Bishops rally behind Mugabe

Bishops from the Apostolic Christian Council of Zimbabwe (ACCZ) on Friday urged Zimbabweans to pray for the country's leadership and stop resorting to violence to solve contradictions.

ACCZ is an umbrella body representing apostolic and Zion churches in the country. Speaking soon after arriving from a two-week tour of Israel, Bishop Noel Charuma said as churches, they would continue to rally behind President Mugabe as he was constitutionally elected by the people.

"We are happy for our President and proud of him because when we were in Israel, people there considered him the African President", he said.

"It is surprising that some churches are inciting violence at a time they should be praying for the leadership as required by the word of God. We encourage people to pray to God even when things are hard. We have to turn to God as a nation. That is the only way of finding solutions to our problems. Violence will never take us anywhere but will leave us worse off."

Bishop Choruma added: "Our responsibility and aims as churches is to pray for our leaders and our Government so that God intervenes. We also pray for President Mugabe to continue leading us with knowledge and wisdom. We are against those churches that condemn the leadership."

Head of delegation and ACCZ secretary general Reverend Matthias Tsine said people should respect any leader appointed by God.

"We as the ACCZ encourage Zimbabweans to respect our President and seek divine intervention rather than going against the President," he said.