The ancient Ethiopian Church need to face reality. This is a new age. They have to prepare for the worst and rediscover the true identity of the church.
Ethiopia's Orthodox community is once again crying after a deadly crack down by Oromo fascist Abiy Ahmed Ali's regime. After Abiy came to power, massacres after massacres, church burnings after burnings took place in different parts of the country. There were protests in Oromoya and other parts of the country before Abiy came to power, but there was no such targeted killing and destruction against Orthodox Christians. This only started after his group came to power.
As Abiy was a newbie by the time, people gave him the benefit of the doubt. We all thought there were forces to abort the fake reform. No we were all wrong, Abiy himself made it clear that he and his killing squad have been behind all the killings against civilians in the country. How long should EOTC followers keep crying if they really care about their lives? They need to face reality. This is a new age. They have to prepare for the worst and rediscover the true identity of the church.
What's the true identity of the church?
Before Emperor Haileselassie's European Catholic style unitarist modernization, the Ethiopian church was an independent institution for centuries. It had its own schools and structure parallel to the state. In fact, the Ethiopian state stole a lot of knowledge from the church. The church can claim ancient Ethiopia who was nominally a Christan kingdom until 1974 as its own offspring.
But with the killing of Abune Theophilos by the communist revolutionaries of the 1970s, that ancient Ethiopia is gone. Ethiopia's nominal Chistian status is buried. For the last 50 years, communism and barbaric ethnic fascism have dominated Ethiopia's power center. Abiy Ahmed's rise to power in 2018 was a hope for equality and equal opportunity for all in which EOTC followers would have liked but no. Abiy was not bold enough to reform the communist and ethno-fascist Ethiopian state, reforming it would cause him to lose his much beloved power. His party is simply recycled EPRDF with OLF pills. So the hope has failed and EOTC should wake up (it's already late but late is better than later). Face reality! Its a new age.
Face reality, it's a new age
The immediate reason for waking up now may be the state has been so hostile to EOTC in the last 60 years, it couldn't be fair for all. Those who want to build a fake new Ethiopia want to build it by burying what's left of its ancient institutions like EOTC. Embrace this reality and rediscover your true identity, which is independent EOTC, do not depend on the state any longer. Be who you were before Emperor Haileselassie's centralization.
Develop your own parallel society
As the corrupt state & economy double down on their hostility to you, you build your own parallel state. Only then you regain respect and become productive once again.
Parallel society means EOTC should start its own banks, schools from Pre-K to Universities, Think tanks who push for policy reforms. Organize and mobilize an electorate. How many EOTC NGOs do we have in Ethiopia despite being the majority? How many EOTC media do we have in Ethiopia?
The church was very productive hundreds of years ago. It created languages, scripts, cultures, narratives to keep an Empire. Where is it now? It's corrupt. The corruption in the church admin or Betekihnet is worse than secular businesses. Poorly educated priests and monk-spies play the dirty game of money and ethnic politics in the church. The patriarch was playing TPLF's music in leaked videos. He lost respect for what he was doing. If he was brave enough and a true leader, he could have done things in public. He could have stopped the war because the civil war took place in the heart of northern Ethiopia where the overwhelming majority is EOTC followers. Almost all TPLF troops were EOTC Faithfuls.
Invite educated EOTC children. The synod can lead spiritually at the top, but all administrative work should be done by educated people not uneducated priests whose job should be listen to church ceremonies like Kidase.
Prepare!! the future is even worse. We're in a post Christian world. The heat is already felt in Ethiopian since the 70s, it might have reached the pick now. You face reality and prepare for the worst or cry and perish. Yes EOTC or the religion is only about semayawi life (eternal life) but teaching the light of the gospel needs being a strong independent institution.
There were initiatives to reform the church administration by educated Ethiopians like ex-UN rep Kassa Kebede (RIP) but nobody knows where that initiative is now. It may have been killed by the Betekihnet establishment who embezzled the church's money for its secular life