The
controversy surrounding the divorce suit filed in court by Rev Anita,
the estranged wife of the founder and General Overseer of Christ Embassy
Church, Pastor Chris Oyakhilome, in which she has accused her husband
of ‘adultery’ and ‘unreasonable behaviour’ continued to rage all through
the week even as emerging facts indicate that the bitter feud has
already claimed its first casualty.
The first victim of the couple’s break-up learnt
from some officials of the troubled church is one of the pastors who
worked with Rev Anita Oyakhilome at the London branch of the church.
Simply identified as Rev Grace, she was said to have been sacked by
Pastor Chris in May when she allegedly raised a prayer team to pray for
the restoration of peace in the church’s first family when Rev Anita,
who headed the London church, stopped attending services.
READ MORE AFTER THE CUT.............................
One of the
ministers, who spoke in confidence, said: “We suspected this issue is
going to go public some day since the day Pastor Chris sacked Rev Grace
for meddling in his family affairs by openly calling for prayers among
some members in London when Rev Anita stopped coming to the church she
was shepherding while all efforts to get her failed. Some us believe our
colleague in London did the right thing by seeking spiritual help for
the family but I think Pastor Chris misread her intention and had to
travel to London when he heard of the move to sack her and contain the
spread of rumour among members in London.”
Apart from
the sack of the London pastor, another issue connected to the divorce,
which has also been generating tension in the church, is the cry of
female ministers who are accusing Pastor Chris of introducing
“controversial rules that are now threatening the foundation of many
marriages in the church.”
A female church member of one of the Christ Embassy branches in Abuja told Saturday Sun that
“the revolt of Rev Anita will be a child’s play to the one that people
will soon see when we open up on how a secret policy introduced some
time early this year has been tearing many families and homes apart in
our parishes across the country. This is a strange directive that
husbands and their wives must not worship or attend the same parish.
Now, if a couple is a member of a parish, one of them has to be posted
to another parish and this is fuelling adultery in the church in no
small measure. Some of us who are female ministers that have been
separated from our husbands, we are already talking. Some have started
revolting against the order in their parishes while some have refused to
obey such transfer orders.”
Another top female official of the church in one of the parishes located in Ikeja corroborated the story when she told Saturday Sun: “The
policy is real but it is creating tension in the church already.” The
female minister, whose husband has been transferred out of the parish
they have been attending together for years to give effect to the policy
further, stated: “It’s a heartbreaking development because now we know
that that directive was introduced to justify why Pastor Chris has to be
in Lagos and his wife in London but beyond that, it is encouraging
immorality while the church believes that we have an unusual grace that
covers our human failings including adultery.”
Coming
down to her personal experience, the female minister disclosed that soon
after her husband was transferred to a parish far away from their
initial one, “one of the male ministers where I am to stay back started
winking at me. The first Sunday I felt he did that unknowingly or
without any ulterior motive but the following Sunday he came to shake
hands with me after service and what he did was to use one of his
fingers to scratch my palm during the handshake. I was miffed but I
couldn’t do anything because he will deny and I will look stupid but
since then he got my message because I stopped greeting him.”
Saturday Sun
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