Maximum Mumbai: When a priest goes to jail…

A few years ago, this newspaper carried a series of reports about allegations of massive land scams in the Church of North India and other Anglican denominations.

In Mumbai, churches that have featured in the allegations include the landmark Afghan church, Christ Church, a Methodist church in Worli, Salvation Army properties in Central Mumbai, St Peter’s Church in Mazgaon and All Saints Church, Malabar Hill. In most cases, the managing trusts of the churches have been accused of conniving with builders to sell off prime church land and taking kickbacks in return. A petition relating to the Afghan Church, where a member of the managing committee is alleged to have received an advance payment from a builder as part of a deal to sell vacant land around the heritage-listed church, is still pending in the Bombay high court.

Sadly, for the small and helpless congregations attached to these churches, some of the main players in the scam are their own religious leaders. Early this month, a former Mumbai bishop of the CNI was arrested after complaints from church members that he was trying to sell religious property built on land leased from the defence department. He was released on bail. Earlier, a former priest was arrested.

An inquiry by the state law and judiciary department confirmed that several church properties in Mumbai, Pune, Ahmednagar and other towns in Maharashtra — endowments from a generous colonial administration — have been lost. In Mumbai, the struggle to control the substantial church properties has been so fierce that at least four rival trusts have formed, each claiming to be the sole legitimate group. The bishop who was arrested headed one such group. 

The news of the arrest a senior member of the clergy has hurt the community, said Rev Victor Gollapalli, secretary of the Maharashtra Council of Churches, a group which represents members of Anglican churches. He said that after reports about the priest’s arrest, he received over 200 calls from church members. “They wanted to know how the community can stop the loot; a priest going to jail is a shameful deed,” he said.

Gollapalli said he voiced the feeling in the community when he expressed his views in the community media. He said: ‘Once upon a time, their church properties were a great blessing to the community; today, these have turned out to be a curse. My church properties need to be developed as they are centuries old, but in the pretext of redevelopment, they are being sold. Many of the properties are subject matters of litigations that have piled up in the courts.’

A few years ago, the MCC announced plans for a community centre called ‘Bible Bhavan.’ They hoped to get some space for the project from its land-rich constituent churches. “But there was no response. All church properties are supposed to be used for ecclesiastical, educational and other charitable causes. It is painful to see church property sold,” said Gollapalli.