Rowan Williams, the spiritual leader of Anglicans worldwide, had for weeks sought a meeting with the 87-year-old president about the politically charged Church split led by excommunicated bishop and vocal Mugabe ally, Nolbert Kunonga.

An audience was finally granted, and Mugabe received the archbishop on Monday afternoon, an Anglican spokesman said.

In a statement issued by his spokesman, the Archbishop said' - "In our capacities as leaders of the Anglican Church in Africa and worldwide, we have just met President Robert Mugabe.

We come here to be in solidarity with our Anglican sisters and brothers at the invitation of the local church – the Anglican Province of Central Africa, which includes the five dioceses of Zimbabwe.

As you know this has been a time of immense trial. Since 2007 Anglican congregations in Zimbabwe have suffered serious persecution at the hands of the
police. They have been intimidated. Their churches have been closed. Properties, including schools and
clinics, have been seized.

As representatives of the Anglican Communion, and with the support of ecumenical friends worldwide, we strongly and unequivocally support the efforts of ordinary Anglicans to worship in peace and to minister to the spiritual and material needs of their communities.

Today we were able to present President Mugabe with a dossier compiled by the bishops in Zimbabwe which gives a full account of the abuses to which our people and our church has been subject. We have asked, in the clearest possible terms, that the President use his powers as Head of State to put an end to
all unacceptable and illegal behaviour.

We are proud of our church and our people who have suffered so much, but who continue to serve with love and with hope.

For our part we pray, and invite you to join us in praying, that the Anglican Church in Zimbabwe be allowed to carry out its mission in peace, and serve its communities with love.

In the morning, Williams had travelled to the town of Rusape, 150 kilometres (95 miles) southeast of Harare, where followers of Kunonga have seized the local cathedral.

Rusape's bishop Elson Jakazi has joined the faction led by the breakaway bishop, who demanded Monday that Williams "repent" for accepting gays -- a fact he blames for the split.

"Rowan Williams erred by accepting homosexuality and that has broken up the Church all over," Kunonga said in the state-run Herald newspaper.

"It's sad, they should repent, it needs Williams himself to repent. He is the one who has divided the Church," he said.

Kunonga, who has praised Mugabe as a "true son of God", in August won legal backing for his claim to all Anglican Church property in Harare, and has moved to take control of 3,800 properties around Zimbabwe and neighbouring states.

His followers have chased worshippers from churches and run teachers and nurses from schools, clinics and orphanages, with the evictions sometimes degenerating into clashes, leaving worshippers to pray in tents or parking lots.

In Rusape, the faithful have been forced to worship in an old municipal hall since Jakazi, who has also been excommunicated, laid claim to church property and locked the cathedral, which Williams visited.

"The visit is to show solidarity with Anglicans who are suffering in the same way as their colleagues in the Harare diocese," Precious Shumba, spokesman for the Church in Harare, told AFP.

Williams has used his Zimbabwe trip to try and bolster the spirits of the embattled Anglican community, telling worshippers in Harare on Sunday: "The will of God will triumph over these mindless and godless assaults."

Mugabe and Kunonga have used the visit to condemn the Anglican stance on homosexuality and to rant against travel bans and assets freezes imposed by western nations in protest at a decade of violently flawed elections.

Mugabe is renowned for his anti-gay stance and has described gays and lesbians as "worse than pigs and dogs".

Williams has struggled to maintain unity in the Anglican communion amid disagreements over the ordination of female bishops in Britain, and of openly gay bishops in the United States.

On his first stop in Malawi last week, the archbishop reiterated the Church's stance on gays, opposing violence and prejudice, but not supporting same-sex marriage or the ordination of gay priests.

The Church of England said in July it was reviewing its approach to same-sex relationships, an issue that has threatened to tear the Church apart -- particularly in Africa where many leaders are more conservative than their European counterparts.

Williams began his three-nation African tour in Malawi to mark the Church's 150th anniversary in that country. After two days in Zimbabwe, he is set to travel to Zambia on Tuesday, before returning home Thursday.

By AFP

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