Identity and Church: Ethiopian - Egyptian Dialogue, 1924-59

Author(s): Haggai Erlich

Source: International Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol. 32, No. 1 (Feb., 2000), pp. 23-46
Published by: Cambridge University Press
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Int. J. Middle East Stud. 32 (2000), 23-46. Printed in the United States of America

Haggai Erlich

IDENTITY AND CHURCH: ETHIOPIAN-

EGYPTIAN DIALOGUE, 1924-59

In June 1959, Emperor Haile Sellassie of Ethiopia paid a visit to President Gamel
Abdel Nasser of the United Arab Republic, during which the two leaders aired mat-
ters of acute strategic importance. Several issues, some touching the very heart of
ancient Ethiopian-Egyptian relations, were in the stages of culmination. These in-
cluded a bitter dispute over the Nile waters (some four-fifths of the water reaching
Egypt originates in Ethiopia1), the emergence of an Arab-inspired Eritrean move-
ment, Egyptian support of Somali irredentism, the Ethiopian alliance with Israel, the
future of Pan-African diplomacy, and Soviet and American influences.2 Both leaders
did their best to publicly ignore their conflicts. They were able to use a rich, though
polarized, reservoir of mutual images in their speeches to emphasize the dimensions
of old neighborliness and affinity.3 In a joint announcement issued during the fare-
well party of 28 June, they even underlined a common policy of non-alignment.
Though they hinted at the issues mentioned earlier in all their public speeches, they
refrained from referring to one culminating historical drama.4 On that very same day,
in the main Coptic church of Cairo, the Egyptian Coptic Patriarch Kyrillos VI had
ceremonially appointed the head of the Ethiopian church, Abuna Baselyos, as a patri-
arch in the presence of Haile Sellassie and Egyptian officials. In so doing, he declared
the Orthodox Ethiopian church autocephalous, and for the first time since the early
4th century, the Ethiopian church had become independent of the Egyptian church.
This separation of the churches was perhaps the single most important event in the
long, multifaceted, mutually meaningful history of Ethiopian-Egyptian relations.
These relations, to be sure, revolved primarily around Islamic-Christian concepts.
The Christian rulers of Ethiopia often regarded Egypt, the country down the Nile,
as the capital center of Islam, a hostile religion besieging their land. They believed
Middle Eastern Islam to be working toward the politicization and unification of Ethi-
opia's Muslims and the destruction of Ethiopia as a Christian empire. For Muslims,
in Egypt and elsewhere, Ethiopia has been from the earliest days of Islam a special
case around which a major argument of principle has developed. On the one hand,
Ethiopia embodied a non-Islamic "other," benevolently entitled to cultural tolerance
and political co-existence. For the more radical Muslims, on the other hand, Ethiopia
was also an illegitimate entity, the embodiment of treacherous infidelity. Indeed, the

Haggai Erlich is Professor of Middle Eastern and African History, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv 69978,
Israel.

? 2000 Cambridge University Press 0020-7438/00 $9.50

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24 Haggai Erlich

discussion of Ethiopia along this dichotomy reflected different interpretations of

Islam itself, and the argument flared up in Egypt whenever the country of the Blue
Nile was placed on the public agenda. This Islamic-Christian world of mutual con-
cepts and images is not analyzed here.5 However, the old Egyptian-Ethiopian dia-
logue also had a very important Coptic-Christian Ethiopian dimension, and the
reconstruction and implications of its 20th-century developments are the subject of
this article.
Studying the stages that led to the breaking of this ancient Christian bond in 1959
may shed some new light on the nature of 20th-century transformations in both
countries. Modern Ethiopia's and Egypt's redefinition of state and society reshaped
their internal institutions as well as the nature of their international relations. The
combined dynamism, reflected in our story of the church, had much to do with the
fundamental changes in their social and national identities. As we shall see, the
emergence of modem nationalism in each country created new significance to the
fact that Ethiopia was an old Egyptian bishopric. The ensuing process of adaptation
and change affected both the role of the Copts and the pluralism of Egyptian society,
as well as the pace of the centralization of government and culture in Ethiopia. It
led, it will be argued, to a sort of workable compromise in the 1940s between Egyp-
tian parliamentarian nationalism and the still Middle Eastern-oriented government
of Emperor Haile Sellassie. This compromise, it will be further argued, was quickly
eroded by the Nasserite revolution in Egypt and its new definitions of society and
national identity. The final break in ancient church relations, it will be concluded,
furthered the process of Africanization in Ethiopia and left the Copts in Egypt much
exposed, deprived of their most meaningful political asset.

THE EGYPTIAN ABUN

The connection between the Christian kings of Ethiopia and the Alexandrine Coptic
church began with an episode in the 4th century leading to the consecration of a
bishop for Ethiopia. The Ethiopians followed the monophysite dogmas borrowed
from the Copts, adding to them a complete set of local beliefs that rendered their
Christianity uniquely Ethiopian. Yet theological disputes, mostly in medieval times,
never fully undermined the very relations. The main element linking the churches
was the official dependence of the Ethiopians on the Egyptians, as embodied in the
institution of the abun, Ethiopia's bishop and head of church. Both tradition and
the medieval Ethiopian legal code of the Fetha Nagast (article XLII) determined that
the abun was to be an Egyptian bishop (papas in Ethiopic) appointed by the Coptic
patriarch of Alexandria. By the same tradition, Ethiopia was a bishopric of the cen-
tral Egyptian church, entitled in principle to have up to seven bishops. All of Ethio-
pia's 111 abuns, from the first in the 4th century to the Baselyos of the 1950s (the
first Ethiopian), were Egyptians.6
The institution of the Egyptian abun was central to Ethiopia's history. In a Chris-
tian country encircled by Islam, in a culture that had developed a strong sense of
isolation and "siege mentality," this outside connection occasionally served as a
channel for various religious, judicial, and literary and artistic influences. In pre-
modern times, Ethiopians had enjoyed only two such outside bases: the Alexandria
patriarchate and the Jerusalem convent of Deir al-Sultan,7 to which we shall return.

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 Ethiopian-Egyptian Dialogue 25

In domestic affairs, the abun provided the royal dynasty with patriarchal legitimacy.
The abun not only ordained priests and deacons, and was therefore vital to the spread
of Christianity, but also proclaimed kings and emperors and sat at their right hand,
embodying the alliance between the throne and the church, firmly cemented after
1270. Because Ethiopian politics were often volatile, the constant struggle for the
throne rendered the presence of the Egyptian abun politically vital.
There were obvious shortcomings. The Egyptian abun was in no position to pro-
vide dynamic leadership to either the church or Christianity. All abuns sent from
Egypt were persons of advanced age, Arabic-speakers, and virtually ignorant of
Ethiopia's languages and culture. The position was viewed in Egypt as near-exile in
a distant country, and only rarely was a Coptic monk of proven capabilities dispatched
there. Few abuns survived or were talented enough to learn the languages of Ge'ez
and Amharic, to exercise religious influence, to run the daily affairs of the church,
or to have much political impact. Indeed, most of the abun's functions were filled
instead by the native Ethiopian echage, the head of Ethiopia's monks.
Pre-modern Ethiopian-Egyptian relations were too eventful to be reviewed here.
If Ethiopia was the source of the Nile, a land of mystery and a threat to Egypt's
rulers, Egypt was the source of the patriarch for the Ethiopians. In periods of mutual
hostility, the Ethiopians were denied new abuns. With the exception of one 15th-
century emperor (Zar'a-Yacqob, 1434-68), no pre-modern Ethiopian monarch man-
aged to obtain a second bishop or more from Egypt.8 The Ethiopians, for their part,
were sensitive to the position of their fellow Copts in Muslim Egypt and on several
occasions intervened in their behalf, threatening to block the flow of the Nile. In pre-
modem times, the fact that the Copts were supported by a Christian kingdom with
such tremendous leverage on Egypt's lifeline was a mixed blessing for Egypt's Chris-
tians. While practical rulers and mainstream orthodox Muslims viewed Ethiopia in
flexible, even somewhat favorable, terms, radical Muslims, as mentioned earlier, de-
veloped particularly negative concepts of Ethiopia. In their reservoir of Ethiopian
images, for example, there existed the fear that the habasha-the black Christians
in the source land of the Nile-would eventually destroy Egypt while their fellow
Copts sat idly by, betraying their Muslim rulers.9
In discussing the internal Egyptian dimensions of this multinational story, we
shall focus on the role and status of the Copts. As the modern Egyptian state began
to develop in the early 19th century, new generations of young, modern, educated
Copts entered the country's administration and developed new, modern community
institutions, headed by a Community Council (majlis milli) established in 1874.
Toward the beginning of the 20th century, prominent Copts began penetrating the
upper echelon of party politics. The new, modern sense of Egyptian nationalism,
whose pluralistic essence culminated in the "pharaonicism" of the 1920s, enabled
Copts to be accepted as equal members of society. Moreover, this brand of Egyp-
tian nationalism accepted the Coptic-Ethiopian connection as an integral part of
the all-Egyptian pluralist fabric, and was even viewed as an asset for the promotion
of regional diplomacy. When the Ethiopians demanded modernization of this an-
cient bond, the Coptic church establishment responded slowly, but most educated
Copts, together with the politicians of parliamentarian Egypt, favored the compro-
mise reached in the late 1940s. However, the gradual transformation in Egypt toward
the Arabist (and Islamic Arabist) definitions that culminated in the Nasserite regime,

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26 Haggai Erlich

eroded the Copts' position in society,10 resulting in the severing of their Ethiopian
connection in 1959.
The Ethiopians initiated the process of redefining this Coptic-church connection.
This redefinition stemmed from their own modern transformation. Capable of main-
taining political independence (with the exception of Mussolini's short conquest,
1936-41), Ethiopia's development toward political modernization revolved for the
most part around the issue of state-building and the centralization of the imperial
government. All modern emperors perceived the spread of Christianity as a major
vehicle for unification and centralization, and they aspired to the monopolization and
nationalization of the church. The Egyptian abuns, and the availability of only one
bishop, became more acute obstacles. Emperor Tewodros II (r. 1855-68), the first
emperor to attempt modernization, fought bitterly with Abuna Salama over control
of the church. His failure to subjugate the Egyptian was a major reason for the col-
lapse of his general effort and his downfall.' Emperor Yohannes IV (r. 1872-89) was
engaged in a long war over Eritrea with the Egyptian army of Khedive Ismacil. His
forces shattered the Egyptian army at Gura on 3 March 1876, a victory that enabled
the Ethiopians to regain access to the Red Sea, a defeat of traumatic consequences
for Egypt. It proved detrimental to the survival of IsmaCil's African empire and began
the countdown toward the fall of Egypt itself to the British six years later. In the
middle of the Ethiopian-Egyptian conflict, Yohannes eliminated the Egyptian abun,
but in 1881, after five years of negotiation, managed to obtain four Egyptian bishops
from Alexandria instead of just one abun.12 One of them later became Abuna Mate-
wos, who, until his death in December 1926, played a central role in Ethiopian pol-
itics. Prior to the 1920s, he had become a main leader of the more conservative wing
of politicians, a chief rival to the emerging modernizing prince and heir to the throne
from 1916 onward-Ras Tafari, the future Emperor Haile Sellassie (r. 1930-74).

MODERN NATIONALISM AND CHURCH AUTONOMY, 1924-34

Haile Sellassie is the man identified with Ethiopia's 20th-century struggle for in-
stitutionalized nationalization of the Ethiopian Orthodox church and its complete
autonomy within the Egyptian church. This struggle reflected major developments
in the reformation of Ethiopia's state and politics and their centralization around the
imperial throne, as well as a combined effort led by the emperor to unify Ethiopian
identity around Christian Amharic culture. A new dimension of Ethiopian-Egyptian
relations began during his first visit to Cairo in the summer of 1924.
Ras Tafari's visit epitomized the pinnacle of Ethiopian-Egyptian friendliness.13 In
1924, none of the concrete issues mentioned earlier was on the bilateral agenda during
the visit-not even the question of the Nile. The essence of Ethiopia's negotiations
with the British over the Tana Dam (Britain's idea to turn the Ethiopian lake into the
main reservoir for the entire Nile system), which had reached a critical juncture,
was virtually concealed from the Egyptians. For the far-sighted Prince Ras Tafari of
1924, Egypt was a corridor to European culture, a model for urbanization and tech-
nological advancement, as well as a source of schoolmasters for his recently initiated
educational revolution. His enthusiasm in Cairo was warmly reciprocated by King
Fuad and, notably, by Sacd Zaghlul and his Wafdist "people's government" of that

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 Ethiopian-Egyptian Dialogue 27

year. In the optimistic spirit of openness then prevalent in Egypt, stemming from the
prevailing hegemonic "pharaonistic" interpretation of identity, Ethiopia was widely
perceived in the friendliest of terms. Traditional radical Islamic de-legitimization
and demonization of the Christian state were marginalized, as were modern Egyptian
memories of the Gura calamity. Both were to resurface later, but in the heyday of
the 1920s, Egyptian public opinion was swept up in a combination of favorable Ethi-
opian images. These consisted of the new Egyptianist concept of a pluralist "East,"
which recognized Ethiopia as part of the region, combined with traditional main-
stream Islamic images of Ethiopia as a "land of justice." These positive Egyptian
Islamic perceptions of Ethiopia were naturally consonant with the new role in soci-
ety played by the Copts, manifested by their prominence in the leading nationalist
Wafd Party and based on the fundamentals of Egyptianist pluralism.
Revelling in these cordial relations, Ras Tafari arrived in Cairo in 1924 with the
goal of advancing his national cause. He met with the patriarch, with members the
Coptic Holy Synod of bishops, and with their Community Council and raised the
demand that he would repeat for the next twenty-four years: the appointment (fol-
lowing the death of Abuna Matewos) of an Ethiopian abun and his investment, by
the Egyptian patriarch, with the power to appoint bishops. No less forcefully, he de-
manded the keys to the Jerusalem convent of Deir al-Sultan. The convent, adjacent
to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, was said to be occupied by Coptic and Ethio-
pian monks since perhaps the 5th century. This was Ethiopia's modest foothold in the
eternal city of Jerusalem, the source of Ethiopia's royal "Solomonic" ethos. In 1834,
while Jerusalem was under Egyptian control, the Ethiopian monks fell victim to a
plague, and their fellow Coptic monks gained control over the gate leading to their
corner. The Egyptian monks agreed to allow the Ethiopians back as guests only.
Efforts made by subsequent Ethiopian emperors to regain the keys came to naught.
Despite the generally friendly atmosphere in 1924, Ras Tafari achieved nothing.
Though the more secular wing of the Coptic community was evidently willing to
compromise on at least the keys to the Jerusalem convent, the church establishment
proved less flexible. The request for an Ethiopian to replace old Abuna Matewos
upon his death was flatly denied,15 and Tafari returned empty-handed to Ethiopia to
face his rivals in the conservative establishment led by Empress Zawditu (r. 1916-
30), a prominent member of the local nobility, and Abuna Matewos.
The issue of the Egyptian abun became a major factor in Tafari's 1925-30 strug-
gle for the imperial throne and absolutism.'6 The ambitious, modern-oriented prince
cultivated a new generation of young intellectuals who worked to undermine the old
conservative guard. One way to do this was through the new nationalist demand to
Ethiopianize the church. A major platform in this context was the first Amharic
weekly magazine, Berhanena Salam, which Tafari established on 1 January 1925.
"Young Ethiopians" such as Mahtema-Worq Eshete, the editor of the weekly, spared
no rhetoric in exposing Abuna Matweos as a greedy foreigner who was unfaithful
to Ethiopian interests.17 Other articles began challenging the very premise of the tra-
ditional Egyptian church connection. On 10 February 1927, for example, another
young scholar, Afaworqi Gabra-lyasus, informed the readers of Berhanena Salam
that the historical-legal aspect behind the ancient tradition was questionable, argu-
ing that the relevant article in the Fatha Nagast (introduced into Ethiopia during the

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28 Haggai Erlich

15th century), which was allegedly based on the canon of the Council of Nicaea (of
325 A.D.), had been forged by the compiler of the Ethiopian legal code, the Egyptian
Coptic scholar Ibn al-Asal. On 10 March 1927, Tesfahun Abebe devoted the weekly's
leading article to Egyptian-Ethiopian relations. Though he titled it "On Friendship
and Brotherhood" and defined relations as uniquely close and based on blood ties,
he stated that the Ethiopians hated "[tjhe Coptic demand to control their Church,"
and implied that Ethiopia might use its ability to control the Nile waters. The open-
ing article of 14 April 1927 focused on the Deir al-Sultan issue, arguing that the
Egyptian position stemmed from paternalism and deceit. Other young intellectuals
went on to label the church connection "religious imperialism" and "Coptic tyranny,"
and demanded that Ethiopia raise the matter in the League of Nations (Ethiopia had
been a member of the League since 1923).18
Tafari tried to undermine the aging Abuna Matewos by tightening imperial con-
trol over the church. In September 1926, he imposed new church regulations that offi-
cially diverted most administrative authority to the echage. When Abuna Matewos
died in December 1926, Tafari intensified his contacts with the Egyptian church and
government. His tactics were to convey the anti-Coptic messages of Ethiopia's rising
generation, including their clear threat to cut relations altogether, but at the same
time to define himself as a moderate, demanding only that the new Egyptian abun
have the authority to consecrate Ethiopian bishops. Negotiations with the Egyptians
continued for nearly three years until May 1929, when the new Abuna Qerilos VI
was appointed to the Ethiopian church. Because of the involvement of the Egyptian
government, the Coptic church was now ready to compromise. The new abun him-
self was not authorized to appoint bishops, but three Ethiopian monks were sent to
Egypt and consecrated by the patriarch as bishops, the very first Ethiopian bishops.19
However, prior to their consecration in Cairo they were obliged to take an oath
never to be involved in the election of an Abun. The following year, early in 1930,
Patriarch Yohannes paid a visit to Ethiopia (for the second time in history),20 conse-
crating the echage as a fourth Ethiopian bishop to work under Abuna Qerilos. When
Ras Tafari was crowned by Abuna Qerilos as Haile Sellassie I in November 1930, a
high-ranking Egyptian delegation arrived, including the patriarch's representative,
Archbishop Yusab. The archbishop was a member of an already emerging pro-
Ethiopian wing in the Egyptian Coptic church. His alliance with the new emperor was
to have great significance.
During the five years prior to the outbreak of the war with Mussolini, Haile
Sellassie quickened the pace of reform. As far as this study is concerned, he did his
best to marginalize Abuna Qerilos's public role, while he himself continued to be the
initiator of change. These changes took place in at least four areas: he obtained full
imperial control over the church treasury and assets (working with the echage and
the new Ethiopian bishops); he deprived the priesthood of its judiciary powers, even
in remote provinces, by declaring and implementing the 1931 constitution; he eroded
the church's monopoly on education by accelerating the revolution in general secular
education; and he saw to the Amharization of scriptures and liturgy (a full transla-
tion of the Bible into Amharic was completed in 193421). By switching the emphasis
from the dead language of Ge'ez, mastered almost solely by the priesthood, to the

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 Ethiopian-Egyptian Dialogue 29

modernized, pan-Ethiopian Amharic, he not only furthered the nationalization of the

church but also tried to bridge the gap between the new generation of young intel-
lectuals, whose emergence he had initiated, and Ethiopia's Christian legacy, to which
he remained a pious devotee. As for the Egyptian Copts, Haile Sellassie could only
send some signals of reserved dissatisfaction during the period 1930-35.
A modicum of disillusionment with Egyptian inflexibility can be discerned in the
writings of Haile Sellassie's chief negotiator with the Egyptians, his foreign minister
and the well-known author Heruy Walda-Sellassie. Heruy, perhaps Ethiopia's lead-
ing authority on church history at the time,22 published two books following his 1923
and 1924 visits to Egypt. In both he described relations during Tafari's early negoti-
ations in the most cordial terms. Heruy's last pre-war visit to Cairo in 1933 also dealt
with the issues of Deir al-Sultan and the emperor's renewed demand that an Ethio-
pian succeed Qerilos as abun, but his meetings with Patriarch Yohannes and with
King Fuad bore no fruit. Another of his books, published in 1934 and describing his
last tour of Egypt, reflected much less cordiality.23

EGYPTIANISM AND MUSSOLINI'S INTERFERENCE, 1935-41

The "Abyssinian Crisis" of 1935 and the subsequent conquest of Ethiopia by Mus-
solini interrupted Haile Sellasie's program of national centralization. The crisis also
raised many stormy issues for the Egyptians, running the gamut from Egypt's anxi-
ety about the Nile waters to the emergence of an angry young generation into poli-
tics, forcing Egypt to redefine nationalist concepts. The debate over fascism on the
one hand and Ethiopia on the other was central to these issues but in itself is beyond
the scope of this article. We shall merely mention that all the major components of
the Egyptian soul were caught up in a struggle to reassert themselves in 1935, and
they also did so by vacillating between their own polarized concepts of Ethiopia.
The vast amount of literature and articles published that year on "the Ethiopian
question" revealed multifaceted dichotomies. Islamicists were divided between a
pro-Ethiopian wing led by reformists such as Rashid Rida, and Islamicist militants
such as the author Yusuf Ahmad, who perceived Ethiopia to be a historic enemy of
Islam deserving destruction. Arabists, mostly Syrians and Iraqis residing and pub-
lishing in Egypt, were similarly divided. Egyptianists had their own conceptual di-
chotomy. Some now chose to remember the Gura disaster and depicted Ethiopia as
a major obstacle and enemy of "Nile Valley unity." Others, notably Muhammad
'Abdallah 'Inan and Muhammad Lutfi Jum'a, resorted to Pharaonic-Easternist plu-
ralism, identifying with fascist-besieged Ethiopia. The Coptic community of 1935
was also divided. While most young intellectuals supported the Egyptianist-pluralist
pro-Ethiopian philosophy, the church establishment was less involved and was far
from being a leader in the pan-Egyptian call for Ethiopia's support. All in all, Ethi-
opia's supporters in 1935 were numerous and effective. They managed to organize,
establish a "Committee for the Defense of Ethiopia," and even sent three medical
units of the "Red Crescent" to help the Ethiopian war effort.
The Italian conquest of Ethiopia and the implementation of fascist imperialism
(1936-41) led to yet another moment of truth for Egypt's conceptualization of the

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30 Haggai Erlich

Ethiopian connection. This time it focused more on church relations, reflecting a

phase of Egypt's pluralist acceptance of the Copts and their Ethiopian dimension,
which was still valid.
Mussolini's fascist regime destroyed the Ethiopian empire and replaced it with
Italian East Africa, which Italy restructured by separating ethnic and religious com-
munities. The fascists promoted Islam at a revolutionary pace and tried to reshape
the church in order to detach it from Ethiopian imperial tradition. They also took
revenge on the clergy for their leading role in the resistance, massacring priests and
executing Bishop Petros, one of the first Ethiopian bishops, as mentioned earlier.
They took control of the church infrastructure but allowed it some of the administra-
tive and spiritual autonomy eroded by Haile Sellassie.24 In so doing, they found the
Egyptian Abuna Qerilos quite cooperative; he made no real protest against the mas-
sacres or executions. His cooperation ended, however, when the fascists decided, for
obvious strategic reasons, to break the Egyptian-Ethiopian connection. In early June
1937, the Italians sent Abuna Qerilos to Rome, but even a fifteen-minute meeting
with Mussolini could not persuade him to accept separation.25 He then returned to
Egypt on a pretext of illness while the Italians went on with their scheme. On 27
November 1937, Marshal R. Graziani instructed a body of seventy-two Ethiopian
ecclesiastics to appoint one of the Ethiopian bishops as the new Abuna Abraham,
who in turn appointed six more Ethiopian bishops. Upon his death in July 1939, his
Ethiopian successor, Abuna Yohannes, appointed five more Ethiopian bishops.26
The fact that the Italians tore the Ethiopian church from its Coptic connection was
a major issue on the Egyptian agenda. Public-opinion-makers from all quarters
agreed that the very identity of Egypt was offended. The issue of church separation
ran parallel to, and was occasionally combined with, that of the Nile waters. How-
ever, anxiety over fascist control of the Blue Nile was naturally far greater. Only
in April 1938 did an Anglo-Italian dialogue on the Nile produce an agreement to
maintain the status quo; as a result, the Egyptian public and government recognized
Italian East Africa. Voices in late 1938 calling on Egypt to refrain from so doing
prior to a resumption of the church connection faded quite quickly.
The reactions of the general public and the Copts in 1937-38 to the church sepa-
ration is central to this study, however, for they were almost unanimous. The general
public denounced the Italian action as a double offense against Egypt-first, as leader
in the East having special ties with Ethiopia, and second as being the national home
of the Copts. From the moment that Abuna Qerilos passed through Suez on his way
to see Mussolini in June 1937, until well after the appointment of Abuna Abraham,
hundreds of relevant articles, all in the same spirit, appeared in the Egyptian press.
Royalists, Wafdists, liberals, Muslims, and Arabists all wrote that Italy, in separat-
ing Ethiopia and Egypt, had humiliated the peoples of the East.27 The Committee for
the Defense of Ethiopia of 1935 was revived and issued a public statement "in the
name of all Egyptians: Muslims, Jews, Christians."28 Many writers argued that the
fascists not only had broken the Christian bond but also had tried to break the Islamic
connection between Egypt and Ethiopia. They reminded the public that an Azharite
educational mission sent in 1935 to help Haile Sellassie mobilize his Muslim sub-
jects was later expelled by the Italians. Liberals, who admitted that Ethiopia perhaps
deserved religious autonomy, stated that such emancipation should be negotiated by

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 Ethiopian-Egyptian Dialogue 31

Ethiopians and Egyptians, instead of being imposed by foreign occupiers.29 One of

Egypt's prominent journalists, the editor of the weekly al-Musawwar, Fikri Abaza,
wrote an open letter to Mussolini30 stating that severing church relations with Ethi-
opia undermined Egypt both culturally and spiritually. Moreover, it implied that
Mussolini was ready to block the Nile in Ethiopia. When the Egyptian minister to
Rome was asked by Mussolini's foreign minister why the general public in Egypt
was so troubled by a "Coptic matter," the former responded: "Since the days of Sacd
Zaghlul there was no longer any question of Copts and Moslems in Egypt; and that
the Abyssinian Church question was a national one for Egypt."31
By 1937, this declaration had become an empty slogan as various new and re-
newed definitions began to compete for the Egyptian soul. The Ethiopian cultural
dimension was no longer as important as it had been in 1935, and the general pub-
lic, once it was reassured regarding the Nile waters, lost interest in the church issue.
Not so the Copts. For them, the decline of the "pharaonism" of the 1920s and the
emergence, more forcefully after 1935, of Arabist and militant Islamicist trends
spelled trouble.32 The fall of "Christian Coptic" Ethiopia was another, well-combined,
weakening element. The rise of the Muslim Brothers, particularly after 1936, was to
be the Copts' major danger, and their leader Hasan al-Banna was swift indeed to
make the connection. When the Arab revolt began in Palestine in 1936, he blamed
the Copts for continuing their support of Ethiopia instead of the true cause of the
nation. The severing of their church relations with Ethiopia by the Italians must have
intensified the Copts' growing insecurity.
The policy of the Coptic church establishment was one of avoidance. Instead of
facing the Italians and denouncing their action to the greater Christian world, the
church excommunicated their Ethiopian collaborators. In 28 December 1937, a Holy
Synod decree declared the new Ethiopian abun, as well as his newly appointed Ethi-
opian bishops, illegitimate, and excommunicated all of their adherents.33 From that
moment until Ethiopia's liberation in 1941, the Egyptian church avoided rendering
any services to Ethiopians, even in exile.
The members of the Coptic intelligentsia proved more loyal, most of them taking
the lead in denouncing the fascists' move. They called for a prompt resumption of the
Ethiopian connection, and did so not in the name of their community but, rather, in
the name of Egyptianism. Indeed, the "pharaonic" pluralist nationalism of the 1920s,
though losing ground among the general public, was maintained during the 1930s
and later as the major orientation among educated Copts. In coping with the new dan-
gers of Islamic militancy and in trying to cement Egyptianism, however, various
leading Copts began to differ in emphasis. These differences influenced their 1937-
38 responses to the Ethiopian development.
The most prominent Coptic intellectual of the time was the philosopher and au-
thor Salama Musa. He was indeed the only Copt among the great "illuminaires"
prestigious enough to take the lead in spreading "pharaonism." During the 1930s,
Musa went on to emphasize that this Egyptianist combination of ancient roots and
multifaceted culture should enhance Westernization. He saw the Mediterranean and
Europe as the sphere for Egypt's future, and wavered between Western messages
of idealistic socialism and authoritarian nationalism. In this context, he even had
moments of admiration for Mussolini, until the Ethiopian Crisis of 1935; then he

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32 Haggai Erlich

admired Hitler until 1938-39. The Easternist orientation of Egypt's long history,
Musa argued, was based on anachronistic ethnicity and religiosity. He rejected Ara-
bism as stemming from the former and attached little importance to the Coptic-
Ethiopian religious bond. His response in 1937-38 to its rupture by the fascists was
mild, being more an expression of his disillusionment with imperialist Mussolini
than concern for the Ethiopian-Egyptian connection.34
The Copt who became more identified with this connection was Mirrit Butrus
Ghali, the leader of a group of young, modern-educated Copts who believed that
Egyptian identity should be seen as originating historically from its location at the
East-West juncture. In 1938, Mirrit published his major work "The Policy of Tomor-
row," calling for humanistic socialism at home and for the enhancement in foreign
relations of a strong Eastern orientation to balance European-Western culture and
aggression. In so doing, he echoed the writings of other Egyptian "Easternists" such
as Muhammad 'Abdallah 'Inan and Muhammad Lutfi Jum'a, but Mirrit, as a Copt,
laid a greater emphasis on the Eastern-Ethiopian dimension. He would spend his
lifetime as both an Ethiopianist scholar and a builder of better modern understand-
ing and cooperation between the two churches and societies. In July 1937, after
Abuna Qerilos was summoned to Mussolini, Mirrit suspected the Italians and feared
no one would deter them from separating the churches. He presented a report to the
British embassy accusing the Coptic church establishment of cowardice.35 He also
expressed the fear that many Copts, such as his uncle, Egyptian Foreign Minister
Wasif Butrus Ghali, would not be moved to action following Musa's approach. He
stated:

Ever since its foundation, some 1,500 years ago by Coptic monks, the Church of Abyssinia
has lived in close union with the Church of Egypt. This union is marked by a balanced sys-
tem of subordination and independence: the deep respect and reverence of the Abysinians for
the supreme head of their Church, the Coptic Patriarch, and for his representative, the Abuna
of Abyssinia, is combined with their unwillingness to accept other Coptic bishops or priests,
and their desire that the Abuna should become as thoroughly Abyssinian as possible, embrac-
ing their causes, and feeling as they do. An instance of that spirit expected in the Abuna is
the tradition that he must always stand by the side of the emperor in time of war.... The sep-
aration of the Church of Abyssinia from that of Egypt would be a step forward for the Italians
in the subjugation of Ethiopia.... Although Egyptians as a whole, Moslems and Christians
alike, have been somewhat more aware in the last years of the advantage in the relations be-
tween the Abyssinian Church and Egypt, it is equally to be feared that, from this side also,
matters might be allowed to slide.

In the following months as the Italian scheme materialized, the Egyptian public
was not all that indifferent. Yet no real action was taken, and possibly the only call
for retaliation was made by another leading Copt, Makram 'Ubayd. 'Ubayd, no
doubt, was the most prominent Coptic politician of the time, and his success as a
major leader in the Wafd Party reflected most vividly the integrative aspect of libera
Egyptianism. For that reason, he also came under frequent Islamist fire, a challenge
to which he responded by emphasizing the common Arab identity. Indeed, 'Ubayd's
formula of underlying the Arabist dimension of Egyptianism was a third option of
the Copts, and during the 1930s, quite a marginal one. Unlike the Christians of Syria
who had heralded the rise of modern Arab nationalism, most modern Copts, at least

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 Ethiopian-Egyptian Dialogue 33

during the pre-war period, had failed to see Arabism's secular legacy. They per-
ceived Arabism to be merely a new version of Islam, and feared all-regional unity to
be a plan to absorb their new shelter, Egypt, in an alien sea. Makram 'Ubayd was
perhaps the first Copt who ventured to perceive Arabism as a common denominator
and a safe haven in facing resurgent Islamic militancy. It is evident, in any case, that
Makram 'Ubayd never valued the Ethiopian connection for its own cultural merits,
nor was he particularly active in defending Haile Sellassie in 1935. Now, however,
in 1937-38, as acting foreign minister in the Wafdist government, he approached the
British on two occasions and asked permission to retaliate against the Italian com-
munity in Egypt.36 Nothing came of it, as the British, busy with the issue of the Nile
waters, did not approve. When an agreement on the Nile was reached, the Egyptian
government and public shelved the church matter.
These nuances in the response to the fascists' severing of the Ethiopian connec-
tion in 1937, were the precursors to future differences among Egyptians. It is suffi-
cient to conclude here that, from the Ethiopian point of view, the Coptic church's
policy was disappointing, but the reaction of the general Egyptian public and of the
Coptic intelligentsia was more than understandable. Returning in 1941 to a liberated
Ethiopia, Emperor Haile Sellassie would resume his nationalization efforts based on
the premise of such an Egyptianist picture.

ETHIOPIAN INTEREST IN AFFILIATION WITH EGYPT

In January 1941, as Haile Sellassie was preparing his return to Ethiopia from Khar-
toum, Abuna Qerilos, still in Cairo, wrote to the emperor suggesting that he would
join the campaign. The emperor sent an evasive reply, and upon crossing the border
made sure that the echage would march on his right. The echage, Gabra-Giyorgis,
was to remain in this position until the end of our story. From that moment he would
run all church affairs, appoint priests, and be treated ceremonially, by the Ethiopian
press as well, as though he were the titular head of the church. Ten years later, in
January 195 1, he would be consecrated as the first Ethiopian abun.
In attempting to rebuild his power base, Haile Sellassie would relentlessly pro-
mote the centralization of Ethiopia. During this decade, he did away with the power
of the old provincial elite, reconstructed a new and answerable bureaucracy, and saw
to the modernization of a new army and the resumption of the educational revolu-
tion, which was to create a capable, yet fully dependent, intelligentsia. During the
1940s and 1950s, the emperor supervised a truly multi-faceted revolution, revolving
paradoxically around his traditional autocracy. One traditional element of his for-
mula was the role of the church. Haile Sellassie needed to keep the church under his
complete control, and the loyal echage would see to it. He also wanted the church to
enhance a Christianity of the type consonant with Ethiopian identity for centuries, a
local traditional set of values and symbols that would facilitate his pious-nationalist
blend of modernization and continuity. Moreover, after the Italians promoted Islam
in both the center and periphery, Haile Sellassie considered the reinvigoration of
Christianity to be essential in coping with rising internal and regional challenges.
He needed Ethiopian bishops for the provinces and was completely willing to leave
those Ethiopian bishops consecrated by the Italian-appointed Abuna Abraham and

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34 Haggai Erlich

Abuna Yohannes in their posts. These bishops, as mentioned earlier, had been excom-
municated by the Egyptian Coptic Holy Synod in 1938.
Yet, as angry as he was with the Coptic church for its general inflexibility and for
its subsequent negligence during the occupation period, Haile Sellassie called Abuna
Qerilos back to Addis Ababa in May 1942. Abuna Qerilos arrived in June accompa-
nied by an Egyptian delegation; thus, church relations and Ethiopia's continuation
as a bishopric of the Coptic church were resumed.37
Haile Sellassie was perhaps too pious to aspire to a complete break with Alexan-
dria and too proud to accept such an inheritance from Mussolini. But there was much
more to re-establishing the connection with Egypt. During the 1940s and onward
most Ethiopians still regarded themselves as Orientals rather than as Africans, con-
nected by culture, religion, and history to the Middle East. Egypt remained central
and grew in its relevance and importance in various ways. The country remained
essential as a source of modernization, as Egyptian schoolmasters continued to help
rebuild the education system. In fact, one of Mirrit Butrus Ghali's young associates,
the Coptic intellectual Murad Kamil, arrived in Ethiopia in 1942 and stayed for two
years to oversee the educational reforms. By that time, Murad, like Mirrit, had ac-
quired a thorough knowledge of Ethiopia's languages and history, and in years to
come would be a leader in spreading the scholarly notion of the Ethiopian-Egyptian
connection in Egypt.
In re-establishing ties with the Coptic church, Haile Sellassie no doubt meant to
rebuild relations with Egyptian nationalism of the kind he had witnessed in 1924,
and which seemed to prevail-in our context at least-during 1937-38. Despite the
Coptic church's inflexibility, Haile Sellassie could apparently rely on both the Coptic
intelligentsia's and the Egyptian government's interest in mutual understanding. The
latter, as well as much of the general public, still viewed Ethiopia in modern Egyp-
tianist terms and in the context of "Nile Valley unity." These were, for the most part,
friendly concepts, and Ethiopia had little to fear from Egyptianist regional ambitions
at that time. Indeed, during in the 1940s Ethiopia seemed to hold most of the cards,
as was demonstrated by the now renewed Eritrea issue. Egypt claimed this former
Italian colony, the Red Sea corridor to Sudan, in 1945-46, doing so by turning to the
United Nations and resorting to Ottoman-Egyptian legal precedents. Ethiopian dip-
lomats, hinting at their control of the Blue Nile, successfully disputed the Egyptian
claims,38 which led to the re-annexation of Eritrea to Ethiopia as an autonomy in
1952, following the British evacuation. For all intents and purposes, the dialogue be-
tween modern Ethiopianism and modern, parliamentarian, liberal Egyptianism was
at least workable, and Haile Sellassie strove to reshape church relations accordingly.
When the Egyptian delegation to Addis Ababa returned home in June 1942, it brought
the emperor's conditions for restoring the bond. These Ethiopian conditions were es-
sentially similar to those presented in 1924, and they were not to change prior to the
demise of the Egyptian parliamentarian regime. They were: 1) the appointment by
the Coptic patriarch of an Ethiopian abun to enter office officially after the death of
the last Egyptian Abuna Qerilos; 2) authorization for the abun to appoint Ethiopian
bishops; 3) the formation of an Ethiopian Holy Synod of bishops; 4) the participation
of Ethiopian bishops in the election process of the Coptic patriarch of Alexandria;
and 5) recognition by Alexandria of the Ethiopian bishops appointed during the fas-

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 Ethiopian-Egyptian Dialogue 35

cist occupation and the annulment of their excommunication. In short, the Ethiopi-
ans wanted to remain affiliated with the Egyptian church, and they recognized the
supreme authority of the patriarch, both spiritually and institutionally. They even
wanted to strengthen this connection by participating themselves in the patriarch's
elections. Other than that, they insisted on independence in all nationally related
matters.39

EGYPTIAN PUBLIC AND CHURCH - THE COMPROMISE

Until the end of World War II, the Egyptian government and public were not very
involved in the negotiations. These were conducted between the Ethiopians and the
Coptic church establishment and produced no results. The Ethiopians, for their part,
launched a tough campaign. They kept Abuna Qerilos in Addis Ababa in humiliat-
ing physical conditions, barely allowing him to perform the minimal ceremonial du-
ties. The Coptic church, for its part, went on resisting change. In late June 1942, the
Holy Synod rejected all of the Ethiopian demands except one: the Synod agreed to
abolish the 1938 excommunication of Ethiopians appointed by Abuna Abraham, but
only if all these Ethiopian bishops were relegated to their previous positions.40 On
9 February 1945, the Synod officially rejected the idea of an Ethiopian abun and
his right to consecrate bishops. The Synod would only agree in principle that, in the
future, Ethiopians would be allowed to participate in the election of the patriarch, but
this was not enough to reassure the Ethiopians.
Following the Holy Synod's rejection, a well-orchestrated Ethiopian campaign be-
gan against the Coptic church that would not cease until the resolution of these ques-
tions. During the later half of the 1940s, the emperor convened various religious
conferences in Addis Ababa and published their deliberations in the Ethiopian press.
These included long speeches and occasionally full-page headlines and articles about
the historical damage inflicted on Ethiopia for centuries due to the unjust depen-
dence.41 Both young intellectuals and churchmen described the Egyptian abuns as
ignorant of Ethiopia, loyal to the interests of a foreign country, and too accustomed
to living under Islamic rule to give Ethiopia the proper leadership in its Christian
efforts against Islam. The fact that the abuns could not consecrate bishops, it was
argued, kept the Ethiopian church weak and stagnant. This was a major reason for
the church's failure to change, modernize, and provide proper education and ser-
vices. No less forceful were the new arguments about the very legitimacy of the de-
pendence. The 4th-century Ethiopian King Azana, it was argued, was already a
Christian before he selected and sent his Syrian priest Frumentius to establish the
Egyptian connection. The Ethiopian kings, it followed, should have selected the
abuns; the first one, in any case, was not an Egyptian at all. The tradition of an Egyp-
tian abun, they reiterated, was based on a Coptic forgery, not on decisions attributed
retrospectively to the Nicea Synod. It made no sense for some one million Copts
in Egypt, who enjoyed no political sovereignty, to have sixteen archbishops, while
16 million Christian Ethiopians under a Christian emperor should have none. Ethio-
pian anger peaked during a conference held on 26 November 1945, resulting in a
resolution to cease negotiations, sever all relations, and begin considering the elec-
tion of an Ethiopian archbishop to act as abun.42

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36 Haggai Erlich

Following the end of World War II, the Egyptian government entered the picture.
Though it had significant strategic differences with Ethiopia, particularly the dispute
over Eritrea, it was all for advancing a constructive diplomatic dialogue. Supported
by public opinion, as expressed occasionally in the press, the government favored
appeasing Ethiopia, at least in Christian church matters. This was also the line pur-
sued by many Coptic intellectuals led by Murad Kamil and Mirrit Butrus Ghali, who
also ensured that some of the Ethiopian complaints were recycled in the Egyptian
press. For example, Murad Kamil published a series of articles (November 1945-
February 1946) in Al-Kdtib al-Misri, the prestigious journal of Egyptian intellectuals
(edited by Taha Husayn), summarizing his two years' work in Ethiopia. In one piece
explaining, and identifying with, the Ethiopian stand on the abun issue, he translated
verses by the Ethiopian poet Kidane Walda-Kifle:

The Copts are happy, what do they have to worry about?

They do not do anything, but their glory is just words.
In our country [they enjoy] big titles for [their] bishops.
But in their country they are not free like other religious people.
We [also?] cannot talk openly of freedom and liberty
For the Syrians and the Armenians elect patriarchs for themselves
While they do not have a king [as we have].
Nowhere in the world is there another race but the Ethiopians,
Who do not elect [even] a bishop from their own.43

This coalition of pro-Ethiopian factors was spearheaded by a wing in the church

establishment led by Archbishop Yusab. When Patriarch Makarios died in Septem-
ber 1945, Yusab's candidacy was strongly supported by Haile Sellassie. Although
the Ethiopians had no official say in the elections, they sent a strong delegation to
Cairo in the spring of 1946, headed by the echage and government ministers. Under
the auspices of the Coptic Community Council (and probably with the help of the
government), they threw their weight on the side of Yusab's camp, and on 10 May
1946 he was elected as the next patriarch of Alexandria.
There was, of course, a very strong conservative camp in the church establish-
ment and the Holy Synod, aided by dignitaries and intellectuals and allegedly led
by the secretary of the Community Council, Dr. Ibrahim al-Minyawi.44 They were
also enthusiastically supported by Abuna Qerilos, who on 11 May 1945 returned
once more to Egypt and began an intensive defense of the traditional institution of
the Egyptian abun. The Ethiopian connection and bishopric, he argued, was a pillar
of the Egyptian Coptic church, a spiritual as well as a political asset. These conser-
vatives had their day in February 1945, but a year later, when the issue became a
more public matter, they began to lose ground. On 31 January 1946, the Holy Synod
finally made its first revolutionary change. Having hosted an Ethiopian delegation, it
decided that in principle an Ethiopian would replace Abuna Qerilos upon his death.
The Synod rejected the request that the abun be authorized to consecrate bishops,
and that an Ethiopian Holy Synod be established. It also reiterated the Egyptian
demand that the Ethiopian bishops, because of their nomination during the fascist
occupation, be demoted in rank.
Under the authoritative orchestration of Haile Sellassie, the Ethiopians refused to
compromise. During early February 1946, Egyptian Prime Minister Fahmi al-Nuqrashi

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 Ethiopian-Egyptian Dialogue 37

(who had served as Egyptian consul in Ethiopia) found time to intervene in the ne-
gotiations, though they came at the height of the Anglo-Egyptian crisis, as well as
during bloody student riots. On the very eve of his resignation he helped reach a new
decision, according to which Abuna Qerilos would not return to Ethiopia, and an
Ethiopian replacement would be authorized to function immediately as Ethiopia's
acting head of church, to be appointed abun after the death of Qerilos. In addition, the
authority to appoint bishops would be reconsidered shortly.45
The Ethiopians refused to compromise.46 As noted earlier, they had sent a delega-
tion that was actually involved in the May 1946 election of the new patriarch, Yusab
II. The patriarch, their firm supporter, immediately formed a committee that met
with the new Ethiopian ministerial delegation and recommended consecrating five
additional Ethiopian bishops in Egypt, but only on the condition that they agree, in
writing, never to elect an Ethiopian abun. Five Ethiopian monks were sent to Cairo
in June, and a fierce argument broke out over the demanded signature. Egyptian Prime
Minister Ismacil Sidqi, who was apparently much more interested in the culminating
Ethiopian-Egyptian diplomatic dispute over Eritrea, was ready to compromise.47 He
intervened twice, hosting the Ethiopian delegation in a government meeting, to no
avail. In July 1946, the emperor ordered the return of the monks and the intensifica-
tion of a public-opinion campaign against the Coptic church (including denounce-
ment of Abuna Qerilos as a collaborator with the Italians during the occupation).48
Again, some of the Ethiopian arguments were recycled by their Egyptian supporters
in the Egyptian press. The Coptic conservatives were blamed for stubbornly keeping
the Ethiopians undeveloped and of dismissing the general Egyptian interest. During
the next two years, other delegations shuttled between the two capitals. On 24 July
1947, Patriarch Yusab managed to pass a new resolution in the Holy Synod to the
effect that the five Ethiopian monks would be consecrated as archbishops and would
themselves be authorized to appoint bishops, all in exchange for a written commit-
ment.49 Again the emperor rejected the idea, and a new wave of controversy swept the
Coptic community. Finally, on 25 July 1948, Yusab II consecrated the five Ethiopians;
one of them, echage Gabra-Giyorgis, was renamed Abuna Baselyos. Abuna Qerilos
died in Cairo in October 1950, and on 14 January 1951, during a most friendly cere-
mony, Yusab II consecrated Baselyos in Cairo as the first Ethiopian abun.0
For Haile Sellassie's Ethiopia, this was a major achievement. The emperor could
now continue promoting his blend of traditionalism and modernization with a revi-
talized, nationalized church under his complete control. The church went on to lose
its autonomous role in education and justice, but was strengthened as a political and
a cultural branch of the imperial regime. Together with its new bishops, it served the
emperor's drive to spread an Amharic-Christian ethos of national unity during the
1950s and 1960s. Of particular significance was the role of the church and its new
bishops in undermining Eritrea's autonomy during the 1950s and in winning the
province's Christian elite over to the cause of Ethiopian centralization.
The resolution of the abun issue can also be considered an achievement for mod-
ern Egyptian nationalism. The Egyptian church was to remain the spiritual mother
of the Ethiopian religious establishment, and Ethiopian abuns were to continue to be
appointed and consecrated by an Egyptian patriarch. Moreover, as Ethiopians were
to be involved in the election processes of future patriarchs, the bond of spiritual,
religious affiliation even seemed to be strengthened. The new arrangement, made

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38 Haggai Erlich

possible by the involvement of the Egyptian government and public, added a very
positive dimension to relations of the utmost nationalist importance. Still focused
on the Nile as the source of the country's life and identity, the modern Egyptianist
public attached growing importance to the Ethiopian connection. Indeed, during
the period beginning with the 1948 arrangement and until the mid-1950s, Ethiopian-
Egyptian relations were those of mutual cooperation and understanding.

PAN-ARABISM, ETHIOPIANISM, COPTS, 1955-59

The 1948 compromise on the nature of the church connection reflected a workable
accommodation between modern Ethiopianism and Egyptianism. The traditional
Christian-Ethiopian identity had been organically linked to the Middle East-to
Egypt and Jerusalem-and the new formula was designed to transform yet retain
that linkage. Modern Egyptianism, a rather pluralistic concept of both the region
and Egyptian society, proved ready to redefine this connection. Basing Egypt's iden-
tity on the Nile Valley and perceiving their fellow Copts to be equal partners, the
leaders of territorial-parliamentarian Egyptianism cherished the special ties with
Ethiopia. But the new accommodation did not last long. This time the major change
occurred in Egypt. The revolutionary regime, which came to power in July 1952,
gradually initiated fundamental transformations, a general analysis of which is be-
yond the scope of this article. By 1959, the year of the final break in church rela-
tions, the Nasserist regime had already been at work to change the very definition
of the country's identity. It strove to emphasize its Arab dimension at the expense
of territorial Egyptian aspects, and the leadership of the new United Arab Repub-
lic (established in 1958) did its best to marginalize the historical notion of Egypt's
uniqueness. A survey of the Egyptian press of the late 1950s reveals a collective
exercise in enforced amnesia. Haile Sellassie's visit of 1959, in all its various as-
pects discussed earlier, yielded hundreds of newspaper articles and other publica-
tions, all dealing inescapably with historical backgrounds, centuries long, resorting
mostly to Arab definitions and often avoiding the very word "Egypt."
This comprehensive Nasserist effort at redefinition had put forward a different set
of concepts and attitudes as regards Ethiopia. It also created an entirely new envi-
ronment for the Copts. Their fears that Arabism, like political Islam, would deprive
them of their place in modern society, won through their embracing of Egyptianism,
had grown during the 1940s. Most historians agree the Nasserist regime ended the
Coptic "golden age." The regime, with its policy of destroying the parliamentarian
period's legacy applicable to the society as a whole, worked to end the institutional-
ized autonomy of the Copts. One landmark action, Nasser's abolition of the com-
munity's religious courts on 21 September 1955, was taken simultaneously with the
regime's growing intervention in the Copts' deepening internal crisis.51 The crisis
revolved around Patriarch Yusab II and dragged the Ethiopian church connection
back into the center of Ethiopian-Egyptian relations.
Nasser's departure from Egyptianism also meant rearranging strategic priorities.
The Nile Valley ceased to be the main national theater, and Egypt's long-desired
unity with Sudan was shelved. The building of the High Dam in Aswan seemed to
create the notion that Lake Nasser, controlled by Egypt, and not the Ethiopian Lake

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 Ethiopian-Egyptian Dialogue 39

Tana and Blue Nile, had become the main source of the Nile. In retrospect, we can
say that century-old Egyptian territorial ambitions in Eritrea and on the Red Sea's
western coast were also abandoned. In 1959, a few months after the breaking of
the church connection, Nasser signed a water agreement with the Sudanese, bluntly
ignoring Ethiopia, as if declaring it irrelevant in this context, too. Instead, he was
fully ready to recognize Haile Sellassie as a main factor in the continental "African
Circle," and went out of his way to appease him as an all-African figure. Indeed, the
emperor's 1959 visit to Cairo was the result of three years of embarrassing court-
ship by Nasser.52 Haile Sellassie finally agreed to pay the visit, but not before he had
secured Nasser's agreement to give up the Copts' last Ethiopian card, resulting in the
appointment of Abuna Baselyos as a head of an autocephalous Ethiopian church.
Despite Nasser's courtship of Haile Sellassie, relations between Ethiopia and Egypt
(the UAR) began to deteriorate in the mid-1950s. The Egyptian decision to build the
High Dam of Aswan, coordinated only with Sudan, was seen in Ethiopia as a unilat-
eral act aimed at ignoring the country's rights as the main source of the river. Beyond
this and other issues, there was a growing atmosphere of mutual suspicion stemming
primarily from Cairo's adoption of revolutionary Arab concepts and methods. These
replaced the old Egyptianist concepts as Nasser based his Horn of African policy on
local ethnic subversion instead of on the old means of international diplomacy. The
new Arab policy was to support Somali and Eritrean Muslims in their self-definition
as Arabs. Cairo preached unifying Arab revolutionarism, not only in the immediate
periphery of Ethiopia, but threatened to spread its influence among Ethiopia's own
Muslims, then numbering nearly half the population. This threat-to politicize and
unify Ethiopia's various Muslim communities through Arabization-was, as men-
tioned, the old nightmare of Ethiopia's ruling Christians. Moreover, Nasserist policy,
advanced by radio broadcasts and on-the-spot agents, was to depict Ethiopia as a re-
actionary monarchy that was inescapably doomed. In spreading an image of Ethiopia's
backwardness, Nasserist propaganda occasionally resorted to old radical Islamic anti-
Ethiopian concepts couched in modem Arab terminology. Haile Sellassie's reaction was
to further centralize his modern-traditional autocracy, establish Amharic-Christian
hegemony more firmly, and find shelter in the new principles and frameworks of
African diplomacy.53 Upon his arrival in Cairo in 1959, he himself was ready to play
Nasser's double game: to embrace him in public, and in essence to seal the final
separation.
The first stages of the 1955-59 Ethiopian-Egyptian church developments stemmed
from the internal Egyptian crisis of the Nasserist-Coptic collision. The Coptic com-
munity was undoubtedly ill prepared to cope with the challenge of the new regime;
the crises of the 1940s were among the reasons for their internal disunity. They had
missed their opportunity to regroup as the new regime, and the Muslim Brothers
fought each other during 1952-54. Patriarch Yusab II failed to provide proper lead-
ership and was himself accused of corruption. His closest personal aide, Malik Jurjus,
was said to have systematically arranged church nominations in return for bribes. A
militant group of young radicals, called the "Coptic Nation," formed to counter rad-
ical Islam, kidnapped the patriarch on 25 July 1954. The group itself was dispersed
by the police, but Yusab, apparently failing to better his image, was finally forced by
the Holy Synod to abdicate on 20 September 1955 and take refuge in a monastery in

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40 Haggai Erlich

upper Egypt. A body of three archbishops was established by the Community Council
to head the church until his death.
At this moment of intense crisis the Ethiopians re-entered the picture. Patriarch
Yusab had been a close ally of Haile Sellassie, and in any case, the Ethiopian estab-
lishment was no longer willing to accept the issue of the patriarch solely as an in-
ternal Egyptian matter. Following a wave of protests in the press, the new Ethiopian
Holy Synod of bishops issued an announcement on 3 October 1955 that the Ethiopi-
ans still recognized Yusab as the patriarch. A patriarch could not be legally forced
to resign, they said. Ethiopian emissaries, churchmen, and state officials were sent
to Egypt to intervene. They led the way in regrouping the pro-Yusab camp within
the Coptic church establishment, a camp that was opposed by a coalition of most of
the Community Council and other members of the clergy. As the dispute heated
up, Yusab's opponents argued that the Ethiopians were working behind the deposed
patriarch to inherit the patriarchate themselves later. The escalating crisis culminated
in the summer of 1956. On 19-20 June 1956, a joint Holy Synod of Egyptians and
Ethiopians met in Yusab's monastery and agreed that if the patriarch fired his cor-
rupt aide, the Synod would allow him to return to his position in the patriarchal pal-
ace in Cairo. But when Yusab returned to the capital three days later, government
troops prevented his entry to the palace. The government announced that the com-
mon Holy Synod was invalid, and the Ethiopian bishops returned home. Patriarch
Yusab II died on 14 November 1956, at the height of the Suez War. Nasser, who
emerged victorious from the Suez crisis, was about to accelerate the general trans-
formations he envisioned for his country, including the further weakening of Coptic
institutions. He would ensure that no new Coptic patriarch was elected during the
next two and a half years.
A locum tenens was appointed to oversee the election process of a new patriarch,
but his election committee soon became the focus of the community's deepening cri-
sis. One major issue, though not the only one, was Ethiopia's demand for an equal
number of voting delegates. A new demand, aired for the most part verbally, was that
Ethiopians be among the candidates. In November 1957, the Ethiopians, embittered
by Nasser's new Nile-Aswan policy, threatened to boycott the process and secede
altogether. Meanwhile, the Cairo government, intensifying its socio-political and
cultural centralization, obtained control over the election process through new regu-
lations. It allowed the process to resume only upon completion of the changes in Jan-
uary 1958.
The last effort to bridge the gap was made in May-July 1958. A four-member
Ethiopian delegation, headed by Dajazmach Asrate Kassa, arrived in Cairo and held
fourteen meetings with the election committee, finally reaching an agreement on
21 July. Each side would have eighteen voting delegates, and the next Coptic patri-
arch would be an Egyptian. But this compromise was soon rejected by both sides.
The Coptic public was horrified by what was now perceived as an Ethiopian threat
to conquer the patriarchate by sheer numbers and political backing, with the possible
transfer of the See of Saint Mark to Addis Ababa. In this situation, most Copts,
members of the clergy, the intelligentsia, and others naturally tended to rely on their
own government, resulting in their growing dependence on the Nasserist regime.
The Ethiopians, for their part, were already determined to break off relations. We
must recall that 1958 was a year of sweeping victories for Arabism and anti-mon-

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 Ethiopian-Egyptian Dialogue 41

archism in the Middle East, with all its implications for the Horn of Africa, Eritrea,
Somalia, and Nasser's Nile policy. Haile Sellassie, it was reported, was already wor-
ried by how dependent the Coptic church had become under Nasser's control and
how he had begun to use it to advance his regional strategic purposes. He believed
that most of the Egyptian schoolmasters and monks arriving in Ethiopia were no
longer religious functionaries but Nasserist agents. During the same year, the em-
peror inaugurated a new theological college in his capital in which more Egyptians
were expected to teach. The Ethiopian church establishment was reportedly eager to
launch its own foreign enterprises, such as opening branches in other newly liberated
African states and rebuilding relations with other Orthodox churches in the Middle
East. In short, by 1958 the nature and policy of the new UAR regime in Cairo had
convinced Haile Sellassie that it was time for Ethiopia to have its own patriarch.
The appointment of Dajazmach Asrate Kassa to lead the talks in Cairo was a step
in this direction. The Ethiopian court was already witness to a long-standing argu-
ment among the emperor's close advisers regarding Ethiopia's Middle Eastern strat-
egy. Asrate, a prominent member of the nobility, was well on his way to becoming the
closest of Haile Sellassie's inner circle of advisers, perhaps the most influential in
shaping his domestic and foreign policies during the 1960s. Promoted to ras, he would
later become the governor of Eritrea (1964-70), president of the Senate, and leader
of the stronger clique competing for the responsibility to crown Haile Sellassie's fu-
ture successor. Though he had good ties with Egypt, Asrate was the chief Ethiopian
architect of the Israeli connection beginning in the mid-1950s. From 1959 on-
ward, he worked to build an Ethiopian-Israeli alliance that was meant to stem what
he perceived as a growing Arab threat to Ethiopia's state and culture. His trip to
Cairo in May 1958 at Haile Sellassie's initiative was to prepare for separation from
Egypt. Asrate's reports to Addis Ababa were clear: the Coptic church had become a
branch of the Nasserist government. The compromise he seemed to be about to reach
with the Coptic church establishment (in July 1958) was mutually undesirable.
On 25 December 1958, the locum tenens wrote to Haile Sellassie, but failed to in-
vite Ethiopian delegates. The emperor took his time and responded in February 1959.
He stated that if the July 1958 agreement was not honored, Ethiopia would take no
part in the elections and would secede. Following Nasser's instructions, no further in-
vitation was sent to Addis Ababa, and on 18-20 April 1959, the elections took place.
The new patriarch-elect hastened to invite the emperor to the consecration cere-
mony, but no Ethiopian official or churchman was present on 10 May 1959. Patriarch
Kyrillos VI, a strong-minded person of reputed integrity, immediately declared that
he considered the resolution of the Ethiopian crisis to be a top priority. In early
June, he sent a delegation to Addis Ababa whose members spared no effort, through
official meetings and radio interviews, to try to save whatever possible of the ancient
connection. They even went as far as to imply that Egypt had erred in the past.54
When Dajazmach Asrate Kassa left for Cairo on 11 June heading an Ethiopian team
to prepare for Haile Sellassie's scheduled visit, an agreement had already been
reached: Ethiopia would have its own patriarch, while some form of affiliation and
spiritual superiority of the Egyptian patriarch would be maintained.55
There were only two relevant issues left to resolve. As the Ethiopians had ac-
cepted the custom that the Egyptian patriarch would continue to consecrate his Ethi-
opian counterpart, and that his name would continue to be mentioned in Ethiopian

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42 Haggai Erlich

prayers, it was agreed to distinguish between titles. The Ethiopian patriarch, it was
decided, would be called "patriarch gathlik"-namely, Catholicus (like the Arme-
nian patriarch).56 The Egyptian would retain the title of patriarch and pope. The
other issue was the new Ethiopian patriarch's right to ordain bishops outside Ethio-
pia. The idea was fiercely resisted by the Egyptian Copts. Only a last-minute order
from Nasser to agree to Haile Sellassie's demand paved the way for the imperial visit
in late June 1959 and the consecration of the Ethiopian abun as a metropolitan and
head of an autocephalous church.

CONCLUSION

On 3 July 1959, the Egyptian weekly al-Musawwar devoted much of its issue to the
meeting between Nasser and Haile Sellassie. The editor, Fikri Abaza, perhaps one
of the most prominent journalists of 20th-century Egypt, wrote a very emotional ed-
itorial entitled "The World Meets in Cairo." In 1937, Fikri Abaza, still a guardian of
Egyptian pluralism, had declared that breaking the historic church bond between
Egypt and Ethiopia meant undermining Egypt both spiritually and culturally. In
1959, however, he said nothing of the kind. He professed to have admired Haile
Sellassie for decades as the greatest leader of anti-colonialism, and depicted his
meeting with the young leader of revolutionary Arabism as an event of global sym-
bolism. He dismissed the church issue in a few lines, praising the act of separation
as though it was a cordial agreement between two freedom fighters to remove a
minor obstacle.
From the general perspective of Egyptian history, the fact that the Copts had
maintained an enduring connection with the Ethiopians for sixteen centuries was not
a meaningless issue. It had occasionally served Egyptian rulers as a useful card in
their relations with Ethiopia, the Christian kingdom situated on the main source of the
Nile. For Nasser and his new revolutionary Arab concepts, however, this religious
card was of secondary importance. It was sacrificed for the sake of other regional in-
terests and to undermine further the institutions of the Coptic community at home. In
any case, following the 1959 separation, church-related issues continued to resurface
on the Ethiopian-Egyptian agenda, but very seldom at the top. In 1969, the Israelis,
having conquered East Jerusalem, handed the keys of Deir al-Sultan to the Ethiopi-
ans. In 1970, the Ethiopians abolished the last remnant of Ethiopian-Egyptian af-
filiation, the consecration ceremony of their patriarch by the Coptic patriarch. In
1994-98 the Coptic church of Egypt retaliated by enabling the Eritrean bishopric to
secede from the Ethiopian church (in May 1998, much to the anger of the Ethiopians,
Abba Shenouda III, the Egyptian patriarch, finally consecrated Abuna Filpos as the
patriarch of the now autocephalos Eritrean Orthodox church).57 In the general context
of Ethiopian-Egyptian relations, however, such religious matters became marginal.
They remained so even after the demise of Nasserist Arabism and the re-emergence
of Egyptianism under Sadat and Mubarak.
More important to us is the Coptic dimension. For the Christian community of
Egypt, the Ethiopian connection was a very significant asset. Pre-modern Islamic
rulers and the Egyptian elite were obliged to take this connection into account when
shaping their attitudes toward the Copts. With the 19th-century emergence of the

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 Ethiopian-Egyptian Dialogue 43

modem Egyptian state, and later of the modern Egyptian identity, the Coptic Ethio-
pian connection grew in importance. It played a very significant role in the process
of Coptic integration in the new modern Egyptian fabric. Coptic intellectuals were
worried about the imbalance in this traditional connection, and contributed to its
reshaping during the 1940s. However, the various parts of the Coptic community
failed to unite in the newly created dynamics and paid the price for disunity under
Nasser. The new Arab ideology and regime, which had worked to undermine much
of the Copts' communal spirit and structure, happily cut its Ethiopian connection. The
implications of the 1959 break in later Coptic history are beyond the scope of this
article. We will add only that while some Coptic intellectuals placed much of the
blame on the Ethiopian manipulation of Coptic affairs,58 the more prominent among
them continued to cultivate the legacy of the historic connection. Scholars and pol-
iticians such as Murad Kamil, Zahir Riyad,59 and, notably, Butrous Butrous Ghali
promoted the idea of the historical religious-cultural affiliation in their call for a
better Ethiopian-Egyptian dialogue over current affairs. In so doing, they also recy-
cled the 1930s philosophies of Mirrit Butrus Ghali and Makram 'Ubayd, who, each
in his own way, viewed the Ethiopian connection as a reflection of the Coptic place
in Egyptian society.
From the Ethiopian perspective, the 1959 separation seems to have closed an an-
cient chapter for good. Though most Christian Ethiopians could tolerate-indeed,
even preferred-the idea of some symbolic religious dependence on Egypt in the
1940s, they surely could not do so with the United Arab Republic. Complete inde-
pendence of a national church was needed to serve the policy of cultural unification,
pursued even more forcefully by the emperor during the 1960s. By emancipating the
church, Haile Sellassie gave fresh momentum to the centralizing Amharic-Christian
ethos. This interpretation of Ethiopian identity culminated in the 1960s, the decade
that witnessed the complete re-annexation of Eritrea under the centralized imperial
government, as well as the revolutionary promotion of state centralism in all its
dimensions: bureaucracy, education, and language. The revitalized Ethiopian church
was no doubt a main pillar of Haile Sellassie's traditional-modernized autocracy.

NOTES

Author's note: The research for this article was funded by the Israel Science Foundation, administered
by the Israeli Academy of Science and Humanities, as well as by the United States Institute of Peace,
Washington, D.C. I wish to thank the staff members of both bodies for their generosity and help.
'On the cultural and hydro-political medieval and modern Egyptian-Ethiopian history concerning the
Nile, see Haggai Erlich and Israel Gershoni, eds., The Nile-Histories, Cultures, Myths (Boulder, Colo.,
1999). For the 1950s, see mainly the articles by Robert Collins, Yoram Meital, Bairu Tafla, and Gabriel
Warburg.
2For general background, see Haggai Erlich, Ethiopia and the Middle East (Boulder, Colo., 1994),
chaps. 10-13.
3See texts of speeches and Nasser's own introduction to the book: 'Abd al-Rahman al-Huss, Ithyubya
fi 'ahd Hayla Silasi al-awwal (Beirut, 1960).
4See texts in BBC/SWB/ME, Radio Cairo, 28 June 1959.
5The analysis of Ethiopian Christian concepts of Middle Eastern Islam, and Muslims' various concep
of Ethiopia as developing from the days of Prophet Muhammad to the 1980s, is the main theme of Erlich,
Ethiopia and the Middle East.

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44 Haggai Erlich

6Literature on the Ethiopian church and its Egyptian connection is too vast to be presented here. For
introductions, see E. Ullendorff, The Ethiopians (Oxford, 1960), chap. 5; S. Pankhurst, Ethiopia, A Cul-
tural History (London, 1955), chap. 6; M. Perham, The Government of Ethiopia (Evanston, Ill., 1969),
chap. 7; 0. Meinardus, Christian Egypt Faith and Life (Cairo, 1970), esp. 369-98; Abba Ayele Teklahay-
manot, "The Egyptian Metropolitans of the Ethiopian Church," a paper presented to the 8th International
Conference on Ethiopian Studies, 1984, kept at the Institute of Ethiopian Studies, Addis Ababa University.
See also Ramzi Tadrus, Kitab hadir al-habasha (Cairo, n.d.), chap. 11; Sacid 'Ashur, "Misr wal-habasha
fi al-'usur al-wusta," Al-Majalla al-ta'rikhiyya al-misriyya (1968), 1-43; Qasim 'Abduh Qasim, "Misr wal-
habasha fi 'asr salatin al-mamalik'" in al-'Arabfi Ifriqya, ed. Abbas Hamid (Cairo, 1986), 57-84; Shawqi
'Atallah al-Jamal, Dawr misrfi ifriqya (Cairo, n.d.), 54-69.
70n Deir al-Sultan, see Kirsten Pedersen, The History of the Ethiopian Community in the Holy Land
(Jerusalem, 1983); Antuni Suriyal 'Abd al-Sayyid, Dir al-sultan bi'l-quds (Cairo, 1991).
8For detailed analysis of the Ethiopian church in medieval times, as well as its relations with Egypt,
see Taddesse Tamrat, Church and State in Ethiopia 1270-1527 (Oxford, 1972), mainly 47-50, 107-8,
117-18, 218-19.
9Nu'aym Ibn Hamad, Kitab al-fitan (Beirut, 1993), 403-6.
10For analytical summaries, see B. L. Carter, The Copts in Egyptian Politics (London, 1986),
Pennington, "The Copts in Modern Egypt," Middle Eastern Studies 8, 2 (1982): 158-79; Thomas Philipp,
"Copts and Other Minorities in the Development of the Egyptian Nation-State," in Egypt from Monarchy
to Republic, ed. S. Shamir (Boulder, Colo., 1995), 131-50.
"tFor a detailed analysis, see D. Crummey, Priests and Politicians-Protestant and Catholic Mis
in Orthodox Ethiopia 1830-1868 (Oxford, 1972).
120n Yohannes and Khedive Ismacil and Ethiopian-Egyptian relations during their periods, s
Gabre-Sellassie, Yohannes IV of Ethiopia (Oxford, 1975); Takla-Tsadiq Makuriya, Atse Yohannesna yaity-
opiya andnat (Emperor Yohannes and Ethiopian Unity, Amharic) (Addis Ababa, 1989); Haggai Erlich,
Ras Alula and the Scramble for Africa (New Jersey and Asmara, 1996).
13The following passage is based on Haggai Erlich, "Ethiopia and Egypt, Ras Tafari in Cairo, 1924,"
Aethiopica (Hamburg, 1998): 64-84.
14For details and references, see the chapter on "Menelik II and Abd al-Hamid II," in Erlich, Et
and the Middle East, 72-82.
15See al-Kashkul, 27 August 1926.
16See Harold Marcus, Haile Sellassie I, the Formative Years, 1892-1936 (Berkeley, Calif., 1987),
chap. 5.
17See Berhanena Salam, 22 April, 13 May, 29 July 1926.
18Ibid., 26 August 1926; 27 January, 5 February, 21 April 1927. See also Adunga Amanu, "The Ethi-
opian Orthodox Church Becomes Autocephalous" (B.A. paper, Haile Sellassie University, 1969), kept at
the Institute of Ethiopian Studies, Addis Ababa University.
19See the long opening article "On the Appointment of one Egyptian Abun and Five Ethiopian Bish-
ops," in Berhanena Salam, 15 June 1929.
20See the description in Berhanena Salam, 23 January 1930.
21See "The 'Great Bible' of Ethiopia," PRO FO 371/22024.
22Heruy's history of the church and its medieval relations with the Copts, published in Addis Ababa
in 1921, is entitled Wazema (Amharic, Vigil, The Day and Night Before Church Festivities). See also
Adunga Amanu, "The Ethiopian Orthodox Church."
23See Heruy Walda-Sellassie, Yale'lat wayzaro Manan mangad ba'irusalemna bamisr (The trip of Prin-
cess Manan in Jerusalem and Egypt) (Addis Ababa, 1923); Dastana kibir (Happiness and Honor) (Addis
Ababa, 1924); Ba'adame masinbat hulun lamayet (Witnessing It All by Myself) (Addis Ababa, 1934).
24For the fascist occupation and regime, see Alberto Sbacchi, Legacy of Bitterness, Ethiopia and Fas-
cist Italy, 1935-1941 (New Jersey and Asmara, 1997); and E Matthew, "The Church of Ethiopia During
the Italian Occupation," PRO FO 371/41498 (27 October 1943).
25The Italians carefully followed all issues related to Ethiopian-Egyptian relations at that time. The
material is available at Ministero Degli Affari Esteri (Roma), Archivio Storico (hereafter ASMAE), in
two series: l) Etiopiafondo la guerra, buste 1935-38; and 2) Egitto, buste 1935-1938. Their almost daily
reports contain long quotations from the Egyptian press. The press report on the Abun's meeting with
Mussolini is from La Reforme (Alexandria), 21 June 1937.

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 Ethiopian-Egyptian Dialogue 45

26See the translation of the official Amharic declaration made in Addis Ababa on 1 December 1937 in
PRO FO 371/20939. See also various reports in FO 401/35-38 and FO 371/41498, "The Church of Ethi-
opia During the Italian Occupation," October 1943.
27For example: Akhir Sa'a, 6 June 1937; Karim Thabit's article in al-Misri, 21 June 1937; al-Ahram,
20 June 1937; al-Muqattam, 21 June 1937. See mainly al-Musawwar, 2 July 1937, quoting Kamil Sidqi and
Professor Ibrahim Takla. For a new wave of responses after the appointment of Abuna Abraham, see re-
ports in ASMAE, Egitto 1937, quoting al-Ahram, al-Balagh, Jihad, Muqattam, and al-Misri, from 26 No-
vember-15 December 1937.
28ASMAE, Egitto 1937, "Questione Chiesa Etiopica," and "Sistemazione Chiesa Copta Etiopica," 15
and 18 December 1937.
29See al-Muqattam, 15 November 1938.
30A1-Musawwar, 17 December 1937.
31FO 371/20888, Lampson to Eden, 20 December 1937.
32For general background and analysis, see B. L Carter, The Copts in Egyptian Politics (London,
1986), mainly chap. 3, "The Limits of Political Community and Egypt's National Identity."
33Fo 371/20888, Lampson to Eden, 28 December 1937; London Times, 29 December 1937.
34In 1935, Salama Musa wrote extensively against Mussolini's aggression against Ethiopia. However,
in his journal of December 1937 and the first half of 1938, Al-Majalla al-jadida, I could find no mention
of the church rupture issue. (I did not see the issues of January and March 1938.)
35PRO FO 371/20939, Lampson to Eden, 15 July 1937, containing Mirrit's report.
36PRO FO 401/35-38, Lampson to Eden, 3 December 1937; see also Makram 'Ubayd's conversation
with the Italian minister to Cairo in ASMAE, Egitto, Busta 1937, 12 August 1937.
37The chronology of events narrated in this chapter is based mainly on Murad Kamil, "La dernier Phase
des Relations Historiques entre L'Jglise Copte D'Jgypte et Celle D'Ethiopie (Jusque'en, 1952)," Bulle-
tin de la Societj D'Archeiologie Copte, 14 (1950-57): 1-22; Antoni Suriyal 'Abd al-Sayyid, Al-Istiqlal
al-dhdti likanisat Ithyiibyd, 1941-1959 (Cairo, 1994); Amanu, "The Ethiopian Orthodox Church," Ethio-
pian Herald, 1943-51; PRO FO files 371/46086/22025/63129.
380n the dispute over Eritrea, compare al-Ahram 22-23 August and 24-26 September 1946, with Ethi-
opian Herald, 14 October and 9 December 1946.
39The most detailed description of the negotiations during the 1940s is Suriyal's Al-Istiqlal al-dhati.
The Ethiopian demands are presented in chap. 1, "The Renewal of Relations."
40Suriyal, Al-Istiqlal, chap. 2.
41FO 371/46086, "The Ethiopian Church," 21 August 1945.
42See Ethiopian Herald, 1 September, 20 November and 3 December 1945; and esp. a series of long
articles entitled "Relations Between Ethiopian and Coptic Churches," Ethiopian Herald, 1, 8, 15 and 22
July 1946.
43The series from Al-Katib al-misri was published in a separate pamphlet: Murad Kamil, Amani fi
al-habasha (Cairo, 1945). In Cairo in 1949, Murad Kamil published a more complete account of his stay
in Ethiopia-Fi Bilad al-Najashi-in which he reiterated his pro-Ethiopian stand and quoted the same
poem. See also his French translation in his "La dernier Phase," Bulletin DArcheologie (1958).
44See Ethiopian Herald, 22 July 1946.
45Suriyal, Al-Istiqlal, chap. 4.
46Ethiopian Herald, 8 April and 20 May 1946.
47Ibid., 22 July 1946.
48Ibid., 29 July 1946.
49See FO 371/63129, Baker to Bevin, 4 October 1947, containing text of decisions as in Al-Misri,
5 September 1947.
50Details in Suriyal, Al-Istiqlal, chaps. 5 and 6.
51On the Copts under Nasser and their crisis as discussed here, see, inter alia, Edward Wakin, A Lonely
Minority (New York, 1963), chaps. 10 and 11; Suliman Shafiq, Al-Aqbat bayna al-hirman al-kanisi wal-
watani (Cairo, 1996), 77-88; Suriyal, al-Istiqlal, chaps. 7 and 8 and Conclusion; Philipp, "Copts and
Other Minorities," in Egypt from Monarchy to Republic, 131-50.
52See "Annual Reports, Ethiopia, 1957" and "Annual Reports, Ethiopia, 1958," FO 371/131241 and
138024. For British reports on Ethiopian-Egyptian relations during the period under discussion, see FO
371 files 96817, 108204, 113522, 125363, and 138030. For the church connection and its rupture, see FO

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46 Haggai Erlich

371/138108. For American reports on Ethiopian-Egyptian relations, see National Archives, Record
Group 59, Egypt Foreign Affairs, 1955-59, C-0028; also RG 84, Ethiopia, 1950-58.
53See Erlich, Ethiopia and the Middle East, chaps. 10 and 11.
54See FO 371/138108, Embassy to Lloyd, 13 June 1959, analysis and documents.
55For details on the church negotiations during the said period, and for a relevant summary of Egyptian
press, see also "Ethiopian Coptic Church Affairs," National Archives, RG 59, Egypt Internal Affairs,
1955-59, C-0027. For Ethiopian views and reports, see also "First Ethiopian Patriarch Crowned in High
Ceremony," Ethiopian Herald, 11 August 1956; 14-15 January 1959; and 23 April, 8 May, and 9, 12, 19,
26, and 29 June 1959.
56See "Translation of Protocol on the Relations Between the Church of Egypt and the Church of Ethi-
opia," FO 371/138108. More on the agreement and Egyptian interpretations can be found in al-Musaw-
war, 3 July 1959; Akhir SaCa, 1 July 1959; and Ruz al-Yusuf, 22 June 1959.
57See New African (October 1994), 36-37; ibid. (July 1998), 29.
58This is the main thesis of Antuni Suriyyal's book, al-Istiqlal al-dhati.
590n the writings on Ethiopia of Coptic intellectuals, see Erlich, Ethiopia and the Middle East, chap.
11. The most prolific of them was Zahir Riyad. As the 1959 process headed toward separation, Riyad did
his best to save relations by intensive publication on Coptic-Ethiopian historical constructive coopera-
tion. See Zahir Riyad, "al-Siyasa al-fashiyya fi ityubya," Nahdat Ifriqya (January 1959), and "al-Kanisa
al-misriyya tuqawim al-isti'mar," Nahdat Ifriqya (June 1959).

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