The Evangelical Movement in Ethiopia: Resistance and Resilience

10. Early Church-State Relations under Communist Rule

209 Early Church-State Relations under Communist Rule 010The Ethiopian Revolution had some popular support at its initial phase, particularly from the people of the peripheral regions, in the western and southwestern parts of Ethiopia. The evangelical church had most of its constituencies in these regions. Aside from that, evangelical Christians had tense relations with the government that had collapsed in 1974, which explains why evangelical Christians gave their support to the change wrought by the revolution in its early phase. This chapter sets the context for state and church encounters during the large part of the military rule in Ethiopia. It highlights the decentering of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church and the historical implications of its “formal” separation from the state. It seeks to capture the manner in which the Marxist state progressively established its state ideology and changed its handling of the evangelical Christian groups from seeking their cooperation to subjecting them to fierce persecutions. The section also sheds light on the various adaptive responses the evangelical church engineered to understand the new challenge and counter the threat of Marxism through interfaith ecumenical initiatives and interdenominational unity before opting to go underground. The Derg and the Ethiopian Orthodox Church The Derg did not have a well-articulated official policy toward religion.1 In fact, it has not been possible to find a single document that clearly highlights the leaders’ understanding of religion and how they wanted to deal with it. From the outset, the Derg declared the separation of the 210 The Evangelical Movement in Ethiopia state from the church, a radical departure in Ethiopian history. The draft constitution of August 1974 announced the separation of the state and the church.2 We know as a certainty that, in the initial years of the revolution , the new rulers attacked the established Church by associating it with the Ancien Régime. The Orthodox Church in prerevolutionary Ethiopia had been an integral part of the power structure of the monarchy. As a state-supported Church, it had also enjoyed a monopolistic status among all other churches and religions in Ethiopia. The Ethiopian Orthodox Church was accused of being an accomplice of the state and was held responsible for Ethiopia’s backwardness. Following massive propaganda via radio, television, and the press, the military stripped much of the economic power of the Church and eroded its former prestige. In February 1976, they deposed Abune Tewflos, the bishop of the Orthodox Church, when he apparently objected to the legal separation of the Church and the state and refused to collaborate with the regime. The Abune was replaced by an illiterate monk, Tekle Haymanot II, dubbed by the military leaders as “the man of the people.”3 The new bishop was an unknown monk from the south, without any political orientation and lacking the benefit of modern education. After installing a harmless bishop, the military leaders adopted a well-considered policy for handling the giant institution. They knew well that the Orthodox Church had for centuries played a pivotal role in the political life of the country and was an unrivaled institution in defining nationhood. Hence, it was not the kind of institution that could be dissolved with the stroke of the pen. Their strategy was to strike some kind of modus vivendi, keeping the giant institution at a distance while at the same time invoking its service in times of need. The Church, for instance, was indispensable in garnering public support during popular mobilizations. The Derg allowed the Church to operate openly but with a considerably weakened position. In fact, the appointment of Tekle Haymanot, an effete and apolitical person, as a patriarch was in itself an act of calculated enfeeblement. For instance, as of January 17, 1975, religious holidays pertaining to the Orthodox faith were reduced when the rulers redefined the official holidays. Party members received strict instructions not to attend traditional occasions and social meetings associated with the Orthodox faith, such as religiousoriented weddings, baptismal celebrations, and other religious rituals, like tezkar. The new rulers also deprived the Church of its influence in the Ethiopian school systems when it replaced moral education with the secular philosophy of dialectical materialism. Early Church-State Relations under Communist Rule 211 Most of all, the nationalization of land in 1975 drastically undermined the economic base of the Church, for it was an institution with significant land holdings on which it also depended. The rulers...