Subj: Eritrea closes churches

Dear Friends,

On the 21st of May the U.S. Embassy in the east African nation of Eritrea informed the international office of the Protestant mission SIM International that the Eritrean government had officially closed all churches other than the Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and Mekane Yesus (Evangelical Lutheran) denominations. All other Christian churches and groups, including the SIM-related Kale Hiwot Church of Eritrea (KHCE), as well as smaller evangelical and charismatic churches have been ordered to shut down. SIM (Serving in Mission) is an evangelical Protestant mission which used to be called the Sudan Interior Mission, and is one of the older African mission agencies, established in 1893.

This crackdown comes as somewhat of a surprise, as Eritrea’s constitution allows for full freedom of religion, and until these recent developments there have been good inter-religious relations. The country has slightly more Muslims than Christians in its population of almost four million.

Eritrea is a secular state that was born in 1993 after a 30-year war for independence from neighboring Ethiopia. A poor and little-known country located on the Red Sea across from the Arabian peninsula, Eritrea has gained a reputation for being a model of democracy and religious tolerance in Africa.

Our sources in Eritrea suggest that the present action of the Eritrean government may be a reaction to pressure from the dominant Orthodox church and/or outside Muslim forces. This comes in the wake of what appears to be a budding revival movement occurring within the traditional Orthodox church as well as a recent outbreak of evangelical fervor within the Protestant community.

Others in Eritrea say that this action may be also be related to the large number of Eritrean soldiers who were converted to evangelical faith on the battlefield during the long war with Ethiopia, due to a grass-roots movement among the front-line troops. Christian radio broadcasts in the native Tigrinya language from FEBA in the Seychelles have also contributed to a widespread evangelical boom. It is estimated that as many as 15% of the Christians in neighboring Ethiopia have embraced a more evangelical approach to their faith.

The evangelical movement emerged in the Ethiopian Orthodox Church in the 1970’s when five Orthodox believers began meeting together to read the Bible. The movement grew swiftly and incorporated evangelical themes into the Orthodox liturgy. Eventually it grew so large that the group was expelled from the Orthodox Church. Now called the Reform Orthodox Church, the 70,000-plus believers maintain a connection to their Orthodox roots but exhibit an evangelical emphasis. “They are doing a good job of staying close enough to their roots to be attractive to other Orthodox believers and seekers,” one missionary said recently. But Orthodox church authorities are said to have grown increasingly uncomfortable with the challenge to their ancient traditional beliefs and practices posed by evangelicals within the Orthodox Church in Ethiopia, and perhaps Eritrea as well.

There is speculation that the situation is more complex than just an Orthodox-Evangelical split. The political and military situation there is volatile after a recent flare-up of the old war between Eritrea and Ethiopia. This may have moved the government to crack down on all “splinter groups,” both Christian and Muslim, which could threaten the stability of the fragile democratic nation.

The situation is further complicated by the influx of many new sects such as the Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses. The government has openly discriminated against the small number of Eritrean Jehovah’s Witnesses for a number of years, presumably because of their policy of not acknowledging the validity of any earthly state as supreme. Islamic fundamentalists, possibly influenced by movements in neighboring nations such as Sudan, Somalia or Yemen, are also of concern to the Eritrean government.

Currently, there is little fresh information on the situation coming out of Eritrea. Many of the evangelical Christians may have regrouped into house churches and are reported to have banded together to address their concerns about the new ruling to the government.

Eritrea was an Italian colony from 1889 to 1941, when it was annexed by Ethiopia; historically it has been considered part of greater Ethiopia over the last 2-3,000 years.

Ethiopia is the only continuously independent country in Africa. Mentioned over 60 times in the Bible, it has existed for almost 3,000 years and has a history that is intertwined with Israel and the Jewish people. It is also the ancestral home of the only tribe of black Jews, the Falashas, most of whom were airlifted to Israel in a resettlement operation in the 1980’s. The best known biblical reference to the country is the account of Philip’s witness to the Ethiopian eunuch in Acts 8:26-40.

Eritrea became Africa’s 52nd nation on April 27, 1993. The Eritrean people voted unanimously (99.8%) for separation from Ethiopia and the creation of a free Eritrea. The vote ended the fierce 30-year war by Eritrean insurgents, who fought the large Ethiopian army to a standstill, eventually driving them out of the country with almost no outside help. It was known as “The Bargain Basement War” because of the area’s dire poverty; almost a third of the 100,000 Eritrean soldiers were women.

Ethiopia is one of the world’s oldest Christian nations. The Orthodox church has dominated the country since the fourth century, developing unique theology, customs and traditions, as well as a central place in Ethiopian and Eritrean life. The Ethiopian Orthodox Church was under the ecclesiastical rule of the Coptic Orthodox Church in Egypt until 1951, when it was granted independent status by the Egyptian Church.

The Orthodox Church in Eritrea has dropped the word “Ethiopian” from its official title since independence in 1993 and is now known as the Eritrean Orthodox Church. It claims to have some 1.7 million members with 1,500 churches and 22 monasteries, and is served by 15,000 priests. Until Eritrea gained independence from Ethiopia in 1993, the Eritrean Orthodox Church formed a single diocese within the Ethiopian Orthodox Church.

– MA ____

Links

SIM: http://www.sim.org Eritrean Orthodox Church: http://www.eritrean-orthodox.com http://aggreen.net/autocephaly/oriental.html Ethiopian Orthodox Church: http://www.eotc.faithweb.com/orth.html http://www.angelfire.com/ny3/ethiochurch/ USCIRF background reports: http://www.uscirf.gov/dos01Pages/irf_eritrea.php3

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