Gamal Nkrumah tells the tale of the life and times of Abune Paulos, the Ethiopian patriarch who passed away last week and whose legacy entailed sorting out rational mechanisms for one of Africa's most venerable and ancient Christians on surviving and getting along in a precarious brave new world "De Profundis, From the depths�ê� Let your ears be attentive to the voice of my supplication" -- Pslam 130, The Bible It was never clear to the vast majority of Ethiopians just when the innocence of the Echege of the See of Saint Tekle Haymanot, Abune Paulos was lost. Or it may have been what happened a few months prior to his enthronement as patriarch of the Ethiopian Tewahedo Orthodox Church. Sceptics will argue that Abune Paulos was appointed in cryptic circumstances to replace Abune Mercurius who was at the time acclaimed as the official head of the Ethiopian Church. Abune Paulos searched for a permanent cure for a gnawing national malaise -- ethnic chauvinism. His birth name was Gebre Medhin Wolde Yohannes and his family had a close association with the Aba Garima Monastery. He was an accomplished academic, unlike most of his predecessors, and was not content to attend the de rigueur Theological College of the Holy Trinity, Addis Ababa. He travelled to the United States and lived as a political exile where he enrolled at Princeton to complete his doctoral degree in 1984. He enjoyed being feted internationally as a beacon of Orthodox Christianity in the heart of Africa. Abune Paulos (1935-2012) presented himself as the leading whistleblower of an archaic Church in desperate need of newfangled ideas, or even permutation. The clubby atmosphere prevailing during the reign of Abune Mercurius was one in which dissent counted as disloyalty to centuries old traditions. Whistleblowers frequently face reprisals and Abune Paulos was no exception. He simultaneously preserved ancient traditions and stressed the need to speed reform. Collaboration was his watchword. The best-laid schemes to reform the administration of one of Africa's and the world's most ancient Churches would fall apart, Abune Paulos reasoned, if it failed to shake off centuries of systematically forming an ethnic elite. Ethnicity as a political cachet is not a novel device in Ethiopia, or Africa for that matter. Abune Mercurius was an ethnic Amhara. Abune Paulos was an ethnic Tigrayan and he just happened to hail from the same historic city in Tigray as the late Ethiopian strongman Meles Zenawi. Such ethnic connections proved useful through subsequent waves of persecution by the Communist Derg that held sway in the then war-torn and multi-ethnic Ethiopia -- both Abune Paulos and Zenawi paid a price for being political dissidents. Zenawi's cool and calculated style complimented the jocularity of Abune Paulos. The two men were natural partners, and sure enough as soon as Zenawi toppled the Communist Derg he prevailed upon the Holy Synod of the Ethiopian Church to force Abune Mercurius to abdicate. All this suspense, followed by relative peace and relief, briefly overshadowed the political complicity between Zenawi and Abune Paulos. Abune Mercurius who fled the country in disgrace reigned as the official head of the Ethiopian Church between 1988 and 1991. It was a difficult time for the embattled Ethiopian Church. He was obliged to tackle problems with the officially atheist Communist Derg. Abune Paulos, in sharp contrast, connived with Zenawi to assert Tigrayan participation in the decision-making process -- both political and religious. Amhara hegemony of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church and of the Ethiopian government since the days of the great Amhara emperors such as Tewodros II, who reigned between 1855-1868 and Menelik II who reigned between 1889-1913. The very title Negusa Nagest, King of Kings, was synonymous with the hegemonic Amhara ethnic group. Zenawi, with the tacit connivance of Abune Paulos, was determined to involve not only the Tigrayans but also other non-Amhara ethnic groups in the politics of Ethiopian government and Church. The duo were a dubious throwback to the ancient Tigrayan monopolisation of power in the earlier days of the Axumite Kingdom, the forerunner of the mediaeval and modern Abyssinian kingdoms. The entire excruciating exercise was exacerbated by the reluctance of certain sections of the Amhara political establishment to comply with the new Tigrayan-led order. Despite two decades of peace and a rise in prosperity, frustration was bubbling up in Zenawi's Ethiopia. Abune Paulos concentrated on consolidating the role of the ethnic minorities and non-Amhara ethnic groups in the Ethiopian Church affairs. The professed mission of Abune Paulos was to create a truly Tewahedo Church encompassing all Ethiopians. He was simultaneously a patriarch and a politician. The same loss of innocence that had engaged the late patriarch throughout his heading the Ethiopian Church would many inside Ethiopia and abroad believe last long after his passing. The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church was always closely aligned to whoever ruled the country. Emperor Haile Sellasie reasserted the tradition. He distanced himself from the Coptic Orthodox Church of Egypt. The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church was granted autocephaly by the then Pope Joseph II of Alexandria, head of the Coptic Orthodox Church in 1950. Derg Communist junta led by Mengistu Haile Mariam reinforced the independence of the Ethiopian Church while playing down the political significance of religion in the Ethiopian administration. The fall of the Derg in 1991 propelled the late patriarch to political power in the guise of religious leader. The late Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi appointed Abune Paulos as pope and then the patriarch of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church was unceremoniously dethroned in mysterious circumstances. Once ensconced behind the Cathedral's walls, Abune Paulos sought to unify his multi-ethnic congregation. The Ethiopian Church was no longer closely identified with a single ethnic group, the Amhara. He will, in any case, be remembered as the first non-Amhara, and first ethnic Tigray, in contemporary times to hold the highest religious position in the land. History suggests that Ethiopian Christians have long been inextricably intertwined with the traditions of the Judaism of the Old Testament. Dietary rules prohibit the consumption of pork and also just like Muslims do when entering a mosque, Ethiopian Christian worshippers are obliged to take off their shoes when entering a church. As with Orthodox Jewish women are banned from participating in Church activities during menses. When I last interviewed Abune Paulos during a visit to Cairo, he startled me by saying that; "We were Christian a thousand years before Jesus Christ". The liturgical Geez Semitic language, written in the Ethiopic script is akin to the ancient South Arabian script. Geez is to Ethiopia what Latin is to Europe. And, the relation between French and Latin could easily be compared to the relationship between the Amhara language and Geez. Likewise, Italian's relationship to Latin is comparable with that of Tigrayan to Geez. Tigrayan is also the predominant language of the Eritrean Highlands. Yet in some respects, the longer the late pope stood behind Zenawi, the gloomier the Ethiopian Church's predictions came true. It is against this backdrop that Pope Paulos reluctantly agreed to the granting of autocephaly of the breakaway Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church in 1993 when Eritrea gained its independence. Some of this crunch reflects the rest of Ethiopia's woes. The rivalry between Amhara and Tigray cannot linger any longer. Even two architectural traditions of church building prevail in Ethiopia -- the oblong Tigray church versus the circular Amhara church style. Ethiopia appears to be in denial. The anticipated political crisis in the post-Zenawi period has not yet hit the Ethiopian ruling clique. The new pope will in all probability be an ethnic Amhara, who have traditionally monopolised the highest Church post. Yet he might be an ethnic Oromo, Ethiopia's largest ethnic group, or a member of one of the country's less populous ethnic groups. Whatever the ethnicity of the new Ethiopian patriarch, his nomination will not be imposed from above, as was the case with previous popes, not excepting Abune Paulos. It was time for change at the top in Addis Ababa -- Church and state. For numerous historical and cultural reasons, Abune Paulos and Zenawi shared an almost identical political outlook. They both hailed from Adowa, the historic city in Tigray that circumscribed and sanctioned the sovereignty of contemporary Ethiopia. Under Abune Paulos, the Ethiopian Church placed a heavier emphasis on a multi-ethnic Ethiopian nationalism as opposed to an Amhara dominated Ethiopian nationalism. His admirers reckon that he did. The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church has long been a defining characteristic of the country's national identity. Abune Paulos, however, gave the Church a modernistic cast of characters, new inclination. Generalising from Ethiopia's experience would be risky. Indeed, in historic terms, conventional wisdom about the Ethiopian Church has been turned on its head. Emperor Susenyos, under the influence of Jesuit missionaries, in 1624 ruled that Roman Catholicism be made the official state religion of Ethiopia, known then as Abyssinia. Emperor Susenyos, was however, forced to abdicate in favour of his son Fasilides who promptly reversed his father's decree and returned Ethiopia to the Orthodox fold and ordered the burning of the Jesuits' books, the so-called Books of the Franks. Old habits are hard to discard. But in a revolutionary manner Abune Paulos initiated change in his Church. In short, those inclined to mock the late patriarch will not find much to enjoy.
