High Eritrean Orthodox Priest in Khartoum Asks UN Protection

An Eritrean high priest of the Orthodox Church in Khartoum, Father Ghebreberhan Fisseha, announced yesterday, 17 March 2006, that he had asked a week ago the protection of the UNHCR office in Khartoum from the Eritrean Embassy which allegedly interfered in the internal affairs of the Orthodox Church in Khartoum, and even made serious threats and “attempts” on his life.

Father Ghebreberhan accused the Eritrean Embassy in Khartoum of using ugly divide and rule tactics among the Eritrean community and of making direct interferences in the affairs of  the Church. Father Ghebreberhan said that he was summoned several times to the Eritrean Embassy and subjected to threats and verbal abuses for having allowed church facilities to priests that the Embassy thinks “are not supposed to be in the Church”.

Father Ghebreberhan was assigned by the Eritrean Orthodox Church in July 2001 to head the Orthodox congregation in Sudan. During the past five years, he could bring about reconciliation among church groups who were divided on the basis of clans and regions. His positive contributions were not favoured by the Embassy which knew that Father Ghebreberhan stood condemning all the acts of interference of the regime in the affairs of the Church in Eritrea, including the utterly illegal action of deposing Patriarch  Antonios of the Orthodox Church.