Why the Ethiopian Orthodox Church should rectify historical injustice

Leaders of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church (EOTC) on Wednesday agreed to end a weeks-long schism within its top leadership after closed-door negotiations.

The Church has been rocked by divisions and explosive accusations of ethnic discrimination since January 22, 2023, when three Oromo archbishops appointed 26 multilingual episcopates to parishes in Oromia and other areas in the South. The announcement was met with condemnation by the EOTC Synod and the three leaders were quickly excommunicated. The three archbishops countered the move by forming a new multilingual synod to serve followers in Oromia and other areas in the south of the country.

The countermobilization unearthed a long-suppressed debate about EOTC’s teaching, governance, and language policies. The split has also put the church on a collision course with the State, which the clergy accused of siding with the three Oromo archbishops.

Most importantly, the ensuing controversy laid bare the naked Oromophobia and bigotry of many EOTC leaders and followers. The pervasive hate speech against the Oromo underscores the urgent need for reform and reckoning with EOTC’s checkered history of abuse and violence in Southern Ethiopia. To fully grasp the magnitude of the latest developments, it is important to revisit the role of EOTC in the Abyssinian empire’s expansionist wars of conquest.

Background

Many religious institutions have been implicated in expansionist colonial projects that killed millions around the world and ruined precious traditional values. Religious dogmas and mythologies had been necessary cement to build many modern states. A notorious case is a role played by the Roman Catholic Church in the genocides committed against indigenous people of Canada and others.

Comparable to the involvement of the Roman Catholic Church in the colonization of indigenous people, EOTC had direct involvement in the brutalization of East African people during the expansionist campaign of the Abyssinian kings in the 1880s. The war of conquest culminated with the formation of the Ethiopian state.

EOTC partnered with Abyssinian kings to inculcate and preserve a dogmatic national narrative. It helped deepen the belief that kings cannot be held accountable by preaching ‘semay ayitares nugus ayikeses,’ meaning that just as the sky cannot be plowed, a king cannot be accused or tried. In return, the church benefited from land grabbing and shared other resources acquired from newly conquered territories. In the 1950s, EOTC was formally elevated as the state religion. The church levied taxes on peasants after confiscating their lands.

The power of the church was challenged for the first time following the downfall of Emperor Haile Selassie in 1974. The Dergue regime ended EOTC’s status as a state religion and nationalized lands and other properties held by the church. Still, the Amhara elite, who dominated the EOTC, continued to wield significant influence over Ethiopian politics and identity.

The second major change came in the early 1990s. The Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front, a coalition established by the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, introduced new political concepts including the separation of church and state. The new political dispensation changed the modus operandi of politics in Ethiopia and saw the declining influence of the church and the hegemony of the Amhara elite.

Their loss of status and influence led to the division of the Synod into two, one led by Abune Merkorios in exile and the main synod based in Ethiopia. The church not only cracked into two but also lost millions of followers.

Even though the influence of the church has been declining over the last four decades, cascading events over the last three years reveal the fragility of the institution. In 2018, a group of orthodox followers launched an initiative to establish a new synod in Oromia state to expand the church’s teachings to Afaan Oromo speakers. The effort was met with condemnation and ended on promises of reform to address questions of language and representation. The promised administrative and linguistic reforms never materialized. It was the failure of that reform promise that led to the latest split. During the Tigray war, the church sided with the government condoning the war and going so far as muzzling the voice of the patriarch. The Church is yet to properly acknowledge its role in the war and apologize to the people of Tigray.

This article discusses what made EOTC so fragile and explores possible pathways for reconciliation.

The fragility of EOTC 

The foundation of EOTC is rooted in a colonial legacy. The demand of the EOTC leaders from Oromia and other nations is a demand for decolonization. It is also a longstanding question of representation and serving followers in their language. The reformists in the church questioned why the synod did not care when millions left the church due to a lack of service in the mother tongue of the people.

EOTC expanded all over Ethiopia following the footsteps of the feudal Abyssinian empire. The church has been part and parcel of the exploitative regimes of the feudal lords of Ethiopia.

In fact, the church had a pact with the feudal monarchy to share the loot from the expansionist campaigns of the Abyssinian kings. EOTC built churches and monasteries on the hills of the vast Oromo land and other territories in Southern Ethiopia using these ill-gotten resources. It used various coercive tactics to force locals to give up indigenous beliefs and convert to Christianity.

When it lost its official status and legitimacy starting with the Dergue regime, the church changed tactics to grabbing land through manipulation. The priests started to claim pieces of land across the country, particularly in Oromia, claiming the arc of covenants had descended on it from the heavens. They call on their followers and converge on the piece of land they want to take. Once they successfully persuade their followers that an arc has descended on the land, the plot becomes a holy place. There have been cases of conflicts with landowners who were robbed in such a fashion.

For much of Ethiopian history, the leaders of the church came from the same place and ethnic group as the rulers. For obvious reasons, the church promotes the supremacy of one language (Amharic) and one culture (Amhara) at the expense of the rest of the Ethiopian people. Its notion of national identity is similarly conceived in the eyes of the Amhara elite, and everyone else has to assimilate to be a genuine Ethiopian-even better if one accepts Orthodox Christianity.

EOTC believes in the existence of an Ethiopian God, unequivocally mixing up belief with political ideology. EOTC churches are decorated in the colors of the imperial  Ethiopian flag on the account that it was given to Ethiopia by God.

The other colonial legacy of the church exists in its scriptures. EOTC takes pride in a writing system that has been used as a tool of colonization. EOTC operates Qees Timhirt Bet in the name of literacy. However, the literacy program had a racist colonial mission. The monks who teach at the schools were deeply racist.

For one, enrollment at the schools was contingent upon changing the students’ native names. The monks change the names to terms that resonate with their own identity. Next, they set rules in their school compound, including on the medium of communication. Children were not allowed to speak their mother tongues at the schools. Corporal punishment for violation of the rules was rampant.

The colonial project was aimed at changing the identity of the children. The practice is comparable to the infamous saying of the first Canadian prime minister, John A. McDonald, “Take the indigenous out of the child.” Canada openly apologized for the wrongs done to the indigenous people of the land and compensated the victims. Canada took down statues of colonizers like McDonald’s, and roads and bridges named after colonial rulers had been renamed. In the case of Ethiopia, the level of abuse of Qees schools has never been properly documented or acknowledged.

In fact, EOTC monks were not only spiritual leaders but also scholars of Ethiopian history. The writings of the monks have been referenced by many foreign scholars. In this regard, debteras and church historians were effective in misinforming the outside world about the country and its people. The monks disparaged and degraded other people of Ethiopia in their writings. Abba Bahrey, for instance, wrote that the Oromo are savage and uncivilized people.

The monks did not spare the spiritual sphere in dehumanizing other people of Ethiopia. They equated other Ethiopians with animals and demons in their spiritual writings. They degraded and gave derogatory names to the Oromo, Wolaita, Gumuz, and many others. EOTC monks inculcated colonial supremacy in the society wrapped up in the name of God. Many EOTC church buildings are deliberately erected on the shrines of the indigenous people to replace indigenous belief systems.

In addition to the erasure of indigenous identity and belief systems, the dogma of the church restricted people of non-Amhara ethnic origin from taking higher spiritual positions in the church. They boldly told people that priesthood is reserved for the Amhara in their notorious saying that goes ‘ለኦሮሞ ነፍስ አባት ዲያቆን መች አነሰው?’, roughly meaning a deacon is enough to be a spiritual father for the Oromo, which indicates the lowest spiritual profile reserved for the Oromo in the church. In other words, the Oromos and others were good only for paying tithes and being honest followers.

To preserve the dominance of the Amharic language, EOTC labeled praying in one’s own language as a sinful practice. The priests and the activists openly claimed Ge’ez, the forerunner of Amharic, is a heavenly language. All of these internalized myths and hate speech came to the fore over the last three weeks.

The resentment of the Orthodox faithful from non-Amhara ethnic groups started to overflow when EOTC leaders and its cultural elite opposed the initiative of the three Oromo archbishops. Efforts to decolonize the church garnered overwhelming support from millions of followers.

Colonial entities and their legacies are being shredded around the world through popular movements, political activism, and policies of transformation among others. Canada has apologized to its indigenous population for the wrongdoings of their ancestors and compensated the victims. The Roman Catholic Church has also openly apologized for its role in the genocide committed against the indigenous people of Canada.

EOTC cannot be an exception. To remain relevant, EOTC must acknowledge its colonial legacy and take steps towards reconciliation, including offering a genuine apology for forced conversion and its role in the exploitation of landless peasants and the erasure of their identities.

Hope for reconciliation

Reconciliation begins with acceptance of past wrongs and the desire to address them to repair broken societal values. With the fixing of the broken values and healing of the wounds comes the question of justice. Reconciliation is about justice, truth, forgiveness, and reparation.

There are different models and approaches to reconciliation. The South African model followed an order of amnesty, truth, victim forgiveness, reconciliation, and then democracy.

One of the challenges for Ethiopia in addressing past wrongs and moving forward is the fact that a dominant religious institution is implicated in the injustice done to millions. Religion is a sensitive topic to address. Dogmas are always resistant to change.

EOTC has resisted many reform attempts. Today, it is experiencing turmoil from within. The question is what is the way forward to transform the relationship between EOTC and society? What is expected from EOTC for a successful reconciliation to take place?

The way forward

In line with the demands of the Oromia Synod, the latest agreement provides for fair allocations of budget and manpower to serve followers in Afaan Oromo and other languages across the country. EOTC has also pledged to reinstate all excommunicated church leaders and expand educational opportunities in Oromia and other regions. The deal is a good starting point but does not go far enough to address historical injustice.

For EOTC to remain relevant and keep its influence in the spiritual life of its followers, here are some steps it could take toward reconciliation:

• EOTC has been Amharanized from day one. The church is the fortress of the Amharic-speaking cultural and political elite. Extreme Amhara nationalists rely on this institution for moral and financial support. The church defends and wages war in the name of the Amhara people. For true reconciliation to transpire, EOTC must divest itself from close attachment to one ethnic identity and embrace multiculturalism. In this regard, the implementation of the agreement reached with Oromo archbishops could be a good starting point.
• EOTC must take steps to distance itself from politics. Given the nature of politics in Ethiopia, any political stance the church takes automatically leads to ethnic rivalry. Such a rivalry could easily catch fire and lead to strife threatening the very existence of the state. It is prudent to depoliticize the church immediately to pave the way for reconciliation.
• EOTC must issue an official apology to the oppressed nations of Ethiopia for their participation in the atrocities they suffered under the feudal rulers.
• EOTC must officially apologize for its participation in the cultural genocide committed by successive Ethiopian emperors up to Haile Selassie. It must publicly address its participation in the erasure of indigenous identities, including changing the names of people and places and demonizing the traditional values of non-Amhara people.
• Like any church, EOTC can have symbols and artifacts. But the church should distance itself from oppressive symbols. To regain lost trust, it should stop using the old Ethiopian flag as insignia.
• EOTC must compensate the victims of the expansionist colonial campaigns of the Abyssinian rulers proportionate to its participation in the campaign. The church must build a proportional number of schools, hospitals, and infrastructure in other regions as it did in the Amhara region.
• EOTC must change its dogma about the language of services. And immediately allow services in the respective languages of followers wherever they are.
• EOTC must assure the people of Ethiopia that it does not serve any economic or political ends in its mission. It should revise the mission of the church to ascertain it serves only spiritual objectives.
• EOTC must stop sabotaging communities and robbing lands. Land grabbing by EOTC is becoming the source of violence. The church should desist from the outdated idea about the descending arc of the covenant.
• Make sure the monks and priests of EOTC are accountable to their institutions. These individuals are the point persons of the church in the community. They must account for the wrongs they do to anyone including when they preach hate and disinformation. The church should set up a clear procedure for complaints. Several videos of senior church leaders preaching hate and dehumanizing the Oromo have surfaced over the last few weeks. The church can signal its seriousness by immediately suspending those monks, deacons, and other staff members.
• Collect all the scripts in which EOTC monks wrote dehumanizing messages and put them in a museum for the sole purpose of historical reference. This should be done transparently and with a promise not to publish similarly disparaging materials again.
• EOTC must recognize a decentralized governance structure and work with popes in Tigray, Oromia, and other nations to serve all Ethiopians equally and in their language.
• EOTC must openly apologize for condoning the recent brutal war waged against the people of Tigray and offer compensation to the victims.

Ultimately, reconciliation is the only viable option to save this fragile institution and repair fractured societal relations. Pointing fingers at the federal government or regional authorities in Oromia will not solve a single issue facing the church. Oromophobia and coordinated media campaigns will only erode trust further. As EOTC looks inward to address questions raised by the faithful in Oromia and elsewhere, it should carefully consider the experience in Roman Catholic Church and others who have in recent years taken steps to decolonize their institutions and address historical injustice.