Cardinal Berhaneyesus Demerew Souraphiel, Archbishop of Addis Ababa, Samson Bekele Demissie, CEO of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahdo Church – Child and Family Affairs Organization and Girma Borishie Bati, vice-president of the Ethiopian Evangelical Church’s Central Ethiopia Synod gave a lecture in the ceremonial hall of the Pázmány Péter Catholic University at Budapest (Hungary) on 17 June about the persecution of Christians in the African country and the perseverance of their communities.
Cardinal Berhaneyesus Demerew Souraphiel, Archbishop of Addis Ababa recalled that Saint John Paul II asked the members of the European Parliament to include God and Christianity in the new constitution, but they refused the request. “You may wonder how a continent with Christian roots can do this.” The Cardinal said that the Ethiopian Church is grateful to Hungary for attributing a central role to Christianity in its national policy. Later, he highlighted that 110 million people live in Ethiopia making it the second largest African country in terms of population after Nigeria. Ratio of young people compared to the total population is 55 percent. However, Ethiopians love their country and the Church would like them to stay instead of fleeing from poverty, so they could join forces with all people of good will and change their home for the better, said the Cardinal.
Samson Bekele Demissie, CEO of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahdo Church – Child and Family Affairs Organization presented some figures: the Orthodox Church is an ancient institution of Ethiopia with more than 50 million members. Currently, 905 thousand refugees live in the country along with 3 million internal refugees, who relocated to a more hospitable part of the country due to flooding, drought, lack of clean water or unemployment.
Girma Borishie Bati, vice-president of the Ethiopian Evangelical Church’s Central Ethiopia Synod said that their Church has 10 million members. He underlined that the self-representation of Muslims is strengthening, while the role of Christians weakens. Attacks on Christians are getting frequent, their houses and churches are set on fire and even murders happen more and more often. In this desperate situation, Christian communities must coordinate more closely than ever before to preserve peace, said Girma Borishie Bati.
In 2007, two-third of the country’s population claimed to be Christian. 43.5 percent of them were Orthodox Christians, 18.6 percent were Protestants and 0.7 percent were Catholics. 33 percent of the total population were registered as Muslims.
The event was organized by the State Secretariat responsible for the Aid of Persecuted Christians and the Hungary Helps Program in cooperation with the Pázmány Péter Catholic University.
