(16 Dec 2012)
1. Zoom out of women singing, gathered in the Square outside the Cathedral of Saint Mary and All Saints
2. Wide of drummers playing
3. Close of hands playing drum
4. Pan right of worshippers
5. Wide of priests on podium
6. Close of cross, pan left to Bishop Chad Gandiya during Mass
7. Close of Bishop Gandiya
8. Wide of worshippers listening to Mass
9. Close of booklet reading (English) "Diocese of Harare. Thanksgiving and Re-dedication. Order of Service"
10. Mid of women listening to Mass
11. Close of Bible in woman's hands, tilt up to woman's face
12. Wide of sign on cathedral wall reading (English) "Cathedral of Saint Mary and All Saints"
13. Wide of exterior of Cathedral
STORYLINE
Mainstream Anglican Christians in Zimbabwe took back their cathedral on Sunday after a lockout of more than five years staged by an excommunicated, breakaway bishop who claimed loyalty to the President's party and used loyalist police to keep people out.
Worshippers from across the country and regional church leaders thronged the central Harare square where the Cathedral of Saint Mary and All Saints is located to attend a Mass service.
Men, women and children danced to the beat of drums and sang hymns and African spirituals.
The Mass was followed by another service inside the colonial-era Cathedral to "cleanse and re-dedicate" its building.
Bishop Chad Gandiya struck the main doors of the Cathedral three times with a pastoral staff to have them opened.
He blessed what he called the "defiled" interior with signs of the cross ahead of the first Eucharist service by mainstream Anglicans since they were often violently banished from churches and missions seized nationwide.
The nation's highest court has declared the seizures illegal.
Breakaway Bishop Nolbert Kunonga launched a campaign a decade ago against the regional Anglican Church of the Province of Central Africa to which Zimbabwe belongs, claiming it supported gay rights.
In outspoken sermons, he backed militants of President Robert Mugabe's ZANU-PF party in violent elections and repeated much of Mugabe's criticism of his political opponents and the United States and Britain, the former colonial power before independence in 1980.
Kunonga seized church bank accounts and cars as his followers occupied church schools, orphanages and other properties.
Gandiya's diocese officials said many of those facilities went into disrepair - churches were locked and ousted worshippers held their services in Roman Catholic church halls, public areas and homes.
Some church buildings were turned into dormitories and food kitchens for Kunonga's supporters.
Others were turned into flea markets and drinking halls that attracted prostitutes, officials said.
Rubbish Garbage and rat faeces were strewn across some of the newly entered churches.
Last month's ruling of the Supreme Court ordered Kunonga to hand back all church assets.
The Cathedral's altar, the chancel behind the altar, the furnishings, the organ and sacred ornaments were to be cleansed and re-dedicated.
Kunonga removed burial plaques, tombstones, carvings and commemorative displays honouring prominent colonial-era citizens as well as black soldiers of the colonial African Rifles regiment who fought for Britain and its allies in the First and Second World Wars. Those relics are believed to have been destroyed.
Gandiya praised church members for enduring their period of "exile" from their places of worship and years of "persecution and pain" with faith and courage.
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30 июл 2015
