The Church's bishop, Matthias Lima, said the leadership of SSEC has had discussions with Mr Maeliau over a number of years concerning his teachings.

However, he had chosen not to change his position, and the Church no longer recognises him as an ordained minister.

The national director of visionnetwork, Glyn Carpenter, said he is saddened by this development. Mr Carpenter also serves as the current chairman of the South Pacific Evangelical Alliance, which is the regional body of the World Evangelical Alliance.

At one time, Mr Maeliau was president of the Evangelical Fellowship of the South Pacific, which was the previous name of the South Pacific Evangelical Alliance.

As chairman of the SPEA, Mr Carpenter is well acquainted with the history involving Mr Maeliau.

Mr Maeliau had left the EFSP in 2004 after issues were raised about some of his teaching. He had continued to run prayer assemblies around the Pacific, but considerable tension had developed in some of the island nations over issues that have obviously now come to a head. The name change to SPEA was caused partly by the need to make a distinction between the two movements.

Mr Carpenter said he was sorry to see the situation had reached the point of the SSEC publicly announcing their position regarding Michael, but he hoped they would be restored to fellowship in the future.

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