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Getachew Reda www.Ethiopiansemay.blogspot.com
Our longtime grievance against TPLF for hijacking the Orthodox Church in order to Baptized it to its Marxist-Leninist Ideology is now openly told by the Godfather and former chairman of the TPLF Aregawi Berhe (Berihun)by detailing thoroughly in his new book (A Political History of the Tigray Peoples Liberation Front (1975-1991), how TPLF was replacing the legitimate and traditional Church service providers, monks, priests, head of the many popular classic monasteries and Ethiopian Church authority by TPLF-minded elements.
Starting after TPLF took over the people’s power through the barrel of the gun; many, many, many Ethiopian Orthodox church followers already felt the injustice that this hoodlum party lead by the Fascists and Marxist Albanian of Communist Tigray , that created the religious tension among members of the same faith similar to that of the Italian Fascist colonial policy tried to assimilate colonialist thoughts (church to serve the Fascist or the Marxist requiem instead of serving the government of an orthodox sympathizer ).
I will let you now read the document written by Aregawi Berhe- the former TPLF chairman and its Army Commander in chief and its leading founder, how TPLF launched a series conference or “seminars” for parish priests in 1979 to win them over. Such mission was approved and agreed by all the TPLF leaders including the Author of the book Aregawi Berhe- on which such mission was headed by no one other than the two racist and anti Amhara groupies, Gebre-kidan Dest (the above picture shown) the author of “የትግራይ ህዝብ እና የትምክህተኞች ሴራ ከትናንት እስከ ዛሬ” ገብረ ኪዳን ደስታ –a former TNO member, and graduate student of a theology college in Addis Ababa with Sebhat Nega, the “TPLF’s leading man”. In order to get the detail information how TPLF hijacked the Orthodox church to fit to its Marxist Leninist Ideology and policy, I will let you read the document released lately by Aregawi Berhe (to my dismay, I didn’t get that much exiting new document that I was expecting classified secrets of the organization suppose should have been open to the public). Any way, read the following document and give your critique afterwards. Now, it should be clear to all of you out there, that the present havoc disturbing the church system all over the country and abroad in the Ethiopian Orthodox Christian institutions started in 1991 is the extension of the TPLF interference in religious institutions.
Now, you know how Aba Paullos came to power in order to serve the fascist Marxist Dedebit policy in Ethiopia.
In the following document, you will also learn how TPLF is trying to kill the former Ethiopian national language –(in particular to those of the Orthodox Christian followers) the “Ge’ez” language by replacing it with “Tigringa” (a language spoken by two Million Eritrean and Tigrayan Tribe, as it successfully did carry the onslaught of the Amharic (Ethiopian national language) language to its final death engulfed by 80 different tribal languages each remained in the near future with no common bridge of communication. Now, you know how TPLF was anti Amharic and anti Ge’ez language. It is carrying exactly the mission of destroying ancient and popular languages of the Orthodox Christians (that include Amharic speaking Muslim followers) what its masters from the Italian colonial era taught them and left them to finish the agenda of destroying Ethiopian ancient languages that used to help each Ethiopians communicate in social or market exchanges even in the remotest land of the nation with no much difficulty. No matter if the followers were not listening the language of Ge’ez in the church ceremony, Amhara ,Gurage, Oromo, Tigray, …any Orthodox follower regardless of his ethnic back ground – it touches his/her soul without even followers got the definition. It is god’s soul of music and speech of the sweetest word understood able without speaking the language “Ge’ez”. It is now, Geez, is now at the sward of the TPLF cadres language and culture destroyers. Read the following document from Aregawi Berhe’s book. Getachew Reda http://www.ethiopiansemay.blogspot.com/
Neutralizing’ the Church and Mobilizing Muslims”
The Church (A political History of TPLF, page 245)
A combination of factors made relation the TPLF and the church difficult. Firstly, the Ethiopian Orthodox Church had been at the center of the villages’ social life for centuries. Weddings and Christenings (baptisms, burial rites and meditation in conflicts between neighbors all took place via the church, and there were substantial numbers of priests in every parish who performed church services. Each household had a priest as its religious “father” who took care of the spiritual life of the family and was called for special life-cycle events to give his blessing. In every community the church was connected to each household in this way.
Secondly, the church constituted a link between the people and the state. It had always stood on the side of the past Emperors, who furthered the existence, expansion and unity of the Ethiopian Church. It was organized It was organized hierarchically from the village to the national center and as an embodiment of spiritual and socio-cultural life. The institution of the church had always played a crucial role not only in community life, but also in mediation between rival forces and even between the sate and rebels. The church taught its followers to respect their allegiance to the Ethiopian state and was, in effect, a school for national consciousness, using national symbols such as the flag in all religious and social events. No church ever conducted major ceremonies without hosting the Ethiopian flag-an act also regularly observed in the Ethiopian army.
Thirdly, the church was the core legitimizing body for any emperor who ruled over Ethiopia. It had been a traditional in Ethiopia that the emperors had to be anointed in Mariam-Tsion, the Holy Church of Aksum in Tigray. They repaid the support of the church by granting gulti land to monasteries. The monasteries and gadams then claimed at least a fifth of the produce of the gulti land.
The local people were also allocated land for the upkeep of the church and priests were compensated for their services. Land was the most important incentive and encouraged many young men to invest time in going to church schools to become priests. All priests in active service in a parish received rim land for their services. The administration of the land and the church was in the hand of a gabaz. The gabaz could be a priest or layman selected by the community and approved by the church.
After the collapse of the monarchy and the military takeover of power in 1974, the state-church alliance came to an end. The Dergue proclaimed socialism and nationalized all church land. Abune Tewoflos then the patriarch of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, was cornered by the Marxist military regime, the left –wing armed struggles and the national movements, especially the EDU, which was involved in armed resistance in Tigray and Gondor, but nothing ever materialized.
The pragmatic TPLF understood the church’s role in village social life and its support for the unity of the country. It also understood against socialism and nationalization of the land as well as against separatism. The church was viewed as a force standing in the way of TPLF but one should although its Marxist ideology called for that. Nevertheless there was no doubt that to subordinate the church to its cause.
The TPLF therefore took a series of coordinated steps to neutralize the church’s influence... The first was to uphold the Dergue’s measure of power and frustrated hopes of resurgence among the rightist multi national movement in Tigrai, such as the EDU. The centuries- old economic status of the church was broken and it was forced to enter into new social contracts with its followers. Gulti land was no longer controversial and, as far as the rim was concerned the peasants saw it as a fair compensation for parish priests for their services, the nationalization of rim land met resistance not only from the church but also from the community, During the first phase land of distribution, many localities refused to distribute of rim land. Threaten by mass resistance, the TPLF tolerated the continued ownership of rim land in such localities and in fact used it as a means of justifying its recognition of the importance of the church.
The second step was to try and move the socio-economic focus of life from the church to the people’s assemblies. All administrative and social activities were taken over by associations and the baito and even church affairs such as the rights and obligations of the church and its followers fell under the jurisdiction of the assemblies. The capacity of the church to mobilize and influence the people waned. The church lost its status as mediator in conflicts, rights over spiritual and familiar issues because the new political authorities did not support us.
Thirdly, the TPLF launched a series of conferences or seminars’ for selected parish priests in 1979 to win them over. The underlying motive of the seminars was to isolate the church in Tigrai from the wider Ethiopian church in order to foster Tigrian nationalism along the lines of the TPLF’s strategy objective. Suppressed Tigraian nationalism was invoked to challenge the dominant Ethiopian Orthodox Church. The initial woreda seminars for priests were conducted by an eloquent TPLF fighter, Gebre-Kidan Desta, a graduate of the Theological College of Addis Ababa University. The themes of the seminars were to replace the Ethiopian church’s authority by a TPLF-minded church and the language in the church with Tigrigna and ultimately, to further Tigraian nationalism and identity.
This process involved the mobilization of parish priests and ordinary Christians to isolate them from the church’s national hierarchy. To weaken church authority, an intelligence group was formed under Sibhat Nega to infiltrate the well-established monasteries in Tigray, such as Debre Damo, by planting TPLF members camouflaged as monks and influencing church activities in the interest of the TPLF.
In 1987 and 1989, regional and national conferences for priests were organized by the TPLF in liberated territories to reshape the Tigray Church in line with the TPLF’s program. A separate secretariat of the Orthodox Church as formed in the liberated areas of Tigray and was supposed to operate under TPLF guidelines. Particularly, the Ethiopian church was divided in two separate secretariats, one under the regime and the other under the TPLF. Both worked in Tigrai 1990, when the TPLF overran meqele, the capital of Tigray. The regime’s secretariat fled Meqele for Dessie and the secretariat in the liberated territories entered Meqele and operated there until the TPLF seized state power in 1991.//-{Aregawi Berhe political History of the TPLF pp244-246}
For further detail information how TPLF was killing, massively arresting, mass kidnapping, killings and intimidating young Deacons and priests and elderly church respected priests, and also how TPLF arrogantly denying their profession by tearing their certificate /credentials/ of graduation provided and blessed by the then legitimate ዐቡነ ዮሐንስ of Tigray Ethiopian Orthodox church administrator. Read more in www.Ethiopiansemay.blogspot.com“The Record That Speaks of Priests and Deacons Abused In Tigray by the TPLF Leaders የትግራይ ድያቆናትንና የቀሳዉስት ዕምባ (ለማስታወሻዎ) የህወሐት ታጋዮች በሰባት ጥይት ድብድበዉ ጫካ ወስደዉ ጣሉኝ” ድያቆን ብርሃነ ገ/ሕይወት//-
