THE founder of Soul Survivor, Mike Pilavachi, has been stripped of his MBE for “bringing the honours system into disrepute”, a government notice has confirmed.
Mr Pilavachi, whose abuse of power was found by an independent review to have been enabled by a “wholesale” failure of organisational culture at Soul Survivor (News, 4 October 2024), was appointed MBE for services to young people in the New Year Honours list in 2020 (News, 3 January 2020).
Later that year, the then Archbishop of Canterbury gave him the Alphege Award for Evangelism and Witness (Gazette, 3 July 2020). This was withdrawn in July 2024.
The previous year, Mr Pilavachi had stepped back from ministry over non-recent safeguarding concerns. Shortly afterwards, the trustees of Soul Survivor commissioned an independent review of his conduct, which was published last year.
The reviewers Fiona Scolding KC and Ben Fullbrook found “credible and consistent evidence” that Mr Pilavachi developed “inappropriately close relationships with young men” and exhibited “inappropriate levels of controlling behaviour”. In the context of his ministry, he engaged in “lengthy, one-on-one wrestling sessions in private with young men”, and gave private one-on-one massages to partially clothed young men.
