Who was Aaron, the leader of the Mita Congregation?

Teófilo Vargas sein he was just a child when Juanita García Peraza, The founder of the Mita Congregation, Anointed him as “minister of the kingdom” and changed his name to Aaron.

García Peraza, better known as Mita, died in 1970 and Aaron took over the leadership of the Christian church which, according to its website, believes in the Trinity – Father, Son and Holy Spirit – and in the teachings of the Bible .

Aaron, who died yesterday at the age of 99, was born on October 23, 1921 in the Aibonito neighborhood of Hatillo. During his first years of life, he attended the Pentecostal Church, but when he met Mita, he changed congregation.

After being anointed, Aaron began his ministry by preaching to Camuy for the first time. “He was dynamic, hard-working and brave. He never feared anything. He grew in knowledge and virtue at the same time as the work grew and expanded,” says his biography.

Product of its work, Mita called to him to live with her in soothes of the Congregation. During this time, Aaron administered all Church property and served as the first officer of the Guards Corps, providing surveillance to the Mita community.. He was also the first preacher, first percussion musician of the band Mita, builder and farmer.

“Myth was sowing all those qualities that a Prophet had to possess: fortitude, firmness of character, willingness to sacrifice, courage to face problems, wisdom and divine discernment, temperance, kindness, goodness, charity and above all, an immense love for souls, “adds his biography.

Aaron was responsible for expanding the Mita Congregation in and out of Puerto Rico. For example, he brought the doctrine of his Church to the United States, Dominican Republic, Canada, Curaçao, Colombia, Venezuela, Costa Rica, Panama, El Salvador, and Mexico..

He also established the Mita Congregation College, the Aegis and Institution El Paradís and the Office of Guidance and Social Assistance, initiatives that earned him the respect of people of different religious denominations.

Aaron also gained relevance in the country by a filiation lawsuit against him in which Samuel Beníquez claimed that the leader of the Congregation was his father. Although he denied it, a court-ordered DNA test determined that Aaron was the young man’s biological father.

Beníquez’s birth was the product of a relationship Aaron had with Antonia Beníquez in 1970, the same year he took over the leadership of the Church. The woman lived in the congregational house of the Congregation.

Pressed by her new role, Aaron abandoned her partner and, according to her son, in 1973 allegedly forced her to offer a false testimony in court to hand over the adopted child to maternal uncles. The doctrine of the Congregation indicates that its leader must remain celibate to be a prophet of God.

Despite this, Beníquez knew who his biological parents were and grew up in the Mita Congregation until he was 22 when he left the Church in search of “the truth.”. Faced with this, in 2004 he filed a filing lawsuit against Aaron.

After eight years of litigation, the Supreme Court ordered the Court of First Instance in 2012 to continue the forced recognition process, so in 2013 Judge Arlene Sellés ordered Aaron to perform DNA tests that confirmed the version of Beníquez.