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A human rights group has learned that Eritrean officials are forcefully sending ministers of the Eritrean Orthodox Church to military training camps, reports Jeremy Reynalds, correspondent for ASSIST News Service.
Eritrea is located in Eastern Africa, bordering the Red Sea, between Djibouti and Sudan.
The Washington-DC based human rights group, International Christian Concern (ICC) reported in a news release that as a result of this policy, Eritrean Orthodox churches throughout the country are losing their leaders.
According to ICC, at the end of 2006, the Eritrean government informed churches of its decision to rescind a long-standing exemption of ministers from mandatory military service. The Roman Catholic Church in Eritrea was the only church to oppose this action.
ICC reported that top leaders of the Eritrean Orthodox Church, who have been hand-picked by the government, embraced the new policy with open arms.
Eritrean officials are now forcibly recruiting church ministers into military service on a wide scale.
ICC reported that on March 24, 2008, Eritrean officials issued replacement identity cards to a limited number of the church’s priests and deacons, exempting them from military training. The vast majority of the church’s leaders, however, who did not receive updated identity cards, are now required to go to military training camps.
According to ICC, the largest Eritrean Orthodox Church in the country, St. Mary, in the capital city of Asmara, had 96 ministers, but only 10 of them were issued ID’s that exempted them from military training.
Similarly, in rural areas, where most Orthodox churches are located, the maximum number of priests and deacons allowed to serve in any church is 10. The rest are expected to report for military service if they are under the age of 50.
In addition to churches, ICC reported, the new campaign also forces many in Orthodox monasteries to be conscripted into the army.
According to ICC, in the past, the Eritrean government has usually directed its “animosity” for Christians against “unregistered churches,” which are mainly evangelical. Over half a dozen denominations have been closed since May 2002.
ICC reported that many of their pastors and 2,000 - 3,000 of their adherents are still locked up in prisons, military barracks, and metal shipping containers. None of these prisoners have been charged with a crime, or even entered a court room. Reports from prisoners who have been freed indicate that they are held under awful conditions.
However, in the last two years, the government has also turned its attention to the Eritrean Orthodox Church, the oldest and most established religious institution in Eritrea. Almost 45 percent of the Eritrean population belongs to the Eritrean Orthodox Church.
According to ICC, almost four years ago, the government began a campaign against the leaders of the Orthodox Church, especially those who were attracting increasingly larger followings of young people. A variety of leaders have been incarcerated in Eritrean jails.
ICC reported that two years ago, His Holiness Patriarch Antonios, then head of the Eritrean Orthodox Church, became the best known religious figure to criticize the government’s interference in church affairs. The government responded by replacing him with a hand-picked pontiff. Patriarch Antonios has been under strict house arrest since then.
According to some observers of the Eritrean government, the forced conscription of Eritrean Orthodox clergy represents a systematic dismantling of the Eritrean Orthodox Church, one of the most important pillars of Eritrean society.
ICC said the organization is calling on Eritrean government officials to stop interfering with the affairs of the Eritrean Orthodox Church, and to instead release all Christians who are imprisoned for their religious beliefs.
ICC is a Washington-DC based human rights organization that exists to help persecuted Christians worldwide.