Abstract
This study is by two authors of different areas of specialization, each of whom used different scientific methods. The development sociologist, who comes from the Bielefelder Schule, provided the training in interviewing and the evaluation of the results of the 410 usable interviews with “population” and “experts”. The ecumenical comparativist from Heidelberg provided the church historical contextualization of the inquiry. The interviews were carried out by teams of matched students from the University of Heidelberg and from Holy Trinity College (HS I University in Addis Abeba), from July to November, 1973, and offer, therefore, a church sociological snapshot approximately one quarter of a year before the political upheaval which began in February, 1974.
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Notes
Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium Series aethiopica (CSCO) II 24 + 25, VI, 55; R. Pankhurst, Ethiopian Royal Cronicles, 1967, 105.
CSCO VI, 83.
CSCO III, 41.
F. Heyer, Die Kirche Äthiopiens, eine Bestandsaufnahme, Berlin 1971, 229; CSCO VI, 78 f.
S. Rubenson, King of Kings Tewodros of Ethiopia, Addis Ababa 1966, p. 60 f.; M. Flad, Ein Leben fir Abessinien, 1936, p. 152 + p. 179. Emperor Yohannes displayed an Orthodox sense of mission by defending against the attempted conquest promoted by the Egyptian Khedive and the forces of the Mandi. On the advice of the monk Mamher Gabra Giyorgis, and of the church scholar Aleqa Beru, he allowed himself to be directed by the thought that his worldly governance was possible only insofar as be based himself on the Orthodox Church. In a song of praise to the king, it is said: “Your power is in Christ; your sanctuary is in Zion; Christ knows your prayer and hears your nightly call. Were David to reign again, his prayer would not drown out yours.” In the confrontations with boardering muslim emirates, the Ethiopians counted on a power increase for the warring emperor which could only be explained supernaturally. An example of this: as a muslim superior force surprised Emperor Amda Sion, when he was sick in bed, the ruler still was able to raise himself “placing his trust in the Lord who kills and makes alive, batters and forgives, throws down and crowns, makes poor and rich, weakens the strong and strengthens the weak, wherefore scripture says: The strength of the Lord manifests itself in the weak.” (F. Heyer, op. cit., 241 f.).
F. Heyer, op. cit., p. 247.
The reduction of church participation is however still postponed because in different provinces the regional, often very different habitual law (Wag) has remained in force. Since a freelance folk judge (Dagne) can be engaged just as readily as a priest to mediate the controversy on the basis of the Wag, the church has retained an area of judicial practice. In this way, the superior judicial authorities are less burdened. Indeed, everyone has the possibility of appealing to the state court; were he to do so, however, he would be looked down upon in conservative circles of society. Numerous Ethiopian fables express the consciousness that it is difficult for the weaker person to gain his right. Therefore, it is not surprising that the judge, who is considered to be corrupt, was given noticably bad marks by our respondents in a ranking of professions, with which we inquired into the social reputation of various professions. A sacred institution of justice still today intervenes correctively in the traditional execution of justice: in the case of processions with the Tabot, a person who has been wronged can loudly make accusation in front of the local dignitaries, who are following the Tabot. The carriers of the Tabot are required to stop in order to pay attention to the accuser. The church also possesses the right of asylum. Persons subject to punishment, who are being pursued can hurry into the church and ring the handbell. Then the church offers asylum and assumes the function of mediator with the authorities.
The efforts of the new patriarch to achieve a complete structure of authority from top to bottom in the whole church, which became clear after his election in 1972, would have succeeded more quickly, had the neutralisation of the activity of Liqa Seltanat, who was independent of the patriarchal jurisdiction, been accomplished or brought under the responsibility of the patriarchate. There was a chance to accomplish this at the Spring synod of 1973, when the vacant episcopal sees were to be newly occupied and the name of Liqa Seltanat was included among the number of the eight episcopal candidates. However, the court cleric recognized that displacement to a distant southern province of weak ecclesiastical substance would have robbed him of all power and declined the candidacy in time.
Certainly not due to his church activities, but rather because he ran an imperial secret service from the Office of Religious Affairs and the military authority had reason to fear his function as communicator between various parties.
M. W. Mariam, An Atlas of Ethiopia, p. 16.
Cf. ibid, p. 41.
Cf. ibid, p. 40.
Cf. ibid, p. 88 f.
Naturally, this system of leasing hinders the development of the productivity of agricultural work. cf. ibid, p. 87 f.
Ibid, p. 31 f.
Cf., e. g., B. J. Oddy and J. D. Baker, “Some Aspects of the Socio-Economic Structure of Two Towns in the Semen Region of Ethiopia”, in JES Vol. XI, No. 1 (AA, Jan. 1973), esp. p. 162 f.
F. X. Kaufmann, Theologie in soziologischer Sicht, Freiburg 1972, p. 131.
The Department of Missionary Activities is at the same time responsible for the publication of the patriarchal journal, “Zena beta krstian”. The addition of the service regulations “responsible for the other ecclesiastical journals in every diocese” shows, that a larger framework is intended, a genuine realization of which is so far lacking. For there are-with the exception of two publications edited in Asmara-no ecclesiastical journals in other dioceses. Further, church publications do not get beyond the city limits — just as little as other publications do, with the exception of the police report.
Considering the tolerance, which Ethiopian Orthodoxy has displayed in its history, it is in contemporary Ethiopia a disturbance of the atmosphere that, on the basis of a synodal resolution, the ministry of the interior took action against the pentacostal movement in 1973. To be sure, influences of the American pentacostal movement played their part in the beginning. However, the Ethiopian pentacostal movement has long since been nationalized, which can be seen from the fact, that, for the first time in Ethiopia, pentacostals see themselves called upon to refuse military service. The wave of persecution was provoked by the refusal of the pilots of the Ethiopian airforce to perform their duty. It was especially the students of the higher secondary school who gathered together in pentacostal groups and carried the movement even to the most distant villages. In a police action, the prayer houses of the pentacostals were closed. There were closed to six hundred members of the movement in jail awaiting trial. Church and state has seen in the movement a danger, that the Ethiopian national character was being changed. Even though the capacity for enthusiastic experience is not unnatural for Ethiopian Christianity, as is shown by the fact, that the asceticism of the Marian fast leads to visions and the singing and spiritual dancing of the Debtera to ecstacy, the clergymen did not recognize the pneumatic aspects, which confronted them in a strange form in the pentacostal movement. In consequence of the revolutionary change to religious neutrality of the state the pentacostals were released.
The monastic community of Debra Damo is composed of two congregations, of an idiorrhythmic one and of a coenobitic one. The so-called First Fraternity is composed of men who are land owners in the neighborhood; the second, contrastingly, is composed of men who come from some distance away and who, as a rule, are less well-off. Should there be a person of some means among them, then this person must surrender his property to the community. While everone of the monks who belongs to the idiorrhythmic type lives in his own stone house, the upper room of which is arranged for his individual prayer, the coenobitic monks of the Second Fraternity possess no houses and use a common prayer room (Salota bet). In the reform period, there came into being not only large monasteries which could house up to six thousand monks in newly invented forms of settlement, but also whole monastery families. The monastery family in the tradition of the monasteries of Takla Haimanot developed the leadership office of the Echege. He was the representative of Takla Haimanot, who died in 1314. His original function was nothing other than the fulfilment of the priorate in the leading monastery, Debra Libanos, and in the office of monastery visitation for the monasteries following in the tradition of Takla Haimanot.
F. Heyer, op. cit., p. 21.
Placide de Meester, De Monachico statu iuxtam byzantinam disciplinam, in: Fonti di Diritto orientali, Rom 1943.
F. Heyer, Die katholische Kirche von 1648–1870, 1963, p. 10.
Gethsemane Gedam received a monthly amount of 750 Eth. Dollars by order of the emperor from each church. After the imprisonment of the monarch Ba’ata stopped the payment. The monastery is in a needy situation.
F. Heyer, Die Kirche Äthiopiens, p. 5.
F. Heyer, op. cit., p. 257.
E. Hammerschmidt, Studies in the Ethiopic Anaphora, Berlin 1961, pp. 26 f., 41.
F. Heyer, op. cit., p. 262 f.; Senkessar I, 44.
F. Heyer, op. cit., p. 8.
Yolande Mara, The church of Ethiopia, The national church in the making, Asmara 1972, p. 46.
The question of the sending of Ethiopian synodal representatives to Coptic synods came into discussion in a period of transition (letter of June 28, 1944). A permanent seat in the Coptic synod was demanded for an Ethiopian synodal representative residing in Cairo and the other Ethiopian synodal representatives should at least receive invitations to every meeting. In May, 1946, five Ethiopian monks who had come to receive episcopal ordination, actually did take part as synodal representatives in the Coptic electoral synod which elected Abuna Yussab as the 115th. patriarch of the See of St. Mark. However, the Coptic patriarchal electoral regulation of 1957 suddenly restricted the number of Ethiopian synodal representatives admitted to participation. This gave rise to a new situation of conflict. An Ethiopian synod which convened in November 24, 1957, saw in the new Coptic electoral regulation a cutting back of rights already granted to the Ethiopians. From this point of time on, every Coptic patriarchal election occasioned the same scenario: invitation extended by Egypt, invitation declined by Ethiopia. Vgl. Yolande Mara, op. cit., p. 60.
Counted as synodal representatives are the diocesan bishop, the director of his office and the leaders of all the awraja Beta kahnat, in addition at least three, at the most five, delegates of the awraja synods, amongst which at least one must be congregational chairman, one a representative of the clergy and one a representative of the laity, which are to be elected by the awraja synod from among its own members. The diocesan synod constitutes a continuing committee of at least five and at the most seven especially qualified members from clergy and laity, which at the direction of the archbishop can convene at any time, in order to advise the hierarch and to support him in the execution of his office.
Whereby, however, it should not be overlooked that the western variant of education can have a thoroughly emancipatory character and that because of the teaching of the rationality which is its basis, which rationality is to a large extent underdeveloped in African society. Cf. e. g.: S. B. Caulker in: Educational Services Inc.; A Report of an African Education Program; Watertown/Mass. 1965; p. 82: “But in our own thinking first of all, one of the most difficult problems of the African peoplechrwww(133) is to even understand that there is any relationship physically between cause and effect. This is a primary problem: whether typhoid is caused by drinking dirty water or whether it is caused by someone who has bewitched youchrwww(133) It is important, to let these people realize, that there is a direct relationship between the kind of water you drink and the kind of health you havechrwww(133)”. Still, the possibility of emancipation from traditional restrictive systems of knowledge and the thereby possible development of identity and individuality was, from the very beginning, combined with subjection to the laws inherent in the system introduced and to the rules established by the practitioners of this system; and thus, this possibility of emancipation was at least partly neutralized.
This function was during the colonial period of decisive importance: cf. e. g. J. S. Coleman (ed.); Education and Political Development; Princeton/N. J. 1968; p. 3 f. or the typical biographies of African politicians in: G. Hauck; Die politischen Führungsschichten in den neuen Staaten Schwarz-Afrikas; Diss. Heidelberg 1965.
Especially the more advanced levels of the African school system have a much more far-reaching function of allocation than the comparable European institutions; on the one hand, this is due to the considerably smaller peak of the student pyramid, and on the other hand, to the absence of competing educational institutions (e. g., political parties, unions, etc.).
These constituitive parts are: The development of a society of the division of labor and function, in which the traditional agencies are no longer in a position to exercise the primary socialisation, “chrwww(133) to enable their members to behave in a way appropriate to the roles of adulthoodchrwww(133)”, as well as a general tendency toward bureaucratisation of social life.
Y. Mara, op. cit., p. 58.
F. Heyer, op. cit., p. 340.
F. Heyer, op. cit., p. 24.
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Göricke, F., Heyer, F. (1976). The Orthodox Church of Ethiopia as a Social Institution. In: Dux, G., Luckmann, T. (eds) Contributions to the Sociology of Knowledge / Contributions to the Sociology of Religion. Internationales Jahrbuch für Wissens- und Religionssoziologie / International Yearbook for Sociology of Knowledge and Religion, vol 10. VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, Wiesbaden. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-663-14483-0_7
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