Soul Survivor’s Pilavachi let off with ‘slap on the wrist’
SOUL Survivor’s Mike Pilavachi has been let off with a “slap on the wrist”, victims claim, after the Church of England gave him a written warning in a new investigation over his communication with a vulnerable person.
Since April, The Telegraph has been uncovering the allegations of abuse levelled at Rev Canon Pilavachi, 65, and spoke to his victims who revealed for the first time how they were encouraged to receive full-body oil massages in their underwear in his bedroom and vigorous wrestling matches that could last as long as 20 minutes at a time – sometimes in church. In September, the Church of England concluded that Rev Canon Pilavachi – the charismatic evangelical Christian founder of Soul Survivor Watford church in Hertfordshire, as well as its namesake summer youth festivals, which ran from 1993 until 2019 and attracted tens of thousands of teenagers from around the world – “used his spiritual authority to control” victims over a period of 40 years.
However, in the latest update in the case against him, Church of England officials have concluded there should be no further action over his alleged misconduct in a separate investigation involving a vulnerable person. The Church of England said that this complaint “concerned Mr Pilavachi’s verbal interactions with a vulnerable person” and that his conduct had “fallen short of that expected of a priest”. However, it concluded that “no further action would be taken but that he should receive a written warning and “advice”.
Andrew Graystone, advocate for survivors of church abuse, said: “This is the latest in a series of instances when very serious complaints against a priest have been met with a slap on the wrist.”