Land grabbers have taken over more than 200 acres of a Ugandan Anglican diocese’s 425-acre estate, subdividing plots and selling them at night so buyers can build before the church can act.

Australia’s Anglican Diocese of North Queensland has won Supreme Court approval to sell 11 churches and rectories to meet abuse redress obligations of up to $11 million, after a judge warned it could otherwise be insolvent within months.

The former board of the Mavis Fraser-Davis Trust, closed in 2021, gave its remaining J$2.6 million to St Albans Anglican and Bethlehem Moravian churches in Malvern, St Elizabeth, to help students affected by Hurricane Melissa.

Releven’s Winnipeg Declaration urges Canadian faith leaders to turn underused church land into affordable housing, as a third of the country’s 27,000 religious buildings face closure, with projects such as a 110-unit tower at a Winnipeg Anglican church.

Hurricane Melissa left only the bell tower of St John’s Anglican in Black River standing. The congregation moved into the partly damaged rectory, and four of the five churches in the cure were severely damaged.

The Sunday Gleaner traced the history of St John’s Anglican Church in Black River, consecrated in 1843 and once endowed with over 200 acres of glebe land, after Hurricane Melissa destroyed the building, leaving only its belfry standing.

The chairman of the Barbados Diocesan Trustees set out plans for a $10 million multi-storey development on church land at Collymore Rock and defended sales of Glebe land to tenants at subsidised prices as low as $5 per square foot.

Hurricane Melissa damaged or destroyed about 40 heritage structures, the Gleaner reported, including Beeston Spring Moravian Church in Westmoreland, reduced to rubble, and St Michael’s Anglican in Clark’s Town, Trelawny.

Hurricane Melissa destroyed or badly damaged about 50 Anglican church buildings in Jamaica, including four historic churches left flat, Anglican leaders said. The bishop called it unprecedented destruction of the island’s historic buildings.

Two near-derelict former Anglican churches in Devonport, Auckland, bought for NZ$1.32 million in 2017 and converted into luxury homes, sold for $4.25 million after an earlier deal collapsed over a Commerce Commission ruling.