Land dispute enters holy ground as sacked bishop seizes cathedral

Anglican split deepens after Mugabe's security forces back renegade clergyman
Bishop Nolbert Kunonga gives a sermon in Harare
Bishop Nolbert Kunonga gives a sermon in Harare. Photograph: Reuters

The Rev Christopher Tapera laid his altar on a wooden table outside the granite walls of Harare's Anglican cathedral and told the assembled worshippers that if they wanted to find the devil they only needed to look toward the locked and barred church.

"The bishop is the devil in disguise. He has been sent by the devil to destroy the church. The devil is living in the cathedral," said the priest.

The worshippers locked out of the cathedral for Sunday's service generally agreed that it was Satan's work. But the devil many had in mind was Robert Mugabe, as a politically driven battle for control of Zimbabwe's Anglican church mirrors the country's history with its own unilateral declaration of independence, land grabs and a stolen election.

The Anglican church, the second largest denomination in Zimbabwe, has split after the bishop of Harare, Nolbert Kunonga, declared an independent diocese, ostensibly in a stand against the tolerance of homosexuality by Anglicans in Britain and the US.

But the clash is more widely seen as a struggle over the church's efforts to rid itself of Kunonga, 58, who has called for the killing of Mugabe's opponents, taken over a white-owned farm and inaugurated unqualified priests and bishops who had led a campaign of violence against dissenting congregations.

Last month, the Church of the Province of Central Africa dismissed Kunonga as bishop. But the sacked clergyman refused to relinquish control of the cathedral or the accounts and has launched flying attacks on services at churches that refuse to recognise his authority.

The new bishop of Harare, Sebastian Bakare, was installed at a ceremony in a sports centre because access to the cathedral was blocked by heavily built men who described themselves as Kunonga's bodyguards. The police refused to act on a high court order giving Bakare access to the church.

"The same methods used to invade the farms is the method used by Kunonga to invade our cathedral," said Bakare.

"It's very much politically driven. Political involvement is clear in the way that Kunonga promised to deliver the diocese to Zanu-PF [the ruling party]. His protection from arrest is telling, even though he is defying high court orders left and right."

In contrast, the police last week did arrest the high court's deputy sheriff as he arrived with bolt-cutters to enforce a writ permitting Bakare to hold a service in the cathedral. The police then baton-charged and detained the congregation.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, the Right Rev Rowan Williams, waded into the affair by calling on Kunonga to "look into his soul" and condemning "the use of state machinery to intimidate opponents of the deposed bishop of Harare".

But Kunonga defended his alignment with Mugabe by saying the Anglican authorities were a colonial relic defending the interests of whites whose farms were confiscated.

"The west should stop demonising Mr Mugabe. He is a man who was democratically elected and redistributed land which the white man had taken away," he said.

Kunonga was appointed bishop of Harare seven years ago after a disputed election saw him beat a popular white critic of Mugabe's human rights abuses. He promptly used his new position to eulogise Zimbabwe's president and purge the church of more than half its trained priests, some of whom were driven into exile in England.

In their place he ordained men with little theological training, including Zanu-PF officials, two cabinet ministers and students expelled from the Roman Catholic seminary.

As hostility to Kunonga grew, he became the first Anglican priest in Africa for a century to be hauled before a special ecclesiastical court to answer accusations, almost all from black parishioners, of inciting violence against Mugabe's opponents, intimidating critics and misusing church funds.

The court adjourned in disarray after Kunonga's legal team lodged 17 pages of technical complaints. A Malawian supreme court judge hearing the case, James Kalaile, resigned, saying: "I have not in my years as a judge in Malawi or elsewhere heard anything like this dispute. I will contact the archbishop and ask him to appoint another judge." The court did not sit again.

Kunonga was rewarded for his loyalty with a sprawling white-owned farm near Harare, from which he promptly evicted 40 black workers and their families.

But realising that a growing tide of hostility within the church threatened his position, Kunonga unilaterally declared the Harare diocese independent and began laying the ground for his elevation to archbishop of a breakaway Anglican church.

As the two Anglican factions battled for control of church property, a high court judge, Rita Makarau, last month ordered Kunonga to give Bakare and the majority of Anglicans who support him access to all churches in Harare.

In her ruling she said the legal fight "gives the impression that the church has lost its focus, and instead of fighting the good fight and seeking the kingdom of God first, church members are fighting each other and are seeking earthly power and control of church assets".

But Harare's chief police officer, Fortune Zengeni, sent a letter to Anglican churches ordering that only priests aligned with Kunonga be permitted to hold services. He said he did so on the orders of the country's police commissioner, Augustine Chihuri, a close ally of Mugabe.

State security agents and riot police broke up services by priests opposed to Kunonga. In December, a group of Kunonga supporters, including three priests, descended on St Andrew's parish church, beat up parishioners holding a meeting, and told the priest, also a Kunonga backer, he was no longer wanted and confiscated the keys to the church residence and car.

The divisions are starkly illustrated at St Luke's parish, where the rector and the curate, who support rival camps, both live within the church grounds.

The Kunonga-supporting curate, Barnabas Machingauta, holds Sunday services attended only by his wife, children and maid. The rector, Thomas Madeyi, preaches two hours later to a full house.

Kunonga attempted to take over St Luke's last month. As the service began he threw the religious artefacts from the altar to the floor, sat on a chair in front of it and harangued the congregation. Madeyi could not believe what he saw.

"The police arrived and Kunonga told them to arrest me for defying him as bishop for refusing to hand over the church keys," he said. "The police said we had to stop everything. If you are not for Kunonga you cannot pray in the church. So we moved to the church hall and started praying there.

"Kunonga called the police back and they arrested me for disturbing the peace because I wouldn't cooperate with Kunonga."

Kunonga says the confrontations will end because he claims total authority over the churches no matter what the high court says.

"After the several meetings that we had, the skirmishes will be a thing of the past," he said. "No unlicensed priest will go and conduct a church service at any parish. No parallel services will be allowed in the parishes."

But with almost every congregation in Harare against him, Kunonga installed a clutch of new bishops at the weekend. They include Morris Brown Gwedegwe, whom Kunonga sacked several years ago for misusing church funds, and Alfred Munyani, a lay preacher who became a priest less than two years ago.

Just a week earlier, Munyani had been one of those accused of assaulting worshippers who had tried to pray at the cathedral.

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