Malawi bishop’s election overturned: The Church of England Newspaper, June 4, 2010 p 8.

The Rt Rev Christopher Boyle of Northern Malawi

First published in The Church of England Newspaper.

The Court of Confirmation of the Church of the Province of Central Africa has rejected the election of the Rev Leslie Mtekateka as Bishop of Northern Malawi. A new election to succeed the Rt Rev Christopher Boyle, who has returned to England to serve as Assistant Bishop of Leicester, has been scheduled for June 26.

Rector of St Timothy’s, Chitipa, Fr Mtekateka was the sole candidate on the ballot in Northern Malawi, and is the son of the Rt Rev Josiah Mtekateka, the first African bishop of Malawi, who was consecrated in 1965 as Suffragan Bishop of Nyasaland, and in 1971 as the first Bishop of Lake Malawi.

Shortly after Fr Mtekateka’s election on Aug 1, 2009, a petition was lodged with the bishops of the province charging the bishop-elect with moral turpitude. A September 2009 meeting to hear charges brought against Fr Mtekateka was postponed to November after the petitioners were unable to attend the gathering.

The bishop-elect responded to the charges at a February meeting of the court and in April the bishops announced there was sufficient cause to nullify the Aug 1 vote and sent it back to the diocese for a new election.

Fr Mtekateka was the first Malawian elected as Bishop of Northern Malawi. His predecessors were British, Bishop Boyle, and American, the Rt Rev Jackson Biggers. In June 2006, the Rev J Scott Wilson SSC of the Diocese of Fort Worth withdrew as sole candidate in Northern Malawi, prompting the diocese to conduct an abbreviated internal search that produced Fr Mtekateka.

Delegates from the five archdeaconries in Northern Malawi will meet in the Diocese of Lake Malawi with representatives from the province and are expected to choose an indigenous priest to serve as its next bishop.