Finally, a tentative completion date has been set for the latest mega church project in Christendom. Ps David Ibiyeomie’s led Salvation Ministries’ Church Headquarters – ‘The Hand of God Cathedral’.
During the recently concluded 5 Nights of Glory held from Jan 21 to 24, the 56 year old pastor announced that the next edition of the annual program which holds every January will hold at the new church auditorium situated along Airport Road, Igwuruta, Port Harcourt in River State.
The project which began in 2010 was initially projected to carry 40,000 worshipers. However, with the massive expansion of the Church which led to the opening of over 50 satellite churches in Port Harcourt including opening 13 in one single day in 2016, coupled with the prodding by David Ibiyeomie’s father in the Lord, Bishop David Oyedepo to do ‘better than his father’, Ibiyeomie was encouraged to expand capacity of the building.
It will be recalled that Bishop Oyedepo has told Pastor Enenche of Dunamis the same thing leading to an expansion of the Glory Dome project from 75,000 to 100,000 capacity.
Previous estimates of the Hand of God project had the expansion at 100,000 capacity but with plans to extend to about 120,000 and the metal roofing covering an area of 50,000m2 span which is more than double the span of the Glory Dome of Dunamis’ at 22,148m2, it is officially set to become the largest Church auditorium in the World.
The roofing project meeting was successfully concluded on April 10th, 2018, with Salvation Ministries OPMT and BV team going to the LF BJMB company in China to visit the factory where space frame structure for the structure was to be produced for the kickoff meeting of the project.
According to the Chinese company which is also in the process of building the tallest structure in the world, Hand of God is the biggest church in Nigeria and in fact the world.
The Hand of God Cathedral project consists of one 91m span central dome, five finger-shaped cylindrical structures which carry at least 20,000 people each and two fan-shaped roof structures. All the roof structures are space frame, covered with AL-Mg-Mn roofing sheet. The total project area is about 50,000M2, which can conveniently accommodate over 100,000 people at same time.
The hand of God cathedral is set to become a great landmark in not just Nigeria or Africa but in the world.