HE has used a combination of threats and patronage to keep military, police and party officials on his side as Zimbabwe descends into economic chaos. Now President Robert Mugabe seems intent on co-opting the church, leaving Anglicans bitterly divided.

More than half the Anglican priests from Harare, the largest diocese, have fled the country, protesting that the church has become an extension of the regime. At least 10 have sought sanctuary in Britain.

The controversy revolves around Nolbert Kunonga, the Bishop of Harare, who last year became the first Anglican priest in Africa in more than 100 years to face prosecution by his peers. The charges included preaching racial hatred.

Since his appointment in 2001 Kunonga has consistently used his pulpit at St Mary’s Cathedral to praise Mugabe and decry critics of the regime. As a reward he was given a farm and a seven-bedroomed house overlooking a lake.

Now the 56-year-old bishop has started ordaining government ministers and party officials with no theological training, including Joseph Msika, the vice-president.

Any priest who dares to speak out finds himself transferred to a remote parish and intimidated.

“Kunonga has terrorised Christians and turned the diocese into a religious branch of [the ruling] Zanu-PF,” said a priest now living in England. He asked to remain anonymous as his family is still in Harare.

So serious is the situation that Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, has intervened with the Home Office to help some priests to enter Britain. “The Church of England has received and assisted clerical refugees from the diocese of Harare,” said Lambeth Palace.

Williams has broken a long silence on the matter with a statement to The Sunday Times in effect calling for the Bishop of Harare to be suspended.

“In other jurisdictions, a priest or bishop facing such serious charges would be suspended without prejudice until the case had been closed,” the statement said. “It is therefore very difficult for Bishop Kunonga to be regarded as capable of functioning as a bishop elsewhere in the communion.”

Although Williams has no power to intervene in Zimbabwe — which comes under the authority of the autonomous Province of Central Africa — his words as leader of the worldwide Anglican church carry great influence.

Kunonga recently told the state-owned Herald newspaper that Williams had no authority over him. “Throughout history the Anglican church has been an extension of British colonialism and imperialism,” he said. Now, he claimed, “England has no jurisdiction over me”.

The rift in Zimbabwe’s Anglican community began three years ago when it emerged that Kunonga had been given St Marnocks farm outside Harare as a token of appreciation from Mugabe for his support.

The farm, one of the biggest in the country, had been seized from the Hale family, who had bought it in 1990 for £700,000. Marcus Hale, the former owner, estimates that it has gone from producing 4,000 tons of cereal a year to about 60-70 tons. He says Kunonga has refused to return irrigation equipment and portable silos worth £190,000. “I’m very bitter,” he said.

Kunonga got the farm after defending Mugabe’s win in the rigged 2002 election that prompted the country’s suspension from the Commonwealth. In his sermons he called the election results “God’s will”.

He refused to speak out against human rights abuses, including last year’s Operation Murambatswina (Drive out the Filth), when hundreds of thousands of his parishioners in Harare had their homes and businesses demolished. His priests were outraged when he accepted an edict from Mugabe against helping the victims.

When one sermon turned into such a eulogy of Mugabe that choristers started drowning it out, they were sacked.

Pius Ncube, the Catholic Archbishop of Bulawayo and a critic of Mugabe, has said that Kunonga is “aligned with the forces of evil”. More than 30 Anglican priests from Harare have left the country since 2003. “The Anglican church in Harare has no credibility,” one of them said. “It’s a circus.”

Among those who have fled to England is the Rev Paul Gwese. He was suspended from his parish because the congregation who gave money at a thanksgiving service included the local opposition MP. Gwese was then transferred to another parish 70 miles away.

There have been so many complaints from parishioners, church wardens and priests that last August Kunonga was brought before an ecclesiastical court. The 38 charges included intimidating critics, mishandling church funds and preaching racial hatred.

The trial collapsed on its second day when the presiding judge from Malawi announced that he was withdrawing. It was later announced that the charges had been dropped.

Shortly afterwards Kunonga ordained Msika, commending “the sterling work he has done for both the church and the country”. Two cabinet ministers were also ordained.

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