Congregants break into St Joseph’s Church
DLANGENI – Over 500 Christians had to break into their own church to worship after being locked out.
The St Joseph’s Christian Church in Zion followers hosted their annual First Fruit services after breaking into the church headquarters. Christians from across the country were present to attend the important annual service.
This comes at a time when the church is faced with issues of a power struggle that has divided it into three factions, as the leaders do not see eye-to-eye.
In an interview with Maswazi Gama, who is the church’s Secretary General (SG), he said only a court order would prevent them from breaking in.
Structure
However, he added that the order should also be clear on why they were being prevented from entering the church structure that was jointly built by all of them.
Explaining, Gama said it was the third time they had to break-in to worship in the church after being locked out by the other faction.
He said they would continue doing so if the other factions refused with the keys.
The SG said they had to break into the church following advice they got from their congregants. According to Gama, the services were known in the calendar.
He said the church belonged to all of them as they were sons of the founder, the late Archbishop Shishane.
Gama stated that they had inform the Archbishop, Joseph Gama, about the services and requested the keys, but he refused to hand them over.
He stated that they also reported the matter to the umphakatsi, which also requested that they open the church for the Christians to worship.
The SG said umphakatsi engaged them and asked what they would do next, adding that they had called Archbishop Joseph, who responded that he would report to them yesterday (Sunday).
“Umphakatsi reported back to us that the archbishop was not willing to give us the keys,” Gama said.
He said the church belonged to all of them despite that they were now divided.
He said they only used the structure twice every year to host the annual services.
Meanwhile, Gama said locking the church structure was not a solution, but engaging and resolving the dispute was.
Derrick Mavuso, who is a member of the dissenting faction, accused of locking the church, said they padlocked the church for safety purposes. Mavuso said he heard that Gama and his committee had called, requesting for the keys. He said he had no clue on why the leadership did not release the keys.
Mavuso said the church was divided, hence the reason the keys were not given to the other faction as they were there unlawfully.
Furthermore, he said now that there was division in the church, they needed to come together to engage and come up with a lasting solution as the structure belonged to everyone.