History
The last Emperor of Ethiopia, official head of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, Emperor Haile Selassie I, commissioned Abuna Mikael Gabre Kristos to establish a diocese of the Ethiopian Church in the Americas. In the capital city of Addis Ababa, Abuna Mikael was ordained the Episcopacy by Abuna Basilios, Abuna Markos Patriarch of Gojjam, and Petros, Metropolitan of Gondar, on July 12, 1959. Two days later, in the royal hall, he was invested in office by Emperor Haile Selassie I, and sent with Ukase to establish the church in the west, especially ministering toward Africans of the Diaspora. He was bestowed and installed in the order of Nebur-id. Knowing that an unfavorable political change that would affect the church was soon forthcoming, and that there might come a necessity to create a legally separate organization in the west, Haile Selassie gave Abuna Mikael the freedom to do so.
In 1959, Abuna Mikael served as sponsor for a group of five priests and five deacons sent by Abuna Basilios for advanced study. However, some of the priests, including Laike Mandefro, broke relations with Abuna Mikael. Mandefro sought authority from Abuna Theophilos (after the death of Abuna Basilios) to begin to gather Ethiopian-Americans into a congregation in Brooklyn, which was later relocated to the Bronx. Mandefro was raised to the rank of Archimandrite and placed in charge of the Ethiopian Church in the West; Archimandrite Mandefro was consecrated a bishop. Mandefro was invested in 1979 as Abuna Yeshaq, Archbishop of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church in the Western Hemisphere.
Abuna Mikael recognized a similar need, and established the Ethiopian Orthodox Coptic Church of North and South America, reinserting the name “Coptic” into the name of the church in 1962. He imparted to each of his sons the Apostolic Succession of the Oriental Stream.
Pope Cyril VI approved the initiation of the Patriarchate of Ethiopia by ordaining the first Ethiopian patriarch, Abuna Basilios. This established for the first time a separate Ethiopian Orthodox Church (1959), which until then had existed as a branch under the mother Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria, Egypt.
Read more about this topic: Ethiopian Orthodox Coptic Church Of North And South America
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