Ark of the Covenant for the Tabernacle replica at BYU in this photo from October 16, 2017. | (Wikimedia Commons)
Uganda Christian News has learnt that as many as 750 Christians in Ethiopia died recently defending their church that is said to have the Ark of the Covenant, described in the Book of Exodus in the Bible.
According to the Christian Post, the tragic incident happened at Maryam Tsiyon Church in Aksum when invaded by Ethiopian federal troops and Amhara soldiers on December 15, 2020.
The assailants wanted to steal the Ark of the Covenant and place it in the country’s capital Addis Ababa, Europe External Programme with Africa (EEPA) said in a report released on Jan. 9.
For sources, the Ark is believed by Ethiopian Orthodox Christians to have been kept in Aksum by Menelik I, the son of King Solomon of Israel. The kingdom of Aksum was one of the four great powers of the ancient world, and the town of Aksum is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
It is hidden from the view of everyone, apart from a single priest who never leaves the compound.
Former BBC World Service Africa editor and Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, Martin Plaut, was quoted by U.K.’s Church Times as saying up to 1000 people were allegedly sheltering in the church complex at the time of the attack.
He said: “People were worried about the safety of the Ark, and when they heard troops were approaching feared they had come to steal it. All those inside the cathedral were forced out into the square.”
The church and and the Ark have likely not been damaged, Plaut added.
A history professor at the University of Toronto told International Christian Concern (ICC), “The government and the Eritreans want to wipe out the Tigrayan culture. They think they’re better than rest of the people in the country. The looting is about destroying and removing the cultural presence of Tigray.”
The Tigrayan people are majority Christian and the Amhara make up the country’s largest Christian-majority ethnic group.
The Christian Post states that the conflict between the Tigray People’s Liberation Front and Ethiopian federal troops, fighting alongside Amhara militia began in Tigray since Nov. 4 when the region’s ruling political party Tigray People’s Liberation Front captured the Northern Command army base in the regional capital Mekelle as part of an uprising, after which Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed ordered a military offensive. Abiy claimed on Nov. 28 that the Ethiopian National Defense Force had regained “full command” of Mekelle.
News Agencies Contributed to this report.
