Gasheegu Muramila
24 February 2007
Kigali — The Archbishop of the Episcopal Church of Rwanda (EER), the Most Rev. Emmanuel Kolini, has branded the act of homosexuality as a form of moral genocide. The prelate also accentuated the fact that he declined the Holy Communion while at the Anglican Communion Primates Summit in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania over the issue of homosexuality. "I didn't receive Holy Communion at any primates' meeting, protesting the US Episcopal Church consecration of a divorced bishop living in a same-sex relationship," Kolini told The Sunday Times by phone upon his return from the summit.
Kolini reiterated his stand that the Episcopal Church of Rwanda cannot, in any way, accept homosexuality because the act contravenes the biblical teachings and undermines the Rwandan culture.
Quoting the Bible, Kolini said that Christians should always keep their bodies pure since the body is God's temple. He said that yielding to acts of homosexuality is tantamount to committing genocide.
"In Rwanda we are spearheading the 'Never Again' notion. We had physical genocide and we can't afford having another moral genocide," he emphasized
Kolini advised Christians to desist from self destruction because God created them male and female for a purpose. He said that going to the holy table with the presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church would be a violation of the teaching and traditional Anglican understanding of Holy Communion. He stated that, according to the Bible, sexual intimacy is reserved for a husband and wife.
"Our stand has always been firm: We can't be driven by money into doing acts that do not only cause disrespect to God and the Church but even to ourselves. If God wanted man to marry fellow man, then there wouldn't have been Eve for Adam. We continue to reject their (gay clergy) funding because their acts disregard biblical teachings and morality" he said.
Kolini told The Sunday Times that Rwanda was in a period of physical and moral reconstruction that needs a lot of pastoral care to defeat temptations.
Several Provinces of the Anglican Communion severed ties with the American Anglican Church after a gay bishop, Gene Robinson, was consecrated in 2003, an act that caused widespread uproar among conservative and traditional Anglicans, particularly in Africa, a home to more than half of the world's Anglicans.
Other archbishops who boycotted the Holy Communion were those of Kenya, Uganda, Singapore and Nigeria.
The Archbishop of Nigeria, Peter Akinola, called the enthronement of a gay bishop a "satanic attack on the church of God".
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