AIPCA Gets New Leader To Replace Retired Archbishop Kabuthu In Relatively Peaceful Elections.
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| Bishop Julius Njoroge Gitau, the Archbishop-Elect of AIPCA Church. |
He will take over
from Retired Archbishop Amos Mathenge Kabuthu, who has reached the mandatory
retirement age of 70 years and has been in the helm of the church for the last
three years. Until his election, Njoroge has served for 38 years a member of
the House of Clergy, a very powerful council that heads the church’s affairs.
Njoroge garnered 27
votes, beating his closest competitor John Maina who garnered 23 votes. Others were
David Njuguna (8 votes) and John Muchai (1).
The election process
that was officiated by Anne Mwangi of the Department of the Registrar of
Societies, was incident-free and all those who lost conceded defeat and pledged
to work with the new Archbishop.
In his brief
acceptance speech, Njoroge said thanked all his competitors and the delegates
for the far they had gone as a church after a long period of conflicts. He said
that his first mission was to unite the church and ensure that their
constitution was henceforth followed to the letter.
“I have a glimpse of
the realm of God. I want to thank the candidates who I have journeyed with
these past few days, for the grace with which we walked with each other. Let’s
forget our dirty past. Let’s focus on a bright future. My appeal is that we
walk this journey as a team and I promise to work with the church committee so
as to ensure that the will of the people is always upheld,” said the
Archbishop-elect.
He promised also to
convene a meeting of the Central Church Board within the next couple of weeks
so as to map out the way forward for the church.
“As your team leader,
I want to lead in cleaning up all the mess that have brought our church in the
public limelight for all the wrong reasons for the last few years. I want to correct
the mismanagement of manpower where we have witnessed massive ordinations that
never followed our constitution. And it is for this reason that I declare a
halt on any more ordinations until we sit down as a committee to deliberate on
how to go about this matter,” he said.
Bishop Philip Kubai
who is the chairperson of the Church Synod appealed to the congregation to
support the Archbishop-Elect especially in seeking for solutions that had been bedeviling
them for the last few years.
“The church is
bigger than any of us. Let’s now pray for peace to prevail. Remember, when the
church is chaos, God is not with us,” said Kubai.
Secretary General
AIPCA Church Stanley Mburu Mwangi welcomed the appointment of the new
archbishop and called for unity in the church. He appealed to the Archbishop-Elect
to embrace dialogue within all the ranks and asked him to go out of his way to
work with even those who were opposed to his election.
The National AIPCA
Chairperson Paul Watoro Gichu pointed out that the exercise was a new beginning
as it marked the end of wrangles and infighting within the church.
“This marks the end
of wrangles and infighting within the AIPCA Church. It is now time to paint a different
picture of our church. I appeal to everyone to uphold the spirit of forgiveness
as we begin the journey towards heaven. We have no grudge with our retired
Archbishop (Amos Kabuthu). As our constitution states, we are going to give him
a very powerful sendoff for his service to the church,” said Gichu.
The AIPCA church has
been for the last three years been embroiled in wrangles and court cases.
Retired Archbishop Kabuthu and Gichu have been squabbling since 2013 in an ugly
power struggle that at times turned nasty. The misunderstandings led to the
formation of splinter group under Gichu.
The Gichu group has
been questioning Kabuthu’s suitability to lead the church and at one time
alleging that Kabuthu did not have the requisite academic papers to qualify for
the leadership of the church. One has to be a holder of a degree in theology
from a recognised university to qualify for the post.
Various efforts to
unite the warring factions have been fruitless whilst violence erupting in
certain scenarios. President Uhuru Kenyatta once personally tried to broker
peace in the church after a meeting he called between the warring factions
ended without concrete resolutions.
Bishop Samuel Ngacha
Njiriri, who now heads Stewards Revival Pentecostal Church, had also previously
volunteered to mediate between the two leaders but his efforts too ran to
naught. He claimed that by rebelling against William Alexander, the Greek
Orthodox archbishop who ordained AIPCA’s first three bishops, AIPCA consigned
itself to forever be embroidered in leadership wrangles that have followed
every head of the church.
Alexander was
mistreated in Kihumbu-ini in Murang’a County where had been invited to ordain
AIPCA’s pioneer bishops.
“All AIPCA leaders
live under the culture of fear. They think everyone is after the other and
start fights where there should be none,” said Njiriri.
He claimed that the
infighting is in line with its church’s mission, which was basically to fight
the colonial government through supporting such practices as polygamy and
female circumcision. Njiriri also claimed that AIPCA also faces problems in
balancing between its African nationalism roots and modern Christianity as well
as lack of elaborate structures and liturgy and its own theological college to
groom priests.
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