AFP/Harare
The archbishop of Canterbury yesterday condemned “godless” assaults on Anglicans by a breakaway faction of the Anglican Church led by an excommunicated bishop aligned with Zimbabwe’s president. Thousands of people cheered Rowan Williams, the Anglican spiritual leader, from the terraces and floor of a Harare stadium. Anglican faithful have turned to tents and parking lots for their services, as renegade bishop Nolbert Kunonga has forcefully blocked them from Church property. “You know very well dear brothers and sisters what it means to have doors of your Church locked in your faces by those who claim the name of Christians and Anglicans,” Williams said at the communion service. “You know those who by their greed and violence refuse the grace of God, try to silence your worship, frustrate the churches, schools and hospitals in this country,” he said. “The will of God will triumph over these mindless and godless assaults. You have discovered that it’s not the building which makes the Church but the spiritual foundation on which your lives are built,” he said. Zimbabwe is the most contentious stop on Williams’ three-nation African tour, where political troubles have engulfed the Anglican Church. Kunonga has won legal backing for his claim to all of the Church’s property in Harare and moved to seize 3,800 properties in Zimbabwe and neighbouring countries. His supporters have violently forced Anglican faithful from churches, while also chasing teachers and nurses from schools, clinics and orphanages. Kunonga has refused to meet Williams, telling Al Jazeera: “He is irrelevant. He is responsible for dividing the Anglican commune world over and we are feeling the ripples and the impact of that division he has created.” For weeks, Williams has sought a meeting with President Robert Mugabe, a Roman Catholic, to discuss the split. He had no firm answer yesterday. Mugabe’s spokesman George Charamba did not say if the two men would meet, but told the state-run Sunday Mail newspaper that if they did speak, the 87-year-old president would challenge Williams about gays and sanctions. “Fundamentally, he would want to know why the Church of the British state, the Anglican Church, has remained so loudly silent while the people of Zimbabwe, and these people include Anglicans, are suffering from the illegal sanctions,” Charamba said. “The second issue that the president wants this man of God to clarify is why his Anglican Church thinks homosexuality is good for us and why it should be prescribed for us.” Mugabe and members of his inner circle, including Kunonga, are under a travel ban and asset freeze imposed by Britain and other Western countries because of a decade of violently flawed elections. Mugabe is renowned for his anti-gay stance and has described gays and lesbians as “worse than pigs and dogs”. Williams has struggled to maintain unity in the Anglican communion amid disagreements over the ordination of female bishops in Britain, and of openly gay bishops in the US. At his first stop in Malawi last week, Williams reiterated the Church’s stand on gays, opposing violence and prejudice, but not supporting same-sex marriage or ordination of gay priests. The Church of England had said in July that it was reviewing its approach to same-sex relationships, an issue that has threatened to tear the Church apart - particularly in Africa where many leaders are more conservative than their European counterparts. “On our side, it’s evil. It’s an abomination. It’s contrary to human nature. It mutilates human dignity,” Kunonga said of homosexuality, denying that politics played a role in the harassment of mainstream Anglicans in Zimbabwe. “I don’t know about persecuting. Those are utter lies. There are no persecutions here,” he said. Williams is scheduled to spend today visiting Aids and orphan projects in Zimbabwe, and then head to neighbouring Zambia before returning to Britain on Thursday.