Emmanuel Kolini

Emmanuel Mbona Kolini (born Belgian Congo, 1945) is a Congolese-Rwandan Anglican priest. He was the second Primate of the Episcopal Church of Rwanda, named Anglican Church of Rwanda in 2007, from 1998 to 2011. He is married and a father of eight children. Kolini currently serves as the Rector of the Anglican Mission in the Americas College of Consultors.^[1]

He studied at Canon Warner Memorial College, Bishop Tucker College, in Mukono, Uganda, now known as the Uganda Christian University, and the Balya Bible College, also in Uganda. He worked as a primary school teacher and headmaster in some refugee schools in Bunyoro, Uganda. He has a degree in Theology from the Virginia Theological University, in the United States.

Kolini was ordained an Anglican priest in 1969. He would be consecrated Assistant Bishop of Bukavu, Zaire, in 1980.^[2] He was Bishop of the Diocese of Katanga, in Zaire, from 1986 to 1997. Kolini was called to be the second Primate of the Episcopal Church of Rwanda, in 1998, being also Bishop of the Diocese of Kigali, the capital of Rwanda. He was in office until 2011.

He had an important role in the pacification of the post-genocidal Rwanda. He has been also a leading name in the Anglican realignment movement, as a member of the Global South (Anglican) and the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans. On April 20, 2010, at the Global South meeting in Singapore, he called for a new Anglican Ecumenical Council, modeled by the first Ecumenical Councils of the Christian Church.^[3] Archbishop Kolini stated that: "We are standing at the crossroads. I say let my people go. This is the 4th trumpet call. The Holy Spirit led the first Council of Jerusalem. He will lead ours. We have what the biblical structure offers us we have the tradition of 2000 years." He expressed his full support for a renewed Anglican Communion: "Moses led God's people out of Egypt (Exodus 3). Now is a time for bold action. Let my people go. We need to declare to the world let my people go. We need a renewed communion, dependent on the Holy Spirit not resolutions. Singapore is a new Sinai."

He co-wrote, with Peter R. Holmes, Christ Walks Where Evil Reigned (2007), about the Rwanda genocide, and Rethinking Life: What the Church Can Learn from Africa (2010).

He is the subject of the book Emmanuel Kolini: The Unlikely Archbishop of Rwanda (2008), by Mary Weeks Millard.

Cancellation of Paul Rusesabagina Speaking Engagement

In September 2007, Kolini intervened to prevent Paul Rusesabaina from speaking at All Souls Anglican Church in Wheaton Illinois. Rwandan President Paul Kagame According to an article in Christianity Today:

But after President Kagame found out Rusesabagina was supposed to speak at a church overseen by archbishop of Rwanda, he contacted Kolini, who then sent a message to the church requesting that the event be canceled, Johnson said.^[4]

Archbishop Kolini then contacted an official with the Anglican Mission in the Americas, who relayed his message to the pastor of All Souls Anglican Church in Illinois:

On Thursday, however, All Soul's pastor J. Martin Johnson received a message from AMiA President Canon Ellis Brust that Emmanuel Kolini, the Anglican archbishop of Rwanda, requested that the church not have Rusesabagina speak. Rusesabagina has been at odds with the president of Rwanda. The archbishop feared that the event could create a strain in the relationship between the Anglican Church of Rwanda and the government.^[5]

Support for M23

The United Nations Group of Experts on the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) issued a report on 27 June 2012, which implicated Kolini (misspelled as "Coline") with leading a meeting for National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP) politicians in support of the March 23 Movement (M23) rebel group, operating in the DRC. ^[6] The UN report stated:

Another similar M23 meeting with Rwandan authorities took place on 26 May 2012 in Ruhengeri, Rwanda, at Hotel Ishema. According to intelligence sources and to politicians with close ties to Kigali, the RDF organized the meeting for CNDP politicians, which was chaired by Bishops John Rucyahana and Coline, both senior RPF party leaders. The aim of the meeting was to convey the message that the Rwandan Government supports M23 politically and militarily. All Rwandophone politicians and officers were instructed to join M23, or otherwise leave the Kivus. In particular, CNDP politicians have been asked to resign from the North Kivu Governorate and to withdraw from the Presidential Majority.

References

External links

• Archbishop Emmanuel Kolini Biography