Paul Verryn

Paul Verryn (born 26 February 1952) is an ordained minister of the Methodist Church of Southern Africa.

Verryn was born on 26 February 1952 in Pretoria, in what is now the Gauteng province of South Africa, and was schooled at St Stithians College, a private Methodist school in Johannesburg.

His mother was of German and Irish descent, and his father, who was a supporter of Jan Smuts and fought in World War II, was of Dutch and French descent; his parents separated while he was a child.

Come of age under the apartheid state, he was drafted into compulsory military service in 1970.

While still a university student, Verryn began working (as a junior minister) in the Methodist churches in the Eastern Cape – first in Uitenhage (1973), and then in Southern Transkei (1974–1975) and Grahamstown (1976–1978).

He began studying theology while in the army and in 1976 completed a Bachelor of Divinity at Rhodes University in the Eastern Cape.

In 1978, he was ordained as a minister of the Methodist Church of Southern Africa (MCSA) in East London, and ministered on the Port Elizabeth circuit from 1979 to 1983.

He also chaired Interchurch Aid and the Standards Generating Body for Christian Theology and Ministry, and was involved in the work of the National Cancer Association in the Eastern Cape.

He was appointed as MCSA Supervisor of Studies (for student ministers) in 1982, and retained that position until 1997.

Verryn later said that he was "radicalised" during his time in the Eastern Cape, and became involved in anti-apartheid activism: he frequently visited neighbouring townships, sheltered activists from the security police, worked with activist Molly Blackburn, and launched the Port Elizabeth branch of the Detainees Parent Support Committee (DPSC).

DPSC primarily assisted the families of activists detained without trial under the Terrorism Act, and Verryn was its Port Elizabeth chair between 1982 and 1983.

Subsequent studies of Verryn's ministry have associated him with liberation theology.

He has cited among his influences other progressive South African clergymen with a concern for social justice, such as Beyers Naudé, Peter Storey and Mvume Dandala.

In 1984, Verryn returned to his home region, the Transvaal, to serve the Roodepoort circuit.

In December 1987, under the direction of his earlier inspiration Bishop Storey, he moved to the Methodist Church in Orlando West, Soweto, outside Johannesburg.

Unusually for a white minister in Soweto, Storey lived among his congregation in the church's Manse, where he continued to shelter activists and to work with the DPSC.

Storey later said that Verryn "won the hearts of the Soweto community through his identification with their struggle".

On 29 December 1988 the Mandela United Football Club (MUFC) abducted the four boys from the Mission house.

The MUFC was a private force of bodyguards, who answered to and were controlled by Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, then Nelson Mandela's wife and a leading anti-apartheid activist.

Following the abduction, Madikizela-Mandela alleged that Verryn had been abusing the boys sexually.

Some of the boys initially supported the allegation, but later retracted their statements, saying that the MUFC members had forced them to support the claim.

Madikizela-Mandela also claimed that Seipei (Moeketsi) was a police informer, a charge which in those days could have resulted in mob execution of the accused.

In 1989 a media furor erupted following the abduction of four youths and the murder of James Seipei, also known as Stompie Sepei.

Verryn had provided accommodation as a place of safety at the Orlando Mission house (Manse) for the four.

At the time this was also his residence as the minister for the Soweto Circuit.

Verryn was then also prominent as one of Winnie Madikizela-Mandela's critics.

Seipei's body was found on 6 January 1989, dumped on waste ground in Soweto.

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission found that the purpose of the abduction had been to force the boys to accuse Verryn of sexual abuse, and, after hearing testimony from all surviving witnesses and accusers, specifically cleared Verryn of any charges of sexual abuse.

When apartheid ended in 1994, Storey continued his work in Orlando West, and taught divinity at the MCSA seminary, the John Wesley College, from 1994 to 1997.

In 1994 he also assumed the position of:

Known for his anti-apartheid activism, he was Bishop of the church's Central District between 1997 and 2009.

During that period, he was a prominent and controversial figure for his activism against xenophobia, and clashed with the South African government over his decision to accommodate hundreds of refugees at his Central Methodist Church in the Johannesburg city centre.

In 1997, Verryn was consecrated as Bishop of the MCSA's Central District, which traverses three South African provinces and accounts for almost half of MCSA's total membership.

In the same year, Verryn began serving as a minister on the Johannesburg circuit; he was superintendent minister at the Central Methodist Church on Pritchard Street, Johannesburg.

The Johannesburg Central Methodist Church, under the leadership of Bishop Paul Verryn, had established a tradition of ministering to the poor and marginalised in the city centre.

When the flow of Zimbabwean refugees into South Africa had been significantly reduced, the South African government removed special controls which it had been forced to put in place.

However, refugees and illegal immigrants continued to enter the country in relatively limited numbers, mostly from Zimbabwe.

Many of them were destitute and jobless as well as being homeless.

Over the objections of some of his church members, Verryn offered Johannesburg Central Methodist Church to this need.

The steady inflow of refugees soon filled the church, which lacking all suitable facilities, nevertheless accommodated over 1500 refugees who slept on the pews and the floors; anywhere they could find a space.