Breakaway bishop seizes orphanage

A BREAKAWAY church leader close to Zimbabwe’s president Robert Mugabe has intensified a campaign to seize church properties, including schools and priests’ homes, a leading Anglican cleric said yesterday.

Bishop Chad Gandiya said the evictions had targeted an orphanage. Breakaway Bishop Nolbert Kunonga, who claims to lead Zimbabwe’s Anglicans, has refused to hand back Harare Cathedral, offices, buildings, church bank accounts and vehicles, which he has already seized with the protection of police loyal to Mr Mugabe.

Bishop Kunonga was excommunicated by the main Anglican church in 2007.

Bishop Gandiya said unknown intruders broke into his home on Thursday night, stealing only mobile phones and computers containing diocese files, as he planned legal action against the new evictions. “The coincidence is too much,” he said.

On Tuesday, police arrested an Anglican priest loyal to the mainstream group in Harare for alleged theft of church property. The same day, court officials in Murewa served eviction orders to St John’s mission and the Shearly Cripps orphanage, home to more than 100 children and named for its founder, an Anglo-American missionary who died in 1952.

Murewa is about 60 miles east of Harare.

“We are refusing to vacate. We have to find alternative accommodation for the nuns and teachers. And who will look after the children? Where will they go?” Bishop Gandiya said.