Nolbert Kunonga (born 31 December 1950, in

Southern Rhodesia Southern Rhodesia was a landlocked self-governing British Crown colony in southern Africa, established in 1923 and consisting of British South Africa Company (BSAC) territories lying south of the Zambezi River. The region was informally kn ...

) is the former Zimbabwean Anglican Bishop of Harare and Mashonaland.

Bio

Kunonga was criticised within and outside the

Anglican Communion The Anglican Communion is the third largest Christian communion after the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches. Founded in 1867 in London, the communion has more than 85 million members within the Church of England and other ...

for his ardent support of

Robert Mugabe Robert Gabriel Mugabe (; ; 21 February 1924 – 6 September 2019) was a Zimbabwean revolutionary and politician who served as Prime Minister of Zimbabwe from 1980 to 1987 and then as President from 1987 to 2017. He served as Leader of the ...

, the President of

Zimbabwe Zimbabwe (), officially the Republic of Zimbabwe, is a landlocked country located in Southeast Africa, between the Zambezi and Limpopo Rivers, bordered by South Africa to the south, Botswana to the south-west, Zambia to the north, and Mozam ...

. This was at a time when other religious leaders in the country, notably the Roman Catholic archbishop,

Pius Ncube Pius Alick Mvundla Ncube (born 31 December 1946) served as the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, until he resigned on 11 September 2007. Widely known for his human rights advocacy, Ncube was an outspoken critic of former Preside ...

, were condemning Mugabe's government for its human rights excesses across Zimbabwe. Kunonga has been in and out of

ecclesiastical court An ecclesiastical court, also called court Christian or court spiritual, is any of certain courts having jurisdiction mainly in spiritual or religious matters. In the Middle Ages, these courts had much wider powers in many areas of Europe than be ...

s since 2005. In 2008 he was officially excommunicated, stripping him of all recognition as a cleric within the global

. He has nevertheless continued as the head of a breakaway faction within Zimbabwe, apparently under the protection of President Mugabe, despite the defection of most of his flock and criticism from international church leaders. A judge ordered in January 2008 that the breakaway Anglican province led by Kunonga must share the use of church buildings with the Anglican

Church of the Province of Central Africa The Church of the Province of Central Africa is part of the Anglican Communion, and includes 15 dioceses in Botswana, Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe. The Primate of the Church is the Archbishop of Central Africa. Albert Chama is the current archbish ...

loyal to Bishop

Sebastian Bakare Sebastian Bakare (born 1940) is a Zimbabwean retired Anglican Bishop of the Diocese of Harare and former Bishop of Manicaland. He was once in a power struggle over the leadership of the Diocese of Harare with Nolbert Kunonga, the former Bisho ...

. In August 2011, the country's Chief Justice ruled that all Anglican property in the Harare diocese was under Kunonga's custody. On 19 November 2012, the Zimbabwe Supreme Court Deputy Chief Justice, Luke Malaba, ruled that Kunonga and his followers were no longer part of the Church of the Province of Central Africa and that Kunonga will have to surrender everything that belongs to the church that is in his hands. He was also ordered to pay the costs of the civil appeal. On 17 March 2017, Kunonga was ordered to pay $427,000 for shares Kunonga sold, when the Zimbabwean Supreme Court upheld a ruling that the shares belonged to Church of the Province of Central Africa.

References

1950 births Living people 20th-century Anglican bishops in Africa 21st-century Anglican bishops in Africa Anglican bishops of Harare and Mashonaland Zimbabwean Anglicans {{Zimbabwe-bio-stub