According to Ivone Teixeira, spokeswoman for the Brazilian wing of the UCKG, so far none of those notified have left Angola, despite the document requiring them to leave voluntarily within eight days from the date they learn of the notification.
Ivone Teixeira revealed that last week an administrative act, which she called a "hierarchy appeal", was lodged with the Interior Minister, Eugénio Laborinho, in order to review the process, which began this month.
The decision to cancel the temporary residence visas, granted to 51 pastors and bishops, due to the cessation of ecclesiastical activity in Angola, comes in the wake of a letter from the new Angolan management of the UCKG.
The spokeswoman for the UCKG said the latest notification was received last Tuesday, noting that in the letter addressed to the Interior Minister, one of the issues complained about has to do with the lack of prior contact, prior to the delivery of the abandonment notification.
"We had cases of couples who were notified husbands without their wives, we had cases where only the pastor received the notice of abandonment and the wife did not, they being a family, there is the case of a couple who received the wife and daughter, and the husband did not," she indicated.
For the church, Ivone Teixeira continued, this is a sign that "the Reform Commission itself doesn't even know who the missionaries are.
"How is it possible, (...) that the daughter is sent away and the father and mother stay? That's where the irregularities begin," he stressed.
The church members also criticize the fact that they have not been notified by the ecclesiastical institution.
"If I belong to a company, who is going to notify me saying that they no longer want my services is the institution, and not the SME [Migration and Foreigners Service], and they didn't do that because there is no link", he said.
Lusa tried to hear the spokesman of the SME, Simão Milagres, but he refused to provide further information, stressing that "it is public [the notification to the pastors] and is not a secret to anyone.
The internal conflict in the UCKG began in November 2020, when a group of Angolan dissidents decided to distance themselves from the Brazilian leadership, with several accusations, namely of currency evasion, racism, compulsory practice of vasectomy, among others, all rejected by the missionaries of the church created by the Brazilian Edir Macedo, who also accuse the Angolans of xenophobia and aggression.
In the Angolan courts, after the beginning of the differences between the parties, aggravated by the forcible takeover of temples all over the country, several lawsuits related to the UCKG Angola are underway.
A Reform Commission of Angolan pastors was legitimized by the State, and the new direction of the UCKG, headed by Bishop Valente Bezerra, was elected in a general assembly on February 13.
