/ 29 April 2011

Holy row over divided church

Holy Row Over Divided Church

The Baptist Nazareth (Shembe) Church’s succession woes moved towards the theatre of the absurd this week with two leaders of the church’s smaller factions threatening to excommunicate members of its largest splinter group, the four million-strong Ebuhleni faction.

Vukile Shembe, of the church’s Ekuphakameni faction, and Sizwe Shembe, of the Ginyezinye faction ,announced on Wednesday that they had united and intended claiming sole usage of the church’s symbols, clothing, style of worship and hymns.

People belonging to other factions would be banned from making the annual pilgrimage to the Shembe’s holy mountain of Nhangakazi in Ndwedwe. In a statement the two leaders said they had agreed to unite the church under one titular head to be based at Ekuphakameni, the church’s headquarters in Inanda, north of Durban.

They were also “planning to take legal action to ensure that all church properties throughout the country, and its heritage, are all put under the control of Ekuphakameni”.

According to the duo’s spokesperson, Landile Shembe, they intend to press their claims for financial control of the church and all its intellectual copyrights.
Landile Shembe told the Mail & Guardian that a “very conservative estimate of the church’s and the Shembe family’s assets would be about R500-million, but the value of the church is far greater.

“If a million people attend the Sabbath on a Sunday and each donates R20 to the church, multiply that over the past 35 years and we’re talking about an amount close to the billions.

“Figures as high as R50-billion have been bandied about, but right now we can’t say for sure.”

Family trust overlap
Landile Shembe said that some property given to the family and held in a family trust overlaps with that currently being used by the church. “But we intend doing a due diligence to establish its true worth as soon as we have control,” he said.

Landile Shembe conceded that while the Ekuphakameni and Ginyezinye factions had “small numbers” compared with the Ebuhleni grouping, they had the “moral and legal authority”.

He said: “The Ebuhleni faction changed its name to the Shembe International Church a few years ago. We are fine with that; this is a free South Africa and they can continue under that name. But we have united the Baptist Nazareth Church and we are laying claim to our history and tradition. Our gates are opened to the true amaNazarites.”

Reverend Mbongwa Nzama, chairperson of the Ebuhleni Shembe faction, disputed this, saying that an ongoing court case dating back to 2007 and involving the Ekuphakameni, Ginyezinye, Ebuhleni and another Inanda-based faction previously led by the now-deceased Mini Shembe, had led the Ebuhleni faction to “temporarily change its name”.

Nzama said: “This case is to decide the rightful leader of the Baptist Nazareth Church and while it is ongoing we had to temporarily change our name so that the church could continue running its financial and religious affairs.”

Vukile Shembe said his group is consulting lawyers to have the 2007 case struck off the roll “as both Mini Shembe and Vimbeni Shembe [erstwhile leader of the Ebuhleni faction] have died and the leaders of the other factions have agreed on uniting the church under one titular head”.

‘On the horizon’
Several court battles remain on the horizon. Since the death of Ebuhleni leader Vimbeni Shembe last month, yet another succession battle — set to be fought in court — has emerged.

At Vimbeni’s funeral the local nkosi, Mqoqi Ngcobo of the amaQadi clan, announced one of Vimbeni’s sons, Mduduzi Shembe, as the new leader of the church based at Ebuhleni.

He said the decision had been made by the church’s executive committee as Vimbeni Shembe had not announced an heir.

However, the church’s lawyer, Zwelabantu Buthelezi, subsequently announced at the funeral that Vela Shembe had been appointed successor by his brother, Vimbeni Shembe, in a deed of nomination.

Buthelezi told the M&G that in his 15 years as the church’s lawyer he was “not aware” of an executive committee existing within the church.
Those supporting Vela Shembe’s leadership claims have protested about the “unprocedural” nature of the announcement of Mduduzi Shembe’s leadership and have broken away to form another faction at Mtwalume on the KwaZulu-Natal south coast.

The Mtwalume faction recently instituted court proceedings to prevent the Ebuhleni faction from anointing Mduduzi Shembe as leader and applied successfully to have all the church’s assets frozen until judgment is handed down in the succession matter.

In his court papers Vela Shembe, the sole trustee of the Church of Nazareth Ecclesiastical Endowment Trusts, said that Vimbeni Shembe had named him successor in a deed of nomination and had confirmed the decision in a letter to Buthelezi shortly before his death. The hearing is set down for mid-June.

One of South Africa’s largest indigenous African churches, the Baptist Nazareth Church was founded between 1910 and 1912 by Isaiah Shembe, regarded by many followers as a prophet.

It has previously been involved in succession disputes, with the Ebuhleni, Ginyezinye and Ekuphakameni factions emerging following the death of Bishop Johannes Galilee Shembe, the son of Isaiah, in 1976.