Leadership rows tear African churches apart

• Kenyans found new defiant approach to worship through traditions appealing

Almost two decades after “Baba Messiah” Melkio Ondeto’s death, his name still invokes reverence among the followers of the Legio Maria sect in Kenya, while to others, it is synonymous with controversy.

With a legion of followers across East Africa, Ondeto ruled with an iron fist, being the central figure around which hundreds of thousands of followers rallied, believing he had healing powers.

And Archbishop Mathews Abednego Ajuoga of The Church of Christ in Africa (Jo Hera) founded the Organisation of African Instituted Churches (OAIC).

The African independent churches, with their distinctive and often defiant approach to worship that incorporated traditional religious customs into a Christian framework, endeared themselves to many.

Well-known independents in western Kenya include Nomiya, Dini ya Musambwa and Legio Maria.

Years later though, the African independent churches are headed for the rocks as leadership wrangles threaten to tear them apart after the passing on of the founders, long seen as supernatural.

Since they were built around personalities, the associations too, had weak foundations. Since Ondeto’s death in 1991, the succession battle in the Legio Maria Sect has dragged on for years as confusion and desperation spread among the faithful.

At the centre of controversy is who and how the third occupant of the most powerful papal seat in the controversial sect is to be filled.

After the death the founder and the supreme spiritual leader of the church, Cardinal Dean Timothy Blasio Ahitla was appointed to be the second Pope to take over the leadership of the church. It was after the death of Pope Ahitla in 1998 that the church plunged into wrangles.

Two factions, one led by Cardinal Dean Lawrence Pius Chiaji and another by His Holiness Wilson Petro Owino Obimbo have battled in courts in Nairobi and Kisumu, but nothing seems to have come out.

The battle has now pitted Pope Raphael Titus Otieno against his rival Pope Joseph Romanus Ongombe, with both claiming the title.

The sect’s constitution states that the “subsequent ascension to the leadership of Baba Mtakatifu Pope will be determined by the help of God through the Holy Spirit”.

That divine intervention has instead turned into legal battles that secular magistrates and judges have been unable to resolve.

According to Dr Nicholas Keya, a lecturer at Masinde Muliro University and a member of Legio Maria, the differences within the sect have been escalated by personality issues. Their robes of different colours have remained the physical reminder of the divisions that run deep.

At the Dala Hera (Home of Love), it’s not love any more since the demise of Archbishop Ajuoga in June this year. Initially, the disagreement was over the burial place of the man who broke away from the Anglican Church in the 1963.