HARARE – Anglican Bishop of Harare Chad Gandiya on Sunday led his followers in prayers to ask for divine intervention in a battle for control of the church with excommunicated former bishop of Harare Nolbert Kunonga.

“Our salvation is in Jesus. Do not tire to pray for our church. Ask for other churches to pray for Anglicans so that sanity is restored in the church,” Bishop Gandiya said during the prayer session held in the open at Africa Unity Square in central Harare.

An ally of President Robert Mugabe’s ZANU PF party, Kunonga has used the police and ZANU PF activists to block Gandiya and his followers from using church halls and buildings despite a High Court order that the two factions share use of church property.

Gandiya, who had invited Mugabe, to the open prayer session told his flock that some of the church buildings controlled by Kunonga were now being leased to other religious groups.

Mugabe, a catholic, did not attend the prayer session. He is away in Ethiopia attending the African Union summit. 

“We have no hard feelings with the Kunonga faction," Gandiya told journalists. "We preach peace and harmony to the parish. My job here is to pastor the flock that is here today. As far as we are concerned, the High Court order by Judge Rita Makarau is still valid. It is the police and the Kunonga faction that are violating the court orders."

The mass prayer came after Kunonga’s group locked up church doors every Sunday to prevent their rivals from entering the buildings to hold prayers, while the police have been on hand to chase away Gandiya’s followers every time they tried to insist on their right to use the churches.

The Harare Anglican church has been in turmoil ever since the Church of the Province of Central Africa (CPCA) – the supreme authority of the Anglican church in the region -- first suspended Kunonga as bishop of Harare and later excommunicated him from the church, a move he has refused to accept while he has also held onto church properties.

Kunonga was excommunicated in 2008 after trying to withdraw the Harare diocese from the Anglican church. He claims he revolted against the mother church because it supported the ordination of gay priests.

A staunch supporter of Mugabe who tried to use the pulpit to defend the Zimbabwean leader’s controversial policies, Kunonga was excommunicated together with several priests and other church leaders who backed his revolt against the CPCA.

The CPCA appointed retired Bishop Sebastian Bakare as caretaker head of the Harare diocese before he was succeeded by Gandiya. -- ZimOnline.