Mokiwa opposes deposition in court

Former Tanzania Anglican Church Bishop, Dar es Salaam Diocese, Valentino Leonard Mokiwa has opted for a legal battle against his deposition from the post. 

At the Kisutu Resident Magistrate’s Court in Dar es Salaam yesterday, Dr Mokiwa sued the church’s Archbishop, Dr Jacob Chimeledya and Registered Trustees of Anglican Church of Tanzania.

The counsels for the parties to the matter appeared before Principal Resident Magistrate Thomas Simba yesterday but the magistrate could not accommodate them for the case has been scheduled for hearing on March 28. There is a set of grounds of objections that the defendants have filed, seeking dismissal of the suit.

Among the grounds include the court lacking jurisdiction to entertain the case because the cause of action involves the entire Anglican Church of Tanzania and that the suit has been instituted in express violation of the Constitution of the Church.

Dr Mokiwa, born in 1954, is the former Tanzanian Anglican Archbishop.

He was elected as the Primate and Archbishop of the Anglican Church of Tanzania in 2008 and occupied the position until 2013.

Since being elected in April 2002, Mokiwa was the Bishop of the Diocese of Dar es Salaam, until his deposition in January 2017, by Archbishop Jacob Chimeledya after he declined to resign in the wake of various allegations in the Diocese of Dar es Salaam.

Dr Mokiwa was Bishop of the Diocese of Dar es Salaam when he was elected the new Archbishop of Tanzania in a special session held during the General Synod of the church in Dodoma, on February 28, 2008.

He was installed in Dodoma on May 25, 2008, succeeding Donald Mtetemela.He lost the re-election in a runoff on February 21, 2013 to Jacob Chimeledya.

While Mokiwa remained as the Dar es Salaam Bishop upon his defeat, he decided not to attend the GAFCON II, held in Nairobi, Kenya, in October 2013.

Dr Mokiwa, a theological Anglo-Catholic, like his predecessor, was also strongly critical of the departures of the Anglican tradition taken by the Episcopal Church of the United States and the Anglican Church of Canada.

He supported the Anglican realignment, attending the Global Anglican Future Conference in Jerusalem in 2008, and shortly after, the Lambeth Conference. He also expressed his support for the Anglican Church in North America, launched in 2009.