Members of Nigeria’s 17 million-strong Anglican Church — the world’s second-largest Anglican congregation — spent a day fasting and praying on Monday to protest the confirmation of homosexual priests and bishops in the United States and Britain.
”We are not happy that the Archbishop of Canterbury is being soft on this issue of homosexuals in the church,” said Reverend Obi Ulonna, referring to the titular head of the 77-million-member global Anglican community.
”We are praying that God will guide and protect our Bishop and all who are against the gay movement,” added Ulonna, a cleric at the St. Stephens parish in Lagos.
Ulonna added that tens of thousands of parishioners in the Nigerian commercial capital, Lagos, had pledged to fast and pray in special services being held on Monday.
”Enthusiastic participation” was expected in other Nigerian cities, he added.
The protest in Nigeria — which has the largest Anglican population outside Britain — comes ahead of an emergency meeting of the 38 primates, or leaders, of the world’s Anglican churches.
The gathering, to be held on Wednesday and Thursday in London, has been called by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, who is looking for a way to bridge differences that many regard as irreconcilable.
The primate of Nigeria, the Most Reverend Peter Akinola, told parishioners in Lagos last week that ”evil forces” were at work in the worldwide church.
”We Anglicans are against the ordination of gay priests and I am vehemently against it,” Akinola said. ”We need prayers to be able to surmount all the problems that tend to divide us, and all the forces of evil in the church.”
Many African Christian churches have retained the moral conservatism favored by the puritan European missionaries who introduced the religion to the African continent in the 19th century.
Ulonna, who leads the St. Stephens parish in Lagos, said on Monday that Nigerian Anglicans ”are praying for the Holy Spirit to guide the meeting” in London.
”We are praying for our primates, particularly those from Africa and Asia to speak up” against homosexual ordination, he said.
The US Episcopal Church’s decision in August to confirm a gay man — the Reverend V. Gene Robinson, who has a longtime male partner — as bishop of New Hampshire provoked a crisis within Anglicanism and focused attention on homosexual clerics.
Conservative opponents of Robinson in the United States warned at a rally last week that a break with the Episcopal Church is a strong possibility, and their protests were emphatically backed by the leaders of other Anglican national churches, particularly in Africa.
The US Episcopal Church, like the Anglican, traces its roots back to the Church of England, and is part of what’s known as the Anglican Communion.
Earlier this year, the Church of England had its own crisis when the Reverend Canon Jeffrey John was nominated as bishop of Reading.
John has openly declared his homosexuality, but affirmed that he was now celibate.
Akinola, who has also described the appointment of gay bishops and the blessing of same-sex marriage as ”a Satanic attack” on the church, said he spoke on behalf of Africans who oppose homosexuality as sinful.
”The problem with the West is that it wants to be the first in success, and it also wants to be the first in failures1 — the first to elect a homosexual bishop,” said Ernest Ezenwe, a 43-year-old parishioner at St. Stephens.
In May, the Anglican Church of Nigeria severed all relations with the Diocese of New Westminster in Canada for sanctioning the blessing of same-sex unions.
The Nigerian church has threatened similar treatment for any diocese or communion that steps out of line with what it believes are the dictates of the Bible on homosexuality.
In June, Akinola issued a written warning to Nigerians to be prepared for a potential split, no matter the financial cost to churches in the impoverished West African nation.
”We are mindful of the backlash this strong stand can engender from the rich churches in Europe, America and Canada, who have long used their wealth to intimidate the financially weak churches in Africa,” Akinola said.
”Our boldness in condemning the spiritual bankruptcy of these churches must be matched by our refusal to receive financial help from them,” he wrote. – Sapa-AP