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The Lutheran World Federation
Lutheran World Information |
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| 15.02.2008 |
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| FEATURE: From Humble Beginnings |
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Ethiopian Church Counts 4.9 Million Members, World’s Second Largest Lutheran Church
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia, 15 February 2008 (LWI) - “God has blessed the Mekane Yesus Church with much growth over the past 50 years, but the work of this church in God’s mission is just beginning,” states Rev. Iteffa Gobena, President of the Ethiopian Evangelical Church Mekane Yesus (EECMY). In the church’s name, “Mekane Yesus” means “the dwelling place of Jesus.”
The EECMY had 20,000 members when it was established as a national church in January 1959. At the end of 2007, its membership stood at 4,869,157, making it the world’s second largest Lutheran church after the Church of Sweden, with 6.9 million members.
The membership increase by nearly one million in the last five years is attributed mainly to growth in families, and sustained outreach efforts to new language groups, incorporating Bible translation and training of local evangelists as major strategies.
The EECMY has its origins in the mission work of Lutheran and Presbyterian churches from Europe and North America, working together with local evangelical pioneers.
In the 17th and 18th centuries various British, German and Swiss mission endeavors sought to stimulate evangelical revival within the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church (EOC)-which dates from the 4th century-through distribution and study of Holy Scripture. While the EOC uses the ancient Ge’ez language in its worship, the Protestant missionaries translated Scripture into local languages.
Early Protestant and Catholic mission efforts were not successful in reaching the large Oromo population in western Ethiopia for many political and practical reasons. Nor was the region evangelized extensively by the EOC, which was concentrated in the northern and central parts of Ethiopia.
Organized Outreach
Early translations of Scripture into vernacular languages were largely done by local persons beginning from the 1830s. The Swedish Evangelical Mission (Church of Sweden) began organized efforts to reach the Oromo in 1866. From a base in Eritrea, Christian merchants from the Oromo area received Bible training and returned as missionaries to Wollaga in western Ethiopia. They were also entrusted with former slaves including EECMY pioneer Onesimos Nesib, who completed translation of the entire Bible into Oromo in 1897.
The Swedish mission was not aiming at starting a separate Lutheran church, rather a Bible-centered revival within the EOC. But Orthodox priests and other members who joined the Bible studies were harassed and often excommunicated, which gave rise to evangelical meetings, which after almost a century formed a basis for the EECMY.
In 1928, the German Hermannsburg Mission established a mission station at Aira in western Wollaga. During the missionaries’ absence throughout the 1935-1938 Italian occupation, the Oromo church grew under local leadership, evangelizing the whole area around Aira. After the Italian occupation, the use of the Oromo Bible in worship and teaching by Ethiopian and German missionaries greatly influenced the establishment of the evangelical church throughout the area.
The Presbyterian Church USA had worked in Sudan for many years, and had medical and evangelistic contacts with Nilotic groups (especially Anuak and Nuer) who inhabited both sides of the Ethiopian border, especially during the 1919 flu epidemic. In the 1930s, Bethel (Presbyterian) congregations were organized in the western regions of Wollaga, and medical and outreach missions had close fellowship with the Oromo Lutheran believers. The Presbyterian believers organized the Bethel Church in 1947 which became part of the EECMY in 1973.
Mission initiatives from the Nordic countries expanded significantly from 1948 with the arrival of the Norwegian Lutheran Mission, followed by the Danish Evangelical Mission and later by Finnish and Icelandic missionaries. The work in the south included hospitals, clinics, schools, Bible schools and a seminary.
The American Lutheran Mission came to Ethiopia in 1957, carrying out medical, educational and agricultural work, as well as outreach to the northern Afar peoples and neighboring lowlanders.
EECMY Founding
Joint meetings of Lutheran mission organizations in Ethiopia were held frequently beginning in 1943. The establishment of a joint committee in 1951 led to common initiatives for pastors’ training and organization of church work.
From 1954, the mission organizations worked with the local congregations to establish a united Lutheran church in Ethiopia. With encouragement from the LWF, the Addis Ababa Mekane Yesus Congregation was accepted as a member of the LWF at the Third Assembly in 1957.
A constituting General Assembly, with 17 Ethiopian and eight missionary delegates, formally established the Ethiopian Evangelical Church Mekane Yesus as a national church on 21 January 1959. Ato (Mr) Emmanuel G. Selassie was elected the first president of the new national church, which had 20,000 members. The EECMY as a national church was received into LWF membership in 1963, then with 42,884 members.
Mission and Relationships
In 1972, the EECMY published a letter “On the Interrelation Between the Proclamation of the Gospel and Human Development,” outlining its understanding and commitment regarding holistic ministry-“Serving the Whole Man [Person].” It also challenged donor limitations that sharply separated development from evangelism.
Upon EECMY’s invitation, the LWF established in 1973 a World Service country program for relief and development work, which continues today as a joint LWF-EECMY program. The Committee of Mutual Christian Responsibility (CMCR) established in 1979 provides an annual forum for the Ethiopian church and its partners to address common concerns in mission at national and global level.
During the widespread religious persecution of the Derg Marxist regime (1974-1991) in the country, many churches were closed down and pastors and other leaders were imprisoned. Then EECMY General Secretary Rev. Gudina Tumsa was assassinated in 1979. When many other churches were closed, the EECMY provided a place of fellowship for their members, thereby introducing charismatic worship, which continues to date in many of its congregations.
The EECMY is also a member of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches, World Council of Churches, All Africa Conference of Churches, and a founding member of the Evangelical Churches Fellowship of Ethiopia.
Since 1959 the EECMY has grown steadily in numbers, and in mission and partner relationships. Its over 4.8 million members today comprise many ethnic and language groups in 6,193 congregations and 2,735 preaching places. The church has 1,814 pastors including nine women, and 2,750 evangelists.
The Ethiopian Evangelical Church Mekane Yesus will celebrate its 50th anniversary in January 2009. (1,041 words)
(By Rev. Arthur Leichnitz, a pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada, currently serving as an advisor with the EECMY.)
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