Bishop Withdraws Anglican Priest Ordination License For Impregnating Help-Seeking Woman
The authorities of the Anglican Diocese on the Niger has retrenched Rev Canon Lumenkriti Ebo, for impregnanting a women who sought help from his ministry.
According Vanguard, Canon Ebo told the lady who visited Adoration Ministry for assistance that the only way to get healed was to sleep with him.
It was alleged that Canon Lumenkriti Ebo, impregnated the lady in attempt to heal her, an act, the church authorities described as immoral.
In what seemed to be a trade of words, Rev Canon Lumenkriti, alleged that the church denied him of access to his legal wife by accommodating her outside their matrimonial home.
The bishop, however, withdrew Rev Canon Lumenkriti Ebo’s ordination license, saying that the act is capable of driving the church reputation into mud.
Africa Investigative Magazine gathered that Canon Ebo was the resident priest, Adoration Ministry, Umunya, Oyi Local Government Area of Anambra State.
He had last week, accused the bishop on the Niger, Rt. Rev Owen Nwokolo of violating his fundamental human right and demanded the sum of N3 million from him every year for operating the adoration ministry.
Rev Canon Lumenkriti Ebo has also instituted legat action against the bishop at the Federal High Court, Awka, Anambra State.
Reacting, the Deputy Chancellor, the Diocese on the Niger, Mr. Ben Uzuegbu (SAN) said the church withdraw Canon Ebo’s ordination license to save it from further embarrassment.
Hear him: “The former priest was doing things that were unbecoming of a priest. The bishop had to call us, the legal team of the Diocese, to decide how to handle the man.
“With what he had done, he ought to be in prison, but the church decided to be lenient with him, thinking that he would change.
“But he refused to change and his immoral acts became a scandal such that it was in the public domain that he impregnated his secretary and was always beating his wife to stupor.
“He was later suspended and when it was obvious that he did not want to mend his ways, the church decided to withdraw his license.
“If a priest acquires property, it belongs to the Diocese. Monies paid by parishes belong to the Diocese, not the bishop, as he claimed.
“ It was even discovered that he registered his adoration ministry with the Corporate Affairs Commission in his name in 2017, and that of his secretary and leaving out his legally married wife, contrary to the constitution guiding priests working in the Diocese.
“Let me say that I did not quit the priesthood. A priest is chosen by God, and I remain a priest.. What I did was to turn in my resignation as priest of the Diocese on the Niger to my lord Bishop Owen Nwokolo.
“What happened was that I have a special call by God to spread his word in a peculiar way, and to minister to souls, heal the sick and bring God’s blessings upon souls.
“For this reason, I was moved by the holy spirit to begin working in a congregation which later metamorphosed as God in Action Adoration Ministry.
“This course of ministration by me is what I can say instigated antagonism and persecution from angles controlled by Bishop Owen Nwokolo.
“It was obstacle set and promoted by him that forced me to resign as priest of the Diocese on the Niger.
“I have remained for sometime the single largest contributor as priest with congregation, to the diocese. I have given to the church without looking back, and to my lord Bishop himself, as God provided.
“I bought a land and handed over to the diocese, and my financial contributions were unparalleled, and this I say with humility.
“I am the only priest in the diocese who is not on the salary list because I rejected salary.
“However, my Lord Bishop later called me and insisted that he wanted himself and his wife to be included as trustees in the registered titles of the adoration ministry. When I prayed about his demand, I got clear revelation that God had different purposes for the Bishop, but not within the adoration ministry, and I conveyed this message to him.
“He threatened to ban my activities within the diocese and to bring me down for this refusal, but I relied on God.
“Even if they kill me tomorrow, some persons are aware of my correspondences with the Bishop on this matter.
On the allegation that his marriage had broken down, Rev Ebo said: “Sadly it is so. My lovely wife within the circumstances of my travails with the diocese suddenly turned tiger. I was not taken aback because God had earlier revealed to me that I would have additional challenge from that quarter. They bought my wife over and she began to antagonize me.
“As we speak, my wife resides in an apartment paid for by someone who knows that she is another man’s wife.
It has really affected me as a young man who is permitted to marry, and who has lived with a woman, because indeed though I am a priest, like our Lord Jesus while he was on Earth, I also eat and drink like a normal human being,” he said.
