Image: Mulugeta Ayene / AP
Abune Mathias, the sixth patriarch of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, during the 2020 Good Friday service at the Holy Trinity Cathedral in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
The head of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church in his first public comments on the war in his country’s Tigray region is sharply criticizing Ethiopia’s federal government, saying he believes its actions constitute genocide: “They want to destroy the people of Tigray.”
The United States ambassador hosted him today to learn more.
In a video shot last month on a mobile phone and carried out of Ethiopia, the elderly Patriarch Abune Mathias addresses the church’s scores of millions of followers and the international community, saying his previous attempts to speak out were blocked. He is ethnic Tigrayan.