ANGLICAN churches in Harare will defy a police ban and hold services with their appointed priests on Sunday, the Bishop of Harare, Dr Sebastian Bakare, confirmed on Wednesday.
Police in full riot gear stormed the churches last Sunday, after a police circular was issued saying that services could be conducted only by priests loyal to the deposed Bishop, the Rt Revd Nolbert Kunonga. All parishes in Harare have voted to remain in the Church of the Province of Central Africa (CPCA) under Bishop Bakare, but Bishop Kunonga announced this week that he had formed a new province, the “Anglican Church of Zimbabwe”, under his primacy.
Priests conducting services were dragged out and assaulted, and parishioners were arrested. Bishop Bakare described what happened at St Luke’s, Greendale, when Bishop Kunonga arrived. “When he came, the church was packed, with people even standing outside.
“Kunonga was seated in front of the high altar, leaning his back on it. He was there in his dog collar — it was scandalous. The entire congregation stood up and went to the hall, and he was left with his wife and two police officers. The officers then announced that we should not meet any more except under the leadership of Bishop Kunonga. I told him that was unacceptable.”
Bishop Bakare went on: “The idea of sending fully armed riot police to disperse a quiet congregation praying was [an echo] of the Nero persecutions, when Christians were martyred in Rome for refusing to pay allegiance to Caesar. That’s what it amounted to when they burst in on Sunday.
“At St Paul’s, Marlborough, they came when the priest was distributing the eucharist, and told the first three rows to get out of the church. It’s the kind of harassment that is tantamount to persecution.”
A statement from Lambeth Palace on Monday said the Archbishop of Canterbury “condemns unequivocally the use of state machinery to intimidate opponents of the deposed Bishop of Harare, Nolbert Kunonga, and is appalled by recent reports of Zimbabwean police forcibly stopping Sunday services in several churches in Harare, where clergy have publicly and bravely refused to acknowledge Kunonga’s episcopal authority.”
Dr Williams expressed his solidarity with the Province of Central Africa and the Zimbabwean bishops loyal to Dr Bakare. He described Bishop Kunonga’s position as having been “increasingly untenable within the Anglican Church over the last year, as he has consistently refused to maintain appropriate levels of independence from the Zimbabwean government”.
Dr Bakare reiterated on Wednesday: “The police are conniving with Kunonga. I told the officers that kind of order, from wherever it comes, is unacceptable.”
Congregations were gearing up for this Sunday, not knowing what it was going to be like, but “more prepared than before”, he said. “I am going to be defiant and go ahead with the service where I am going to take it. I will be the first one, and I’m going to invite people to come with me. If [the police] want to take me — fine. The police have no power to tell me or my people where to worship, and under whose leadership. I am not going to be told. That’s the gist of it.”
Forty-nine priests had expressed their allegiance to CPCA, but, despite rejection by the entire diocese, Kunonga was still behaving as if he were a bishop, said Dr Bakare. “He is angry that the people in this diocese decided to stay in the province. He didn’t expect that. He was trying to make the world believe the diocese was behind him, but all of a sudden, he discovers he has no people. So, wherever he goes, he is trying to claim that a congregation under CPCA is his.
Bishop Kunonga, who was previously charged on 37 counts including incitement to murder, cited homosexuality as the reason for breaking away. This has been dismissed by the province, but the news media around the world routinely refer to this as the cause of the dispute.
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