Papal Messages

His firming stands on the growth and development of monasteries

His Holiness has a special affection for monasteries, where he grew up and submits most of his lifetime.
He said “In ancient Ethiopia monasteries were universities of Ethiopia, before the introduction of the so-called modern education the kings, Judges, and princes were used to send their children to monasteries, where they can learn secular, ethical, and legal education. In fact, now a day’s secular education is spreading out of the country, but according to my thinking since it lacks spirituality, secular education alone in university is not enough for our people country. Spirituality and ethics are fruits of monastic education. Monasteries are the realist springs of mystery ethics and double-sided abundant knowledge. Monasteries are convenient places to brighten the two best qualities named calmness and peace of mind. Any deep-rooted research and studies need those qualities so that monasteries should continue as being an institution of research & studies center.”

On rules and regulations of the church

“Our church has its own well-firmed/established rules and regulation. Even if when we come into practice it lacks uniformity, Accountability, and hierarchical stability (border of leader and subordinate).
Respecting and applying such apostolic rules & regulations at all levels of the church structure is a founding stone to bring the expected change.
In fact, changes are a process, not one-time-fledged assignments. It takes time to change the current situation. Some signs and symptoms of change are sparking among their generation. I hope the inevitable change will come soon.
In our church all vocational activities should be planned, measurable, and weighted/ evaluated according to the apostolic succession. They should also be result oriented thus bringing our mother church to her original apostolic identity.

Church and Media

Media helps to educate followers and share the church’s message with a wider audience wherever they are. This makes it vital for the communication work of the church. It will help to teach the Gospel aligned with the church’s dogma and canon. The media creates an opportunity for people to learn where they are, and besides, it plays a great role in conveying the message of the church to many parties at the same time. It will also help to address false teachings and misinformation.
The church is strengthening its media by conducting the necessary studies and assigning a proper budget. During the pandemic, the church used media effectively to provide spiritual service to the followers within the safety of their homes.

The church’s relationship with other oriental churches

Our church will work to improve our relationship with other oriental churches. It is also important to discuss her work with other religious organizations on development and charity. His Holiness emphasized to work closely with Egypt Coptic Orthodox Church.
It is important to strengthen our relationship with our sister church of Egypt Coptic Orthodox Church. This will lead to a better relationship with other sister churches. There is a good relationship with the Armenian Orthodox Church and will work to enhance it further. There is already some work that has been started with the Russian Orthodox Church. Our foreign affairs should reflect the ancient and historical aspects of the church.

The church’s relationship with the government

Ethiopia’s constitution requires the separation of state and religion. They shall not interfere with religious matters and vice versa. This doesn’t mean there are areas that the church and the government can work together. We have been working together on peace building and development in past years. Both the state and the church lead the same people differently. The people will lead their spiritual life with the church and need the government for their worldly affairs. The constitution recognizes religious freedom and government interference in religious matters. This helps the church to work freely and independently without the influence of the government and with its legal ground. The church will work to build its relationship with the government.

Good governance and anti-corruption in the church

Ethnocentrism, tribalism, and corruption have no place in the church. It is against everything the church stands for and our church works to eradicate it and become exemplary. We have to work on that. If the church suffers from the absence of good governance as a spiritual organization; witnessing it in the secular world is no surprise.
Our church should preach and teach to eliminate the evil of tribalism, ethnocentrism, and corruption in the secular world. Christians should be repelled by this act. The church should work internally to defeat the root of evil reflected in bad governance and corruption within the church.
Along with doing this, research-based solutions must be implemented to address problems. Church leaders should be educated, principled, and virtuous. Church leaders shall not be tribalist and ethnocentric. They should put Christ and his church before their needs. Leaders should lead with perseverance willing to be persecuted and crucified for their church. People who are far from partisanship and stand up for the interests of the church instead of their interests should be given a place by offering people who will pay martyrdom for the church and increase their capacity through various pieces of training so that they can serve their churches honestly and openly.

The church and her ancient heritages

Heritages in the church belong to the people and the government. So, it should be protected by both the church and the government. The majority of our country’s heritage is the churches. Every Parish church should work with the local government to protect our national heritages, Parish churches are working to improve their current state by building modern museums and houses to protect the heritage. They are also registering heritage with the government. This indicates we are sharing our heritage for the use of our national resources as a country.
The museum in Axum Tsion was being constructed before the war. This modern museum will help to collect heritage, organize it, and show it to visitors. This is a great resource for the church. It will help to preserve our heritage for the next generation. The project implementation has been slow due to a lack of budget. But there is a strong follow-up on the project which brings hope that it will be fully functional soon.

Youth and the church

Our youth are our successors who will take on to lead the church. Our youth should understand the dogma and canon of the church and take responsibility to serve the church with knowledge and diligence in charity, development, and spiritual service.
The youth know the church’s dogma and canon is accountable to pass to the next generation. Orthodox youth should be calm, and impartial avoid emotionality, and put their interest in meeting the church’s needs first.

His Holiness speech on the role of believers, intellectuals, investors, and youth in the church

The church’s responsibility is to improve the system and engage the followers but also to put mechanisms for followers to fulfill. Everyone is responsible to work for the benefit of the church and the protection of the faith. Followers should take part in the liturgy, teaching, and development work of the church. Followers should give 10 percent of their income, the wealthy should support the church financially, the scholars with their knowledge, the youth with their vitality, and the elders with prayer should serve the church.

In every effort to eliminate operational problems seen in the church, the faithful must act to find a peaceful and mature solution in an organized way and a truly stable, legal, and mature manner. Wherever there are problems, trials should be faced with Christian ethics in a spirit of tolerance and listening. Problems that arise in some parishes, all efforts to solve the problems should be done for the sake of the church and should be free from violence and peaceful.
Otherwise, it is impossible to help the church by choosing methods that lead to violence and conflict. On the contrary, by doing this, the honor of the church will be reduced, it will cause the believers to stumble, and the government officials will get tired. Moreover, it will also make God sad.

Church and Evangelization

On many occasions, His Holiness remarked the primary responsibility of the church is to preach God’s Word, telling people simple and clearly the words of God in all parishes. To disseminate evangelism the church required skilled teachers who can speak local languages in all regions of the country.
To do all those who are preaching the words of God have to be glaring instances, models, and ethical in various aspects. They have to prioritize the interest of the church, serving the people full of interest and passion. He is struggling to secure competent salaries and benefits for theologians. Without doing that it is difficult to deliver the services at the desired level. He always claims to improve the current salary as it is incompatible with the current cost of living.
His Holiness strongly advocates the activity of the local church must be evangelistic. Everything we do on our premises must be related to the task of the mission. If need be, we must scrutinize our timetable and strategize to ensure that all is done for the furtherance of the Gospel. Every meeting and every department especially the Evangelism Department must be weighed in this balance and fearlessly dealt with as it is found wanting. His Holiness believed in with all preliminary research and supplementation of quality written and electronic media evangelism could be enhanced.

Corruption anti-Corruption and Church

His holiness is always at the front to talk about the issue of corruption. The Church as the voice of God in society has the mandate to resist any opposition to the development and peace of any society caused by the corruption of whatever forms, speaking on behalf of vulnerable people, especially those who are oppressed without justice. Every service given in the church has to be free from any bias and discrimination and should be based on rule of law.
Although the church is meant to be God’s representative on earth, its history, regrettably, has not been entirely free from corruption. Each time leaders have focused more on earthly things than on God, the result has always been tragic.

Because of the debilitating effects of corruption such as poverty and theft of funds that could be used in plague prevention and famine relief, churches need to be at the forefront of advocating against corruption and developing models and structures to combat it. The strategic focus that we are developing to reduce corruption and nepotism has to be revised regularly in a way to secure a healthy atmosphere in our church and surroundings. The attempts made by the Addis Ababa diocese office to collect members’ contributions and offers via Banks can be taken as positive majors to reduce corruption. Moreover, the issue of nepotism, transfer of staff, and promotions have to be corrected and shaped.

The church must renew its call for people to come to God in repentance. This is part of its prophetic duties to society. A call to repentance is a call for change, unlike a revolution that in time wears out and leaves the human predicament largely unchanged will result in transformation. Servants today need that call to move in a different direction, to march to a different drumbeat, and to turn from the pathway of corruption which leads to perdition. Decent servants of course will free the church from all forms of corruption as long as securing close collaboration and support from the public.

Be that as it may, the church has designed a workable structure to control all forms of corruption. The anti-corruption institution is mandatory to make servants and all stakeholders accountable in the course of delivering services to the followers. This and all other positive attempts will be strengthened until prevailing practical changes in all forms of the church endeavors.

Charity and Humanitarian Service

Christians believe that God’s love and generosity towards humanity moves and inspires us to love and be generous in response. Jesus taught that to love God and to love neighbor are the greatest commandments. Charity for elders orphans and the destitute is not an optional extra, but an essential component of faith. But the response on the part of the Ethiopian Orthodox tewahido Church is not at the desired level. There are few institutions who can bring effective work on this aspect His Holiness stated.

Sebeta Getesemani can be taken as a model. The nunnery brought remarkable achievements both in charitable works and development. Children are growing modest and ethical, attending school. The nuns are engaged in various duties based on their capacities. Education, health, and livelihood (horticulture and animal husbandry) were effectively implemented in the nunnery.
Organizing and building the capacity of faith actors to share good lessons with others should be an important step. Train various segments of the church community on developments, diversified livelihood alternatives for asset-poor churches, and develop the culture of work that should be focused on by parishes and relevant departments of EOTC.

His holiness’ vision for the church

Poor church governance can lead to issues such as corruption, negligence, fraud, and lack of accountability. However, it’s not just scandals that point to governance failures. Stunted church growth, repetitive complaints, and high levels of waste also highlight a lack of control and strategic alignment. These are causes of sin and malpractices in the church.

Followers’ participation in relation to anti-corruption efforts encompasses dynamics and approaches that may differ from citizen participation in other public processes, given that the State may not always provide citizens the same access to space and information in relation to fighting corruption.

Concrete ways in which church members may contribute to the fight against corruption include reporting corruption to the authority or through the media and supporting training programs and sensitization campaigns that aim to create a culture of integrity and zero tolerance for corruption. Sometimes even refusing to participate in corrupt practices is an important act of resistance and expressing commitment to the words of God. It is worthwhile dedicating and developing a detailed analysis of the issue and impact of corruption, as this is one important avenue through which church people can participate in anti-corruption efforts.

In many of our churches, there is a concrete risk of the normalization of corruption and the decline of criticism of manifestations of corruption. In an ironic twist, corruption ends up being considered a necessary evil or even a shortcut to access some important goods. In such contexts, the critical attitude of citizens toward corruption is weakened or altogether lost. Hence it is time to change all that. It is crucial that in all churches, followers are able to recognize corruption and are empowered to participate, so as to avoid the consequences of unabated corruption, such as deep inequalities. Church leaders, intellectuals, business people, and followers to this end should stand together and fulfill their responsibility, and hand over the church’s good practices for the generation to come.