Yet, over 12 months after requesting a Provincial Court hearing to answer 38 allegations against the Bishop of Harare, Dr Nolbert Kunonga, we have become painfully aware that we may all be equal in the sight of God, but in the sight of Anglicans, some are more equal than others.

What began as a ripple in June 2001 at the Cathedral of St Mary and All Saints in Harare has, through inactivity, nefarious machinations and deceit, grown throughout the diocese to become “something that
. . . a sufficient number of other Christians will find scandalous and offensive” (adiaphora — Windsor report, section 93) and, we think, worthy of community intervention.

Dr Kunonga abuses his office and uses the Church to fulfil his egotistical fantasies in a style reminiscent of Cardinal Borgia. The list of charges against him, as submitted to the Church’s Provincial Court, runs to seven pages. It includes the following allegations, dating from the period between May 2001 and September 2003. That Dr Kunonga:

• Deliberately falsified the minutes of a meeting of the diocese’s board of trustees;

• Attempted to dismiss the Chancellor of the diocese and others, despite knowing that he had no power to do so, and, on failure, refused to recognise their positions;

• Instituted civil proceedings against the cathedral’s churchwardens and councillors, the Standard Chartered Bank Ltd, and others, on or about 18 September 2002, without the knowledge or authority of the diocese’s board of trustees or the registrar;

• Arranged for the cathedral churchwardens and some members of the congregation to be questioned by the police on the unfounded “suspicion of their knowledge of a plot to assassinate the Bishop”, despite knowing such an allegation to be false.

In addition, Bishop Kunonga has repeatedly: contravened enactments of both the provincial and diocesan synods; disobeyed the lawful commands of his Archbishop; and refused to perform acts pertaining to his office for communicant members of his Church. He has used secular injunctions, harassment, threats of violence and even death, and forced resignations on clergy and communicants who speak out or try to abide by the diocesan laws.

A signed and supported request for an ecclesiastical hearing was presented to the provincial registrar and copied to the Archbishop of the Province of Central Africa, Dr Bernard Malango, in November 2003. Despite assurances that the charges would be heard, and in violation of our canons, the Archbishop has since ignored us, and made no meaningful effort to convene the court.

Archbishop Malango’s negligence leaves Dr Kunonga at liberty to continue his activities and shore up his defences with the ordination of unqualified priests and deacons, whose allegiance to him is absolute.

WARNING BELLS rang when we read this passage in the Windsor report: “Further questions have surfaced about episcopal oversight within a diocese where significant groups of Anglicans have become alienated from their bishop. The Commission has seen and heard those emotions.” We hope we are not the diocese referred to here, as our emotions have neither been seen nor heard. Yet, having previously been maligned and misrepresented behind closed doors, at an episcopal synod, by Archbishop Malango, who is a member of the Lambeth Commission, this is doubtful.

The Windsor report describes Anglican dioceses as being autonomous, episcopally led, synodically governed, and acting in adherence to their Canons. This is hardly our scenario. Anglican doctrines and ethics are maliciously misinterpreted, opening us up to much suffering and spiritual desolation.

Frustrated provincially, on alerting our family in the worldwide Communion to our plight, we are subjected to the self-serving and selective use of the concepts of autonomy, subsidiarity and adiaphora; meanwhile, efforts to hound us out of our Church have intensified.

Our Bishop left us dumbfounded when, in his first sermon at the cathedral, a few weeks after his consecration, he told us that the Church was his. The Anglican set-up does not provide enforceable recourse for the righting of wrongs, unless they are committed by laity or junior clergy. Those whom we elect and who are consecrated by their peers become all-powerful.

As member provinces or dioceses are not obliged to abide by the laws that define them, bishops can impose their will on communicants, and are answerable to no one, if their provincial hierarchy is deaf to dissenting voices, as seems to be true in the Province of Central Africa. The rest of the Communion looks on, consciences cleared by the concept of autonomy.

The worldwide hierarchy may not be its brother’s keeper, but those who know the truth about the lack of commonality in the Anglican Church think it guilty of false representation. Are we not part of the same body of Christ? We will not lose faith in God and our Church.
Pauline Makoni is a lay councillor at Harare Cathedral (a post not recognised by the Bishop of Harare) and a provincial synod delegate. This article was written before Kunonga was brought to an ecclesiastical court
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