Leaders of the Jerusalema faction of the International Pentecostal Holiness Church (IPHC) say the organization should be separated from the Modise family as this was the wishes of the founders.
On Wednesday, spokesperson for the faction Priest Vusi Ndala said the leader of the faction, Michael Sandlana, is the right person to be at the helm of the popular church. The briefing happened just a day after 42 men accused of being involved in the July 11 attack at the IPHC Zuurbekom headquarters were released on R5,000 bail each.
Ndala said the council of the church resolved to endorse Michael Sandlana as the successor of the late MG Modise. He said this resolution was confirmed on October 25 2018 where over 400 priests were present. He claimed that it was after this confirmation that a group which called themselves Bring Back God (BDB) hijacked and invaded the IPHC headquarters on October 27 2018. This is against statements made by the Leonard Modise faction, which has maintained that they are the rightful occupants of the church’s headquarters in Zuurbekom.
This faction also blamed the Jerusalema group of illegally taking over properties of the church. Ndala told journalists at the Jerusalema buildings in Pretoria that the founders of the church had never made it a family church.
“It is our belief in the thought and creed…that the IPHC as an organization, is not a family church but an institution belonging to and for the benefits of its members as the community. Both the founder of the IPHC, His Grace FS Modise and Comforter MG Modise, said it on several occasions before the congregation that the IPHC is not a Modise church. It is not the surname of Modise that works in the church but the Word of God,” Ndala said.
The IPHC has been involved in an ugly succession battle since the death of its leader Glayton Modise in 2016. Three factions are now claiming the right to the leadership – Jerusalema faction led by Michael Sandlana, Leonard Modise faction which is at the headquarters in Zuurbekom and the Tshepiso faction. On July 11, a group of men stormed the headquarters in Zuurbekom in the early hours of the morning and five people were killed. The Leonard faction blamed the Jerusalema faction for the attack.
The attack prompted the Commission for the Promotion and Protection of the Rights of Cultural, Religious and Linguistic Communities to start an intervention process in order to find a solution.During the briefing, Ndala refused to comment on what their members were doing at the headquarters in the early hours of the morning.
“You are out of order in the sense that the matter is in the courts. It will be followed through the courts, they [public] will get the answer…It is going to be a long-drawn process, that we know for a fact because five lives were lost. Members will get answers from that,” he said.
IPHC was founded by the late Reverend Frederick Samuel Modise in 1962, who was succeeded by his son Glayton Modise in 1998. Glaton died in 2016 and the dispute over who should succeed him is currently before the courts.
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