The State and the Eritrean Orthodox Church

The Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church is one of the country's four government recognized faiths, but recognition has not meant independence from the state. In 2005 the government moved to strip Patriarch Abune Antonios of administrative control after he refused an order to excommunicate roughly three thousand members of a renewal movement within the church and publicly called for the release of political prisoners, including three priests detained the previous year. A synod convened outside normal church procedure deposed him in January 2006, and in May 2007 the government installed a replacement, physically removed Antonios from his residence and placed him under house arrest at an undisclosed location.

Antonios remained in custody, largely cut off from communication, for the rest of his life. He died in February 2022 at the age of ninety four, still formally deposed and still held by the state that had removed him. Rights organizations repeatedly called for his release and recorded his case as one of the longest running detentions of a religious leader anywhere in the world.

The episode illustrates a wider pattern in Eritrea, where even the four recognized churches answer to a government that influences their leadership and polices dissent within their own ranks.