Meserete Kristos Church
The Meserete Kristos Church ( Christ is the Foundation Church ) is a Mennonite church in Ethiopia.
Foundation and development phase until 1974
It was created after the Italians were expelled from Ethiopia shortly after the end of the Second World War . At the invitation of Emperor Haile Selassie , various Protestant aid organizations came to the country to alleviate the misery. So did the Mennonite Relief Committee of the Mennonites from the United States . The members of the committee first distributed clothes and food - later they built a hospital with a doctor and nurses. At the request of the organization, they were assigned a mission field in 1948. They were instructed not to proselytize members of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church . In 1951, the missionaries baptized the first ten believers. The Church's official founding convention took place in 1959. In 1973 it then comprised nine congregations with 819 baptized members and 2000 followers. At that time the MKK had ten schools, a school for the blind and a Bible academy (the Dresser Bible School ), which also trained doctors and nursing staff.
Communist time
In the era after the fall of Emperor Haile Selassie, most church institutions were forcibly nationalized. In order to destroy the small church, its leaders were arrested. Since the MKK had always trained preachers and missionaries as well, it survived the harassment by the authorities. In fact, it grew quickly. Instead of 2,000 as in 1973, in 1991 it had 50,000 followers in 83 municipalities. In 1983, an underground school for minister training was set up in Addis Ababa .
From 1991 until today
The MKK is one of the fastest growing churches in Ethiopia. In January 1994 the Meserete Kristos College was founded in Addis Ababa . In August 2002 the denomination had 275 parishes, 584 mission stations, 98,025 baptized members and twice as many followers. Just one year later, the MKK became the world's largest church within the Mennonite World Conference with 120,160 members and 250,000 people attending church services. It overtook its former mother church, the Mennonite Church USA . Between 2000 and 2015 there was a church partnership between the MKK and the Working Group of Mennonite Congregations in Germany .
literature
- Diether Götz Lichdi: Via Zurich and Witmarsum to Addis Ababa. The Mennonites Past and Present. Agape-Verlag, Maxdorf 1983, ISBN 3-88744-401-9 .
- Nathan B. Hege: Beyond our Prayers. Anabaptist Church growth in Ethiopia, 1948-1998. Herald Press, Scottdale PA et al. 1998, ISBN 0-8361-9085-8 .
Web links
Meserete Kristos College (English)