History of the Church

	March 13, 2010

The Historical background on the formation of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church in Southern Africa.

Introduction

This church is called Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo church,the church of King Menelek of Ethiopia,(Abyssinia),the son of the Queen of Sheba and King Solomon of Jerusalem.
This church was founded by St.Phillip at the time he baptised the Etiopian eunuch, Phillip went,and there he found "a man of Ethiopia, an eunuch of great authority under Candace the Queen of Ethiopians, who had the charge of all her treasure,and had come to Jerusalem for to worship."

This Church is a member in the lineage of the Oriental Orthodox Churches, and a member amongst the World Council of Churches.

It is the church of the indigenous African people,with customs,traditions,rituals,and similar rites that are not different to those that are in the Holy Bible,futhermore;it is also composed of the faithful and the believers indeed that constitute the big membership and followers,particularly of African descent.

This church has a wonderful history, that is very rich, and easy to follow, because;for the history tobe preserved, it should be documented, for easy access to it, and also guard against absolute extiction. It is noted for example;in books such as "The Voice of Black Theology in S.A”.,where the history of Christianity and its origins are put narratively, and also points out that; Jesus Christ had set his foot on the African soil during the escape of Joseph and Mary to Egypt,from the furious rage of King Herod's pedocidal excuse in seach of the Immanuel(Jesus)

This Ethiopian Country has a very rich and palatable history of Christianity; that even the Ark Of The Covenant is in Axum in the church of St.Mary, and the right arm of the Cross on which Christ was crucified, is also in Ethiopia with all the African Saints; like His Holiness Haile Selassie, the Ethiopian eunuch, the Queen of Sheba that we read about in the Bible ,about Ethiopian people and their way of life.

The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church has its Patriarch, Archbishops, Bishops, Priests, and also Ethiopian Christians of its own.

The rise of Ethiopian Orthodoxy in South Africa

During the 08 May 1983 in the Grahamstown in South Africa a town affectionately known as “The City Of Saints” in the church of St. Matthews where there was a National Convention of the Church of the Order Of Ethiopia of South Africa. That was the day of the ordination of the Bishop of the Order Of Ethiopia of the Church Of The Province of South Africa where it became clear that, there is dissatisfaction and unhappiness amongst the followers of the Order Of Ethiopia, all those who were dissatisfied with the planning process of the ordination of the Bishop were asked to remain outside the church building.
These people who were dissatisfied with these procedural irreguralities whilst asked to remain outside; had to stay and endure the chill of the winter night and they had to resort to singing, chanting hymns and do preaching to keep themselves warm.

One of the sermons that were preached was the orations from the book of (I Kings 21;)
“And Naboth said to Ahab, The LORD forbid it me, that I should give the inheritance of my fathers unto thee”.

The second sermon was in the book of (Acts 8; 21) “Thou hast neither part nor lot in this matter: for thy heart is not right in the sight of God.”

These sermons were preached the whole of the Saturday night of the 7th May 1983, the night preceding the ordination day. The morning came; and it was the 8th of May 1983. The bishops of the (CPSA) Church of the Province Of South Africa, got informed of the situation in general, as well as the dissatisfied members of the congregation of the Order Of Ethiopia and the bishops found no thing wrong and sinister with that, as they were human beings which showed that they embraced that, there should in any situation disagreements and that was viewed as normal in the eyes of the dissatisfied members.

But, to everybody’s surprise; the worst scenario was when fellow members of the Order Of Ethiopia upon seeing that white bishops of the CPSA were not worried about the status quo because they knew that the Order Of Ethiopia was a “Society” of the CPSA(see Paul Makubu’s Book “Who are the Independent Churches. p.10)

On the morning at about 9:00 o’clock the fire broke up, and it was ups and downs, members of the Order Of Ethiopia were launching attack to the dissatisfied members with weapons guns, stone-throwing, sharp objects were an order of the day at Grahamstown, infact in side the church yard and nearby and it was the worst ever seen sight in the history of African Faith, and amongst all that was so pathetic, was the way in which the white clergy was onlooking to this religious rivalry and such was a disgrace and gross embarrassment to the Christian faith in South Africa. As that was an onslaught to the Order Of Ethiopia in particular the CPSA (Church Of The Province Of South Africa) the turmoil could have been avoided and means be devised to solve the problem rather than fuelling it.

In spite of the intentional ploys to attack the dissatisfied members of the Ethiopian movement under the Order Of Ethiopia of the CPSA, it finally appeared that those who were dissatisfied with the way the ordination was to be conducted were driven outside the church boundaries and only left were those in support of the ordination under the conduct of the CPSA. The moving out of the Ethiopians from the CPSA Order Of Ethiopia was never like that of the Israelites, freeing themselves from the bondage of Pharoah in Egypt. Ethiopians move form CPSA Order Of Ethiopia had blood spills of elderly men and brave men who were prepared to fight and stand for their truth. Nevetherless; there were just casualties no deaths reported, even the one who contributed to this book(Kes Wolde Selassie) Reverend. Diliza Nelson Valisa was also wounded and his blood spilled out of such carnage.

Grahamstown was not the end of this movement, but in July 1983 in Port Elizabeth and the nearby town called Uitenhage, similar incident took place where it really showed that “the egg shell has no yolk” were the Ethiopians move out of the CPSA Order Of Ethiopia with merely five(5) Priest and one (1) Deacon, and five (5) Evangels. The year 1983 was the year of moving out of the Ethiopians under the supremacy and subordination by the CPSA Order Of Ethiopia. Such was the realisation of the prophecy that “this movement is guided by the Holy Spirit”.

The culmination of this breakaway led to the opening of the minds of the Ethiopians, under the CPSA Order Of Ethiopia to define the meaning of being an Ethiopian in the true sense of the word; and not just identify and define Ethiopianism outside Africanity. According to Paul Makubu Who are the Independent Churches: “It was His Reverence Ephraim Mzamo Hopa the leader of the Ethiopians under the CPSA Order Of Ethiopia , in fact; he was the last one under the bondage of the CPSA Order Of Ethiopia behind” This movement was the initial objective of the late Nehemiah Tile and the late Mangena Mokone, that; to have an appropriate base on one’s faith, it (the faith) should be connected to the roots and the cultures of those people.

According to Rev. Clive J. Pillay “The establishment of the Ethiopian Church, the forerunner of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, was preceded by the birth of three other independent Black movements, viz. ;
1. In 1872 the Hermon Congregation of the Paris Mission was formed by a small group of members pulling away from the Paris Evangelical Mission in Basutoland ; this secession was of little consequence.
2. In 1884, the Tembu Church of South Africa was set up at Mkqezweni when a Wesleyan minister, Rev. Nehemiah Tile, left his church.
3. In 1890, the Zulu Mbaina Congregational Church was formed when Mbaina Ngidi secede from the American Board Mission. In 1894, the Negro Baptists from the U.S.A started work in Cape Town.
In 1892 the Ethiopian Church was started when Rev. Mangena Maake Mokone withdrew from the Wesleyan Church in Pretoria, Transvaal.
He formed the Thembu Church in 1883 in the Transkei. The founding of the Ethiopian Church by Rev M.M. Mokone on the Witwatersrand in 1892 was tantamount to widening the battle front started by Tile
The introduction of Christianity in South Africa led to an emergence of Black Christians who later rejected the white Christian values, formed their own independent churches with new concepts and values. The first of these black converts to form an independent church was the late Nehemiah Tile who played a significant religious and political role..

Mokone's reasons for leaving the Wesleyan Church are contained in a document entitled
The names of the Priesthood and the Deaconite that led the breakaway of the Ethiopians from the CPSA Order Of Ethiopia were Rev.E.L.M. Hopa (Chief Priest), (the late)Rev.D.N. Mquqo, (the late)Rev.C. Qengqa, Rev.C.N.Gojela, (the late) Rev.C.M. Soga. Deacon E.L.C. Ntshebe, and the Evangel F.Pikoli,
(the late) Mbatana, Tetani, Nyathi, (the late)Skaap. Among the famous elders was the chief steward of the church of St. Bernard Mizeki Brother. S.Z. Taku, a brave man with excellent oratory talent who was very influential in strengthening the unity amongst members and also preached discipline as the cornerstone of our faith.

The total population(membership) of the church at that time of moving out of the CPSA Order Of Ethiopia was approximately between Four Thousand 4 000 and Five Thousand 5 000 composing of members from the following Circuits: Port Elizabeth, Uitenhage, Kirkwood, Addo, Paterson, Alexandria, Humansdorp, Grahamstown, Port Alfred, East London, King Williams Town, Middledrift, Alice, Fort Beaufort, Cape Town, Oudtshoorn, Queenstown, and Cala and Ngqamakhwe(a rural district near Butterworth in the Transkei).

After this church had parted ways with the CPSA Order Of Ethiopia then, the identity of the The Late Reverend. E.L.M. Hopa called this South African Ethiopian Church, the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, the church of King Menelek of Abyssinia. This identification came with one of the

(In his book, "Ethiopianism and the Order of Ethiopia", the Rt Rev. Sigqibo Dwane writes of the missionary Rev William Chalmers, who said that "British Kaffraria was littered with canteens and lazy, drunken Kaffirs," and that "this will most effectively exterminate them if the weapons of the British warfare have failed.")

This Document is still under construction