For The Record

Submit birth, marriage and obituary records online.

Personal Ads

Meet new friends today!

Advertising

Put your message in front of 33,000 readers.

PDF documents on this site require the free Adobe Reader:

Get Adobe Reader

2008-03-04 issue:

Breakthrough in Congo church conflict

Two sides agree to resolve Communauté Mennonite au Congo 2004 election.

by Mennonite World Conference

Print Article

Apostle Paul’s call to the Corinthian church, “Make room in your hearts for each other,” summarizes both the challenge for and the achievement of a major mediation encounter between leaders of the Communauté Mennonite au Congo (CMCo) held in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo, Feb. 8-9.

CMCo participants were Adolphe Komuesa, current national president, Fimbo Ganvunze, past national president, and Ambroise Kabeya, president for the province of Eastern Kasai.
The Eglise du Christ au Congo (EEC)—the national Protestant ecumenical council in Congo— was represented by Mwenelwata Milenge, general secretary. Pakisa Tshimika, Mennonite World Conference associate general secretary, and Tim Lind, coordinator of church-to-church relations, participated on behalf of MWC.

The conflict was based on a challenge to the legality of the 2004 CMCo Elective Assembly at which Komuesa was elected as president and legal representative. The challenge was led by Kabeya, who was one of the candidates for the position of CMCo president.

In a memo addressed to the church leadership and the Congolese government, Kabeya and several other CMCo members from the provinces of Western and Eastern Kasai, leveled the accusation that the election process had not been constitutional and that the church had not taken seriously their longstanding request for provincial autonomy and better representation in decision-making structures of the church.

An additional conflict concerning allegations of financial mismanagement and misappropriation against Fimbo Ganvunze overlaid the initial conflict.

After several internal efforts to resolve the conflict had failed, CMCo appealed to MWC and the ECC for assistance. MWC staff and officers have given attention to the conflict for the past two years but until now have not had success in bringing together all the parties involved in the conflict.

MWC officers initiated another attempt during their January meeting in Mainz, Germany, with a letter addressed to all the parties inviting them to a face-to-face meeting in Kinshasa. MWC and ECC jointly moderated the gathering that brought together three leaders of this 100,000-member church, where disputes have created significant stress and division.

After two days of deliberations, the group signed a joint declaration that commits all parties, under the guarantee and ongoing guidance of MWC and ECC, to a process that will address individual grievances as well as structural and administrative issues identified by the group.
At the beginning of the gathering, Milenge said, “Once you have made a place for each other in your hearts, it will be difficult for you to take hurtful actions against each other.” At the end of the meeting, those involved in the conflict asked for each other’s forgiveness.

“It is clear from what we have accomplished that you have made room for each other in your hearts,” Milenge said. “It is not a small thing that we have accomplished here together.”
The declaration of the meeting calls upon MWC and ECC to set up a commission to work together with CMCo toward resolving outstanding personal, structural and administrative issues.
The final agreement also called for the following:

1. The unity of CMCo be considered a priority by all members of the church. As a result, both leaders and members are encouraged to abstain from destructive and provocative language.

2. The structural issues raised by members from Eastern Kasai will be referred to the commission to be organized by MWC and ECC for study and proposed solutions.
3. Church leaders will no longer appeal to political, administrative or judicial authorities of the state to resolve differences within the church.

4. CMCo leadership and members will always defer to the church for solutions to conflicts within its structures and among its members.

By the end of the encounter there was a feeling of optimism among the participants, based on the recognition that significant change had taken place in the individual positions of each of the parties.

“I felt today like it was Pentecost with the only difference that I did not hear people speak in tongues,” Tshimika said.

Lind said it is easy to be cautious, skeptical or even cynical about the lasting effect of such a meeting.

“We are not naïve,” he said. “We know there are huge challenges ahead. But the progress made shows that positions that appear to be frozen can be melted.”—Mennonite World Conference

Reader Comments

Add Comments