviction notices were being served in batches.
“We have asked them to evacuate Paget House, where Kunonga’s offices are,” he said.
“We have also served notices for them to vacate the Cathedral Church except Parliament Building. Our relations with parliament are okay.”
Dzavo accused the clergy loyal to Kunonga of negotiating in bad faith over the properties, once they had lost the Supreme Court appeal. “We were supposed to meet on [last] Tuesday but they did not pitch, with one of them saying he was ill, we wanted to solve this in an amicable manner and for them give us a schedule of when they were likely to move,” he said.
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“But it has come to our attention that they are instructing their members not to leave the properties until they received eviction notices and this pushed us to go and seek the issuances of the eviction notices.”
Among the properties that notices have been served on is the bishop’s residence, known as Bishop’s Mount.
The CPCA said it would on December 16 conduct a cleansing ceremony at all the churches, with a service held at Africa Unity Square. Congregants are then expected to start using their churches the following Sunday.
The Anglican Church in Zimbabwe has been a divided house for most of the past five years, with Kunonga pulling out of the church claiming that it supported homosexuality.
Kunonga pulled out of the CPCA and founded his own Province of Zimbabwe, but he wanted to hold onto property that belonged to the original church.
The Supreme Court ruled that since Kunonga left the CPCA, he could not claim ownership, as it belonged to the church.
Attempts to get a comment from Kunonga were in vain.
