Fiji’s Methodist Church says it’s preparing itself for the future by trying to bring it’s two rival factions together.
A rift in the Methodist Church from over two decades ago will be healed at the beginning of this year’s Methodist Church in Fiji annual conference.
In the late 1980s, the tenure of then church president Reverend Josateki Koroi’s, who was seen as a moderate came to a premature end with a rift in leadership between Mr Koroi and Reverend Manasa Lasaro.
As a result, Koroi has did not exercise his role as a past president; to officiate during the installation of a new church president.
So this year with Koroi will join immediate past president Reverend Ame Tugaue in to installing the new president Reverend Tuikilakila Waqairatu.
In an interview with Radio Australia, deputy general secretary Reverend Tevita Banivanua said next year the church was planning to hold a church-wide “washing of the feet”.
This process would see Tuikilakila washing the feet of the superintendent ministers and lay leaders of the church’s 55 divisions.
These leaders would then continue the process in their divisions until every church has held a ‘washing of the feet’, as a sign of humility, servitude and seeking of forgiveness.
“All we’re trying to do now is to mend the broken net of the church as a whole,” Banivanua told Radio Australia.
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