Kinshasa, September 14th, 2021 (CPA).– The legal representative of the Union of Independent Churches of Congo (UEIC), Archbishop Simon Nzinga Maluka, invited Tuesday, during a press briefing in the commune of Barumbu, the dissident members having left without justification this religious confession to return unconditionally to the fold to continue together the work of evangelization and supervision of the sheep, while granting them his forgiveness. The reconciliation that « I now advocate with these members responds to one of the two recommendations made to us in his time by the Minister in charge of Justice, the first being the convocation in 2020 of the General Assembly, better of the extraordinary Synod. of the church which had only one item on the agenda, namely; amendment and modification of its Statutes. « , Said the speaker. The latter made it clear that those who do not submit will automatically be considered to have resigned. He took the opportunity to shed light on public opinion on the slippages observed at the end of the said Synod convened by him on April 16, 2020 and whose meetings were subsequently held in his absence in the town of Lemma, the members of the office that he had installed to carry out the work having preferred to put it aside, in defiance of the prescriptions of the Statute of the church. According to the legal representative of the UEIC, this procedure marred by irregularities could only give birth to a mouse at the end of the works for various reasons, in particular that people admitted to the works were not qualified because no ‘being not members of the UEIC, the agenda adopted and included in the minutes at the end of the meeting was contrary to that included in the invitation sent by him to the real participants, we also noted the non-conformity of the date of the convening of the proceedings. For him, this General Assembly was just a born dead man who could in no way speak of his impeachment as his critic’s claim, while his legal mandate still runs.
He took the opportunity to introduce the members of the national office of this church to the press, including some of them who returned after a while on the run.
The UEIC has been operational since 1995. It has nearly 300 full members scattered across the country.
In the jargon of this religious denomination, members mean churches that are members of the Union which are represented by individuals in an assembly. Its legal representative is also a member of the Economic and Social Council. ACP/