{"id":62465,"date":"2018-08-03T04:07:24","date_gmt":"2018-08-03T04:07:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/malankaraorthodox.tv\/?p=62465"},"modified":"2018-08-03T05:08:27","modified_gmt":"2018-08-03T05:08:27","slug":"ethiopia-4th-patriarch-returns-after-27-years-in-exile","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/malankaraorthodox.tv\/?p=62465","title":{"rendered":"Ethiopia: 4th Patriarch Returns After 27 Years In Exile"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/malankaraorthodox.tv\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/HH_Abune-Merkorios.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-62462\" src=\"http:\/\/malankaraorthodox.tv\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/HH_Abune-Merkorios-300x157.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"157\" srcset=\"http:\/\/malankaraorthodox.tv\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/HH_Abune-Merkorios-300x157.jpg 300w, http:\/\/malankaraorthodox.tv\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/HH_Abune-Merkorios-768x402.jpg 768w, http:\/\/malankaraorthodox.tv\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/HH_Abune-Merkorios.jpg 784w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"selectionShareable\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\"><strong>Addis Ababa, Ethiopia \u2013\u00a0<\/strong>The 4th Patriarch of the\u00a0<strong>Ethiopian Orthodox Church, Abune Merkorios<\/strong>, on Wednesday returned to his country on Wednesday after spending 27 years in exile in the U.S.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"selectionShareable\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">Merkorios arrived in the capital Addis Ababa together with the high-level Ethiopia delegation led by Prime Minister\u00a0<strong>Abiy Ahmed<\/strong>\u00a0\u2014 who was on an unofficial visit to the U.S., where he achieved his target of unifying Ethiopians in the diaspora and turned their attention to social, political and economic activities in Ethiopia.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"selectionShareable\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">The patriarch was expelled during the 1991 change of government in what many perceive as an undue political intervention in the affairs of the church. An echelon of the clergy opposing the purge went out of the country and declared themselves as retaining a<strong>\u00a0Synod in exile<\/strong>.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"selectionShareable\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">It was mainly the question of legitimacy and ensuing claims and blames that resulted in mutual excommunications of the two Synods.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"selectionShareable\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">In a fast-paced reconciliation spearheaded by the Ethiopian prime minister, the two Synods agreed to reunite and rescinded their mutual excommunications.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"selectionShareable\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">According to the agreement reached in Washington D.C., Patriarch Abune Mathias will serve as an administrative patriarch and Patriarch Abune Merkorios will serve the Church\u2019s spiritual functions on equal authoritative footing.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"selectionShareable\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">Since coming to power on April 2, 2018, Ahmed has created a wider political space by releasing political prisoners and calling home exiled dissidents.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"selectionShareable\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">Higher government officials, the clergy, eminent personalities and artistes welcomed the prime minister Abiy and the homecoming patriarch.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">Source: Anadolu Agency<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Addis Ababa, Ethiopia \u2013\u00a0The 4th Patriarch of the\u00a0Ethiopian Orthodox Church, Abune Merkorios, on Wednesday returned to his country on Wednesday after spending 27 years in exile in the U.S. Merkorios &hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":62462,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[131,136,88,19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-62465","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ethiopian-orthodox-church","category-hh-abune-merkorios","category-hh-mathias-patriarch","category-world-church-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/malankaraorthodox.tv\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62465","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/malankaraorthodox.tv\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/malankaraorthodox.tv\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/malankaraorthodox.tv\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/malankaraorthodox.tv\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=62465"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/malankaraorthodox.tv\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62465\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":62466,"href":"http:\/\/malankaraorthodox.tv\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62465\/revisions\/62466"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/malankaraorthodox.tv\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/62462"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/malankaraorthodox.tv\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=62465"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/malankaraorthodox.tv\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=62465"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/malankaraorthodox.tv\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=62465"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}