African Pentecostal churches have been springing up in Ireland’s industrial parks month after month. CATHERINE REILLY pays a visit to one in north Dublin and sees what all the fuss is about...
‘Prayer City’ reads the sign in Glasnevin’s Ballyboggan Industrial Estate. But it seems improbable. The estate is dank and solitary, and the sharp wind is its only soundtrack.
But Prayer City indeed lies within, for the entrance into the outwardly grey Mountain of Fire and Miracles church leads to a colourful prayer hall, one filled with over a hundred worshippers, mostly Africans.
On the podium, Pastor Anthony Eziashi is imploring the congregation to follow his lead. “Affliction will not rise again in my life!” he cries, as his flock repeat his words with vigour, some shaking their heads almost violently. “Every power sponsoring afflictions in my life, die, die, die!”
A little girl bursts into tears, but most of the kids seem non-plussed. The men and women, however, take their worshipping seriously: shoulders shake, arms raise, decibel levels rise.
But it’s not all cries of affirmation. Pastor Anthony, who exudes an undeniable charisma and can be seen on two screens in the hall, quotes the Bible at will – and most of the congregation have brought their own Good Book along, some taking notes. Songs act as interludes, led by the church’s band and singers.
The main theme of this service is that, through prayer, life’s difficulties will “never again” revisit you.
“When you have to deal with circumstances, you know the right thing to do because you come here and you hear the word of God,” explains worshipper Theresa Gunwa, a Nigerian-born Biotechnology student at NUI Maynooth.
Pastor Anthony, she says, is admired by all.
“Besides the fact that he is a preacher, he is a very good teacher. To all of us, he leads by a very good example. You look at his way of life and see a good few things you could imbibe out of it.”
And that is why, for a full three hours every Sunday, Theresa is right here.
Though mostly comprised of Africans, the congregation come from all walks of life. Metro Éireann encounters one government department employee, another who works with the HSE. Some are students, others asylum seekers. They make financial contributions to the church, several tell me, but they do not feel forced to do so.
Like everywhere else in Ireland right now, the ‘R’ word is evoked during the service – but casually dismissed. “I don’t know what the recession is all about, it’s none of my business,” announces Pastor Anthony. “My God is not recessed, he’s refired!”
Mountain of Fire and Miracles is a Pentecostal church which was founded in Nigeria. Its ethos can be summarised thus: it takes the Bible at its word, and does not deviate from the messages therein. It has 16 branches in Ireland, and safely over 1,000 members across the country. Interestingly, an Irishman has joined their pastoral team in Glasnevin.
After the service, a line of people (mostly women) queue upstairs, waiting to meet Pastor Anthony and tell him their troubles. He says he gives advice – “counselling” – to those who request it. Sometimes church members ask for deliverance from so-called spiritual attacks and witchcraft.
Indeed, one of the most powerfully repeated mantras during the service related to witchcraft: “Witchcraft manipulation, I cry against you! Never again in the name of Jesus!”
Sitting behind me, a man of around 30, dressed casually in blue jeans and an open-necked shirt, added his own rejoinder: “In my life, in my life, in my family, in my family, in my marriage, in my marriage.”
“Witchcraft is now a course in universities, in colleges,” explains Pastor Anthony, who hails from Delta State in Nigeria and is even more charismatic close-up. “Witchcraft means to twist – somebody’s going straight and he’s diverted. They [witches] manipulate people through negative spiritual power... Through prayer there is all good deliverance.”
But who has the power to deliver?
“Well, I don’t do it, I conduct it,” responds the pastor, explaining that deliverance revolves around prayer. “Who does it is God, through me. I am not the healer; God is the healer. We just finished one last month.”
The pastor also believes that prayer can heal medical woes.
“By the grace of God, yes. There are a lot of instances,” he begins. “There are things that prayer can do, more than we expect.
“I remember an incident in the Rotunda hospital, one of our sisters was bleeding seriously after birth, so we were praying and shouting with our voices, and very soon the doctors came and said ‘We don’t know what you people are calling but the blood has stopped.’ But we thank God equally that He answered the prayer,” he says.
“There are a lot of things prayers does – prayer changes the world, prayer changes a lot of things. The same way, if you look at the current way we are, everything has failed. I had the opportunity to study in a communist state; communism has failed, capitalism has failed now, so the only one that is still standing is God.”
Pastor Anthony studied for a medical degree in Kiev, Ukraine during the Soviet times, and I ask him if he ranks prayer above medical treatment.
“Well, I don’t condemn medical treatment, never. I would never say ‘Don’t go to the hospital’ – it’s stupidity,” he responds. “At the same time as you are going to the hospital, we will give you prayers that you need to be praying.
“God is the one that brought in the doctors, God is the one that raised them up and trained them. A doctor is a body mechanic – that is just it. He can only extend life. We are looking at the eternal part of our life – after this life, what’s next.”
Downstairs, as the congregation filters back out into the industrial estate, a few female members remain – some chatting, others taking on the clean-up duties.
For Lucinda Roberts, originally from Nigeria and now an Irish citizen, the church reinvigorates her every week, and inspires her to spread the word.
“I had been a Christian at home and I was looking where to fit into, where my faith can grow, where I can hear the word of God and be able to learn, and read something into my spirit,” says the crèche worker. “Somebody actually said ‘There is one church over there’ – back then it was on Prussia Street – ‘Why don’t you give it a try?’
“I went in and my spirit was flowing along. When I entered into Mountain of Fire and Miracle Ministries, I felt different. You don’t need anybody to lay hands on you and prayer for you; you can actually do it yourself. And that’s what the Mountain of Fire and Miracles is all about – do it yourself.”
