Father John Pesa. Photo/Courtesy
By Levin Odhiambo Opiyo
OBITUARY.
Pope John Pesa, who died yesterday, stalked with controversy throughout his church ministry. From being convicted of sodomy in the 80s, accusations of poisoning a Greek missionary to committing an embarrassing gaffe that Solomon killed Goliath.
His pastoral journey can be traced back to the late 1960s when he was a member of the Nomiya church.
Momiyo was one of the earliest African churches in Kenya founded for religious independence and as a form of spiritual and cultural resistance against European domination.
It was founded by Nabii Johana Owalo .
Before rebelling to form Nomiya, Owalo had been a member of the Church of Scotland and taught Jomo Kenyatta at Kikuyu.
His death in 1921 resulted in the emergence of different factions as a power struggle ensued in the church. In late 1967, another rift emerged in the church when a teenager called John Juma Pesa, who was barely 20, declared himself Owalo's successor and began preaching and healing. He joined Nomiya from the Catholic Church
Pesa and other rebels were later expelled from the Nomiya church , and they formed Nomiya Luo Roho under the leadership of Bishop Zablon Ndiege. Later, Pesa fell out with Ndiege and formed his Holy Ghost Coptic Church.
In 1975 His Grace (HG) Bishop Makarios of the Egyptian Orthodox Coptic Church personally arrived in Kenya and sent missionaries to help Church leaders such as Pesa who were using the word "Coptic" in their churches without knowing what it stood for.
The aim was to guide them to align their churches with the ways of Coptic Orthodoxy.
Soon, the missionaries fell out with Pesa criticising him of using the word "Coptic" but sticking to liturgy that resembled that of the Catholic Church.
The missionary reported back to Makarios, who left Kenya for Egypt, to inform Patriarch Shenounda lll of Alexandria about the situation in Kenya.
Shenounda reacted by ordaining Makarios as the Bishop of African Affairs and sending him back to Kenya to establish a true Coptic Orthodox Church.
In Nairobi, Makarios immediately registered the Coptic Orthodox Church with the government. This meant that Pesa was now operating a fake Coptic Church.
Pesa reacted to this challenge strongly by launching verbal attacks against Makarios and, at one point in the early 1980s, physically assaulted him. It was also alleged that he had poisoned one Egyptian missionary of the Coptic Orthodox Church.
At the height of the vitriol with Makarios, Pesa was arrested and charged after being accused of assault and sodomising members of his church. Kisumu Resident Magistrate Salim Machio found Pesa guilty and sentenced him to three years in prison with 5 strokes in 1985. However, Pesa, who was represented by LG Menezes, termed the accusations as witch-hunt by his detractors.
It could be true that he was being fought by the Coptic Church , because almost immediately the government him forced him to drop the word Coptic in the name of his church, which became Holy Ghost Hermetic Church, but he still used Coptic illegally.
By 1987, Pesa was a freeman. In a service he conducted that year to celebrate his birthday and attended by an assistant minister, he called on church leaders to stop opposing the government policies and instead offer prayers for the country's peace and development.
He hit out at the church leaders who were opposing the queuing (mlolongo) system, saying that he was ready to line up behind his candidate of choice.
In 2020, Pesa claimed his life was in danger after he visited DP Ruto’s home in Sugoi. He claimed unknown men broke into his home and demanded money he had brought from Ruto’s home.
During the visit, Pesa had controversially claimed that Solomon killed Goliath, also urging Ruto to "dunga sindano kwa kipoole."
In 2023, a multi-agency team raided his church on allegations of detaining mentally sick people and having a secret cemetery. Pesa's church was always full of mentally ill people whom he claimed he could heal by prayers.
Pesa's church in Kisumu is located next to an accident prone spot. This, at times, led to allegations that it was Pesa's sacrificial place. But Pesa responded by asking, "If l kill people, where will l get members to fill my church?" Pesa always dismissed all the allegations against him as pure witch-hunt.