ETHIOPIAN CHURCH AUTOCEPHALY. in the Middle Of
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(CE:980a-984a) ETHIOPIAN CHURCH AUTOCEPHALY. In the middle of the fourth century, Saint ATHANASIUS, the twentieth patriarch of Alexandria, appointed Frumentius (Salama I) to be the first primate (ABUN) of Ethiopia. From then until the nineteenth century, negotiations between the two churches were generally restricted to Ethiopian requests for a new abun to be consecrated and sent to Ethiopia by the Coptic patriarch after the death of the previous abun. These requests were usually made through an embassy sent to Egypt with presents for the Coptic patriarch and the Muslim ruler of Egypt, without whose approval the new abun could not travel to Ethiopia. The question of providing a greater number of bishops than the one abun for the Ethiopian see is reported to have been broached as early as the twelfth century, when Emperor Haile of the Zagwe dynasty asked for ten bishops to assist Abuna Mika’el. Patriarch GABRIEL II (1131-1165) considered the request to be justified, but the ruler of Egypt is reported to have prevented the appointment of additional bishops, in order to keep the church of Ethiopia under the church of Egypt and consequently under the ruler of Egypt. Whatever the truth of this report, it was not until the latter part of the nineteenth century, after the death of Atnatewos, the 108th archbishop of Ethiopia, that Emperor Yohannes asked the patriarch of Alexandria, CYRIL V, to appoint three Coptic bishops to assist the new abun. In 1881 the synod of the Coptic church decreed that an archbishop and three bishops would be appointed for Ethiopia. One of these bishops was Matewos who was appointed bishop of Shewa province. When Emperor Menelik II acceded to the throne as King of Kings, he requested the patriarch to appoint Matewos as the abun of Ethiopia. Abuna Matewos died in 1926. Ras Tafari Makonnen (then regent of Ethiopia, later Emperor Haile Selassie I) asked Patriarch Cyril V to choose a new archbishop and to appoint several Ethiopian bishops to assist him in his spiritual mission. But the death of Cyril V in 1927 left the question in suspense until the election of Patriarch JOHN XIX (Yu’annis) in 1928. The synod in 1929 appointed Archbishop Qerelos to be the 111th abun of Ethiopia, together with four Ethiopian bishops. When Patriarch John XIX visited Ethiopia in 1930, a fifth Ethiopian bishop, the ECCAGE, was appointed. This was the first time that Ethiopian bishops were appointed by the church of Egypt. Before leaving Ethiopia after the Italian occupation in 1935, Emperor Haile Selassie asked Abuna Qerelos to stay in Ethiopia to take care of the church. The Italians tried to persuade him to declare the church of Ethiopia independent from the church of Egypt. This Abuna Qerelos naturally refused to do, despite threats, blandishments, and a stormy interview with Mussolini in Rome. He was then brought back to Egypt, and the Italian authorities proceeded with their plan to detach the church of Ethiopia from its parent church. Abraham, the Ethiopian bishop of Gojam, was appointed patriarch of the Ethiopian church, with three archbishops and three bishops to assist him. By a decree dated 28 December 1937, the Coptic synod excommunicated Abraham and his assistants, with the approval of the emperor, who was then in exile in England. After the emperor's return to Ethiopia, Abuna Qerelos traveled to Addis Ababa in May 1942, accompanied by a mission of three Coptic layman to discuss church matters and political questions (notably the resumption of diplomatic relations between the two countries). A formula was found to validate sacraments performed by the illegal patriarch and bishops "as if they had been performed by legally appointed ecclesiastical authorities." Abuna Qerelos stayed in Ethiopia, and the three laymen returned to Egypt on the day following the death of Patriarch John XIX. They bore with them new requests from the Ethiopian church that an Ethiopian be appointed as abun after the death of the incumbent and that authority be immediately granted to him to consecrate bishops for the Ethiopian church. By a decree dated 26 June 1942, the Coptic synod lifted the excommunication, but made no mention of the Ethiopian requests. Because of this, the decree was not published in Ethiopia and the Ethiopian church proclaimed that the eèèage would henceforth be entitled to consecrate priests. The Coptic abun was practically set aside. When Patriarch MACARIUS III was elected on 12 February 1944, his name was not mentioned in Ethiopian church services, as required by tradition. A new mission was sent to Ethiopia in June 1944. It conferred with an Ethiopian committee, which made known the Ethiopian church's wishes in a letter to the patriarch dated 28 June 1944. The wishes were the following: (1) that His Holiness choose from among his sons of the Ethiopian clergy a man of merit and consecrate him archbishop of Ethiopia; (2) that an Ethiopian synod be established as counterpart to the synod of the Alexandrian church, this synod to have the right to choose the bishops to be consecrated by the archbishop appointed by the patriarch; (3) that the Egyptian synod welcome representatives of the Ethiopian church to take part in the election of the patriarch of the See of Saint Mark, Alexandria; (4) that the Ethiopian synod have a permanent seat in the Alexandrian synod and be invited to attend all its meetings; (5) that the excommunication be lifted from the bishops whom the Ethiopian church was forced to choose under the Italian occupation, to save the faith when the church had to break its relation with the church of Alexandria; (6) that an ecclesiastical college be founded at Addis Ababa and be placed under the high authority of the patriarch, and that an exchange of missions be established between Egypt and Ethiopia. An argument often used by the Ethiopians in their discussions with the Egyptians was that their number was much greater than that of the Copts in Egypt and that, moreover, they were not a minority in their country, as are the Copts in Egypt, but a majority in a state that officially proclaimed Christianity the state religion. A delicate question was that of the patriarch's position as head of the whole See of Saint Mark and, at the same time, as direct head of the church of Egypt. At one time, the idea was broached that a position similar to that of the ecumenical patriarch of Constantinople could be established, whereby the patriarch would retain the title pope of Alexandria and become the superior of a patriarch of Egypt and a patriarch of Ethiopia, and perhaps later, a patriarch of the Sudan and other regions. The idea never had much success, mainly because of the long historical identification of the Copts of Egypt with the head of their church and the difficulty of imagining that this head could become two persons. Also the idea smacked too much of Greek usage and could not be accepted by the Egyptians. Patriarch Macarius called the synod on 29 January 1945, and a committee was entrusted with the study of the requests formulated by the Ethiopian church. On 16 June 1945 the synod approved the committee's findings, which (1) refused to give the abun the right to consecrate bishops; (2) refused to appoint an Ethiopian abun; (3) approved of Ethiopian participation in the election of the patriarch; (4) approved of Ethiopian representation in the Egyptian synod; (5) confirmed the lifting of the excommunication; and (6) approved of an exchange of missions and of the establishment of an ecclesiastical college in Addis Ababa. Negotiations stopped at this point. Patriarch Macarius III died on 31 August 1945, and Athanasius, archbishop of Bani Suef, was appointed as locum tenens. In December 1945 a congress of Ethiopian church representatives made several decisions, including one to send delegates to Egypt for further discussion of the Ethiopian demands. The work and decisions of this congress were published in the Amharic-language Ethiopian Church Review in its first issue, dated 10 Khedar 1938/19 November 1945 and its second issue dated 30 Takhsas 1938/8 January 1946. It was stated therein that the Ethiopian church would be forced to separate from the Coptic church if its demands were not met. The mission brought a letter from the emperor to Athanasius, the locum tenens, urging that the demands be accepted for the good of the two churches. Eight demands were formulated. The synod, in its meeting of 31 January 1946, with the locum tenens presiding, answered that (1) it accepted that the next archbishop of Ethiopia should be an Ethiopian; (2) it denied the archbishop of Ethiopia authorization to consecrate bishops; (3) it approved increasing the number of bishops for Ethiopia; (4) it would permit delegates of the Ethiopian church to take part in the election of the patriarch; (5) it would permit the church of Ethiopia to be represented at the meetings of the synod at the patriarchate; (6) it approved exchanges of missions between the churches; (7) it would allow a seminary to be founded at Addis Ababa; (8) it refused to let the Ethiopian church have a special synod at Addis Ababa, but allowed the archbishop to call a regional congregation of bishops. The Ethiopian church sent five monks to Egypt, asking that they be consecrated as bishops. During their presence in Cairo, Patriarch YUSAB II was elected on 26 May 1946. He called the synod on 20 June 1946 to examine once again the Ethiopian demands. The most important, that of the archbishop's right to consecrate bishops, was again refused.