Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church Elects New Patriarch

______________________________

On Thursday, church officials said that the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church elected Abune Mathias Asrat (see bio here) as its new patriarch to replace its previous First Hierarch, Abune Patriarch Paulos Yohnannes, who died in August 2012. Daniel Sefermikael, a church official, said, “Abune Matthias… Archbishop of Jerusalem (for the Ethiopian OTC) was elected with a majority of the votes cast”. He said that Mathias got about 500 out of 806 votes cast. Mathias, 71, has lived abroad for over 30 years, initially fleeing Ethiopia following a military coup by Mengistu Haile Mariam in 1974. He has since travelled throughout Europe and North America, and will now settle in Ethiopia to serve as patriarch.

About 63 percent of Ethiopia’s 83 million people are Christian, with the majority following the Orthodox faith, according to official figures. Mathias will be sworn in at an official ceremony in Addis Ababa on Sunday, which tens of thousands of people are expected to attend. The office of the patriarch has been vacant since August after Abune Paulos died of an undisclosed illness. He had served as head of the Ethiopian OTC since 1992. Ethiopian patriarchs have the title Abune, which means “father” in Amharic. Ethiopia is home to some of Africa‘s oldest Orthodox churches, including a cluster of 11 ancient rock-hewn churches in Lalibela designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO.

28 February 2013

Agence France Presse

As quoted in Global Post

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/afp/130228/ethiopia-elects-patriarch-orthodox-church

7 September 2012. A Photo Essay. Yes, Virginia, There IS an Orthosphere… Places, People, Things…

Tamiš River near Pančevo (South Banat Okrug. Autonomous Province of Vojvodina) SERBIA 

******

House in the middle of the Drina River near Bajina Bašta (Zlatibor Okrug) SERBIA

******

Lake Baikal (Irkutsk Oblast. Siberian Federal District) RF

******

Contemporary Coptic icon of Christ

******

VDV Day in Gorky Park. Moscow (Federal City of Moscow. Central Federal District) RF

******

Reading a newspaper in Addis Ababa (Chartered City of Addis Ababa) ETHIOPIA

******

Indian Malankara Orthodox married couple

******

Christ Pantocrator

Unknown Artist

Church of the Mother of God Pammakaristos

Istanbul* (Istanbul Province. Marmara Region) TURKEY

*formerly Constantinople New Rome

Early 14th century

******

Melissani Cave. Kefalonia (Ionian Islands Periphery) GREECE 

******

In the mountains of Ethiopia

******

Armenian-American journalist with Armenian soldiers

______________________________

The Orthosphere… a place of stunning beauty… of homely domesticity… of honest heartfelt patriotism… a place of every good thing, both man-made and natural… it’s all ours… po-nashemu. If you want the heavenly, you must approach it through the earthly and earthy… that’s the way that God intended it to be. Beware all those who want to excise the Faith from its lived incarnations… such people are creating soulless zombies. Like it or not, that’s the way it is…

Yes… I know that the Oriental Orthodox “aren’t in communion”… but they’re part of our civilisational bloc; they’re part of our culture, they share our ethos and world-view (the Uniates are only superficially similar… they’re traitors with an Orthodox ritual masking Western “internals” and subservience to alien authority). There’s an Orthodox “visage” that we all share… that’s because we share so many of the “internals” as well, despite not “being in communion” (and that’s why some who seem to externally resemble us aren’t of us).

BMD 

Ethiopian Patriarch Abune Paulos Dies in Addis Ababa

______________________________

The government announced that the First Hierarch of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church, Abune Paulos Yohannes (Patriarch and Catholicos of Ethiopia, Ichege of the See of St Tekle Haymanot, Archbishop of Axum), died in Addis Ababa at the age of 76. There was no announcement of the cause of his death. According to some sources, the patriarch received medical treatment over the past few weeks. Abune Paulos became patriarch in 1992, a year after the fall of the totalitarian régime of Mengistu Haile Mariam. In 2007, the patriarch was able to overcome a 40-year-old rift with the Coptic Orthodox Patriarchate of Alexandria and all Africa, and, in 2009, participated in the Assembly of the Synod of Bishops of Africa, held in the Vatican. In Ethiopia, almost two-thirds of the 83 million people are Christians.

17 August 2012 (MSK)

Voice of Russia World Service

http://english.ruvr.ru/2012_08_17/Ethiopian-Church-Patriarch-dies/

9 January 2012. A Multimedia Presentation. Hooray for Timkat!

******

******

******

******

******

******

******

******

******

******

Timkat is the Epiphany celebration of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church. Interestingly, it’s held on 19 January on regular years, but on it jumps to 20 January on leap years (that’s 10 Terr on the Ethiopian calendar). It’s a big deal in Ethiopia, as the images testify.

The Orthodox Civilisational Space (to use Sergei Solovyov’s terminology) is wide and varied… it goes from Salekhard in the north to Addis Ababa in the south, from Užgorod in the west to Magadan and rural Alaska (don’t forget the Alaska Native people and their Orthodoxy!) in the east. Orthodox people are of all races and they live in all the other Civilisational Spaces (Western, Latin American, Muslim, African, Hindu, Pacific, and East Asian) too, not only in the Orthosphere (thank you to the friend who thought that one up… of course, it’s a neologism based on “Anglosphere”… neat, ain’t it?). Of course, there’s “overlap” (such as Indonesia and Malaysia being part of both the Hindu and Muslim Civilisations, and, Burma, Indochina, and Thailand being part of Hindu Civilisation)… but now isn’t the time to get into that. There’s more to Orthodoxy than most realise… yes, Virginia, we ARE one of the Great Civilisational Currents (we owe nothing to or need nothing from the West, NEVER forget that)…

Greet your Ethiopian friends on the 20th of this month… it’s the decent thing to do!

BMD