BY PEGGY FLETCHER Freight
THE Briny Puddle TRIBUNERumor Comprise Updated: 09/12/2008 07:55:09 PM MDT
The Ethiopian Instantly Church traces its field back to the Ruler of Sheba, in the 11th century B.C. Scoop has it that Sheba wedded Ruler Solomon, who fathered her son, Menelik. As an enormous, Menelik returned to Jerusalem, it is supposed, and returned with the Ark of the Understanding.
The East African nation is even mentioned in the Bible.
"Ethiopia character promptly open out her hands to God," it says in the biblical book of Psalms. And in the book of Amos, the ring asks: "Are ye not as children of the Ethiopians unto me, O children of Israel?"
Ethiopia was in the company of the the first part of nations to be marked with Christian converts, but the church was not forward as an company until A.D. 340, equally it got its the first part of bishop and became the country's certified religion. Downcast target the centuries, the Ethiopian Church was part of the Oriental Instantly communion, looking to Egypt and the Coptic Church for dominance. It very was time after time challenged by proponents of Islam.
In the 20th century, Emperor Haile Selassie helped stab the Ethiopian Church modish better rule from the Coptic Church, writes Michael Allen for Harvard's Pluralism Occurrence at www.pluralism.org. In 1948, the Coptic Church harden to consecrate an Ethiopian honestly than a Copt as the next municipality of Ethiopia.
In 1974, still, Marxist revolutionaries overthrew Haile Selassie and severely persecuted Christians, seizing church properties and demise tens of thousands of believers, Allen writes. The communist express cleave in 1991, and this in turn led to a division within the church, with Patriarch Merkorios discrete accused of hold with the Communists and bounce to hand over. In 1992, the express installed Patriarch Abune Paulos in his place, but Merkorios refused to decipher the secret ballot. The split amongst the two groups continues to this day, each one excommunicating the other. "A bishop would never discharge his power or move his power to qualities moreover as long for as he is personified," says Dereje Veil, an Ethiopian who runs The African Publicize in downtown Briny Puddle City. "Merkorios went modish overthrow what of member reasons. The new express fitting the give to bishop, which is unconditionally out of the code of belief of the church." Members of Utah's undersized Ethiopian Instantly community are cleft about the challenging bishops. "Existing is no consensus in the company of the refugees as to who should lead the church," Veil says. "It's a corner of opinion."
