by Godwin Ifijeh
The Rosicrucian Order, AMORC, has offered free membership to priests of the Church of Nigeria, Anglican Communion, who are not yet members to expose them to better understanding of its teachings.
Chief (Dr.) Kenneth U. Idiodi, President, Rosicrucian Order, AMORC (Nigeria), who made the offer in a letter dated February 19, 2002, to the Primate of the Church, Most Reverend Peter J. Akinola, in response to recent comments by some clerics of the Church on Chief Bola Ige's alleged membership of the Order, said they are offering free membership and access to its graded and time tested mystical, philosophical and scientific teachings to clerics of the church who were not yet members.
"Your Holiness, we are convinced that our detractors are either not familiar with what AMORC teaches or these teachings are totally misrepresented to them. In order therefore to expose these our detractors to a better understanding of what AMORC has been perpetuating for the past 3,354 years, we here most humbly and sincerely invite all year priests, who are not yet members of our noble Order to join and enjoy free membership and access to our graded and time tested mystical, philosophical and scientific teachings," Idiodi said.
The Anglican church, through Reverend Peter Awelewa Adebiyi, Bishop of the Lagos Dioceses, had recently expressed its regret at its participation in the burial of the slain Minister of Justice and Attorney General of the Federation, Chief Bola Ige, stating that it was unaware that the late minister was a member of the AMORC, a secret Cult.
Referring to Ige's membership of the Order as "evil in the Church", which it cannot "condone", the cleric said the church has barred its priests from officiating at the burials of cultists, warning that any priest who does would be ex-communicated by the church.
But Idiodi, in his reaction in the letter, entitled: " Please, Stop the Anglican Persecution of AMORC", said AMORC was profoundly disappointed that the latest attacks and religious persecution of "our noble Order and its law-abiding members is coming from the Anglican priesthood whom, considering the peculiar history of the Anglican Church we expect to be more tolerant of their opinions and more intellectually and spiritually enlightened than the common breed."
The Order said it has no doubt that the Anglican communion in Nigeria knows that the Resicrucian Order, AMORC, is the world's oldest mystical and initiatic fraternity. Added to that, Idiodi said the Order was also aware that majority of the sincere and silent priests of the church and other Christian denominations were experientially aware that the most intimate, private and uplifting spiritual relationship which man may have with its individual conception of omneity was mystical.
“We are greatly worried, your Holiness, about the self destructive hatred, the monstrous demons of irrational fear and belligerent intolerance this kind of sermons generate in the minds of your congregation and how this is eventually vented on the Nigerian society. We are seriously agitated that it is because the priests of our religions have engaged themselves in lavishly condemning and castigating other sects, groups and religions that there is the unacceptable inter and intra-religious conflicts in our country, resulting in the murder of thousands of our innocent citizens and destructions of property worth billions of naira", AMORC noted, pointing out that the Christian religion has never profited from the blood bath its self-serving priests have used the beautiful religion promulgated by the Priest of Peace to inflict on the world and humanity.