The leadership wrangles between two factions fighting for control of the AIPCA church began subsiding yesterday after a faction that filed a case against rival Archbishop Fredrick Wangombe withdrew the matter.
The faction allied to Archbishop Amos Mathenge had filed the case before the Employment and Labour court in March last year to stop Wangombe from taking over leadership of the church after disputed elections.
Wangombe had already acquired the shepherds' stick - the church's symbol of authority before lady justice Helen Wasilwa issued orders barring from acting as the Archbishop of the church. The orders led to a contempt that was going to be laid yesterday and Mwangi said there was going to be sentencing before the cases were withdrawn.
"The cases in court had one common denominator - Archbishop Amos Mathenge and by his going, those cases die a natural death. Today we were in court - we cannot say that we appreciate because it is not the court that had issues in the matter, it is the applicant who has shown no interests in the matter," Mwangi said.
"We are yet to develop confidence in the court we are concerned with these procurement of court orders that are unenforceable. We are not comfortable with that. We feel that the courts are going too far in into infringing into rights of other institutions, not just our church but also political circles."
Mwangi said the issues bedeviling the AIPCA churches have been in existence for over 40 years.
"I think any sensible court would have thought of tying an arbitrary process towards this case but some people seem to be making fortunes out of these APCA troubles," Mwangi said.
He reached out to the rivals and invited them for a dialogue.
Mwangi said they are ready for dialogue as members of AIPCA church, "becaue we are one church, we share the same cross and amen"
The faction led by Wangombe said
"We are ready to accommodate them but with recognition that we are a church with an arch bishop. Anything short of considering our team as not having an Archbishop brings a standstill in the negotiations," Mwangi said.
Ex-parte orders had been issued that Wangombe could not act as the archbishop of the church.
Mwangi said this had made very hectic for the church because he [Archbishop Wangombe] was the ADC members' choice, had shepherds' stick which he had acquird from Mathenge.
He said the church is symbolically led with the stick as the symbol of authority.
"However, a court order was hastily issued on an ex-parte bases after an application by Stanley Muthomi and the orders have been in place since then.," Mwangi said.