Johannesburg - The controversial leader of the International Pentecostal Holiness Church (IPHC) Jerusalem faction, Michael Sandlana, faces a gloomy Easter week as thousands of his supporters yesterday fled back to the church’s headquarters in Zuurbekom in the west of Johannesburg.
The Passover weekend, which usually attracts around 50 000 worshippers, was dampened in the last few years following the church’s succession battle.
Sandlana was previously accused of lying about being the son of the church’s deceased leader, Glayton Modise. While it was previously believed that Modise had a will that nominated Sandlana as heir and leader of the church, it was later found that Modise had only five children, two male and three female, and none was named Michael Sandlana.
The exodus from Sandlana’s church followed his claim to have a will and DVD proving that he’s Modise’s son, it turned out that the will and DVD didn’t exist, and, according to the church’s doctrine, the successor would be Leonard Modise, known as Jakobo. The Modise anointing and its millions have been plotted for by many.
Last year, a "widow" who challenged the constitutional validity of sections of the Intestate Succession Act lost her legal bid to share in her "husband’s" estate.
She had challenged the section of the act that excluded the widows in a polygamous marriage from inheriting maintenance following the deaths of their husbands.
The Johannesburg High Court found that Pearl Modise was never married to the late Modise in the first place.
It was found that he was already married at the time. Apart from that, there was also a court order issued in 2012 that prohibited such a marriage from taking place.
Modise told the court that in February 2012 she entered into a polygamous religious marriage with the man following the religious rites of the IPHC.
She alleged that polygamy was a foundational value of the doctrine of this church, in terms of which men were permitted to wed more than one wife, although women were not afforded the same choice.
She said this meant that after her "husband" died, she stood in line for her slice of the maintenance, but the executors of the dead man’s estate refused to entertain her claim.
Modise argued that excluding spouses in polygamous religious marriages of this church from the act violated the "equality" provisions of the Constitution.
According to her, the Maintenance of Surviving Spouses Act and the Recognition of Customary Marriages Act also discriminated unfairly on the basis of equality and human dignity against a wide category of widows, including those in polygamous IPHC.
She said that a wife married to a husband in terms of a polygamous marriage solemnised by the church should be protected by law after he died.
Thus, Modise argued, she should be entitled to spousal maintenance from her late husband’s estate.
According to her, this right should include all the wives married in terms of a polygamous marriage solemnised by this church.
At the time of the purported marriage between her and the man, he had already entered into a civil marriage, in community of property, with another woman, who had recently died.
His then-wife obtained an urgent interdict against Modise and her in 2012 when she heard that they wanted to get married.
Attempts by The Star to obtain a comment from church spokesperson Vusi Ndala were unsuccessful by the time of publication.
The Star