Ethiopian Orthodox Church: A long history

By Peggy Fletcher Stack
The Salt Lake Tribune

Article Last Updated: 09/12/2008 07:55:09 PM MDT

The Ethiopian Orthodox Church traces its lineage back to the Queen of Sheba, in the 11th century B.C. Legend has it that Sheba married King Solomon, who fathered her son, Menelik. As an adult, Menelik returned to Jerusalem, it is said, and returned with the Ark of the Covenant.
The East African nation is even mentioned in the Bible.

"Ethiopia will quickly stretch out her hands to God," it says in the biblical book of Psalms. And in the book of Amos, the author asks: "Are ye not as children of the Ethiopians unto me, O children of Israel?"

Ethiopia was among the first nations to have Christian converts, but the church was not established as an institution until A.D. 340, when it got its first bishop and became the country's official religion. Down through the centuries, the Ethiopian Church was part of the Oriental Orthodox communion, looking to Egypt and the Coptic Church for leadership. It also was constantly challenged by proponents of Islam.

In the 20th century, Emperor Haile Selassie helped push the Ethiopian Church into greater independence from the Coptic Church, writes Michael Allen for Harvard's Pluralism Project at www.pluralism.org. In 1948, the Coptic Church agreed to consecrate an Ethiopian rather than a Copt as the next metropolitan of Ethiopia.

In 1974, though, Marxist revolutionaries overthrew Haile Selassie and severely persecuted Christians, seizing church properties and killing tens of thousands of believers, Allen writes. The communist government fell in 1991, and this in turn led to a schism within the church, with Patriarch Merkorios being accused of collaboration with the Communists and forced to resign. In 1992, the government installed Patriarch Abune Paulos in his place, but Merkorios refused to recognize the election. The split between the two groups continues to this day, each one excommunicating the other. "A bishop would never terminate his power or transfer his power to anyone else as long as he is alive," says Dereje Shawl, an Ethiopian who runs The African Market in downtown Salt Lake City. "Merkorios went into exile because of political reasons. The new government appointed the current bishop, which is totally out of the doctrine of the church." Members of Utah's tiny Ethiopian Orthodox community are divided about the competing bishops. "There is no consensus among the refugees as to who should lead the church," Shawl says. "It's a matter of opinion."

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