Joy as two patriarchates of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahdo Church unite

Sources close to the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahdo Church say that the Holy Synods in Ethiopia and the United States have reached an agreement to unite, which could mean that Abune Merkorios could return at home after more than two decades.

Borkena
July 23 , 2018

While the era of repression seems to end towards reconciliation and unity Ethiopians thank the leadership of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed for this, rightly, the Ethiopian Patriarchates Tewahdo Orthodox based in the United States and Ethiopia unite, according to sources close to the church.

Not yet an official declaration of the patriarchate and little is known about the administrative arrangement.

Members of the patriarchal delegation in Ethiopia attended with the bishops of the Holy Synod in the United States at St. Gabriel's Church in Washington DC yesterday

What is certainly known at this stage, it is that an agreement has been reached which means that there will be no more two patriarchates thereafter. The two holy synods will unite to form one that has been the case for millennia before the TPLF took power in Addis Ababa in 1991.

According to the report of the Ethiopian Satellite Television (ESAT ), the fourth patriarch Abune Merkorios fled Ethiopia in 1992, due to government pressure to be reinstated as the patriarch of an Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahdo Church. Other sources claim that the current patriarch in Ethiopia, Abune Mathias, will oversee administrative affairs.

If the news is true, Abune Merkorios is expected to return to Ethiopia after 26 years and there is speculation that he could actually return with Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed who will visit the United States next week [19659005] The church has been divided for the past twenty-seven years, not for theological reasons, but mainly because of the Meles Zenawi government's policy of reducing the church to mere politician political programs of the TPLF. And it's not a coincidence that the church unites at a time when the power and influence of the TPLF on Ethiopia are disappearing.

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