This topic was posted , thanks Cronos.
Posted on 06/01/2019 11:01:00 PM PDT by Cronos
At the back of an altar in Westminster Abbey is a looted tablet deemed so holy by Ethiopian Christians that only priests from the country’s Orthodox church are able to look at it.
But the abbey has been accused of gross cultural insensitivity for apparently failing to respond when leaders of the church asked to be able to pray beside the artefact. “I was very shocked and surprised,” said Samuel Berhanu, a deacon in the Ethiopian church in London, who contacted Westminster Abbey last year asking for permission for Ethiopian Orthodox church leaders “to organise a viewing and prayer session”.
...Tabots, small tablets in stone or wood, were among hundreds of objects looted in 1868 from Maqdala, the mountain fortress of Emperor Tewodros II in northern Ethiopia, by an expeditionary force under the command of Lieutenant-General Sir Robert Napier (one of the Victorian “titans” hailed by Jacob Rees-Mogg in his new book). The treasures – which to the 35 million-strong community of Ethiopian Christians are deeply sacred – were shared between various institutions, including the British Museum. One tabot was donated to the abbey, by an army officer and in 1870 the architect George Gilbert Scott incorporated it into his designs for an altar in the Henry VII Lady Chapel
...“As a Christian, how do you have this view? How are you not able to open the doors?” asked Berhanu. He described the abbey’s approach as “quite shameful” – all the more shocking as the church itself was not granting permission to pray. “To me, that’s an additional layer of disappointment.”
An abbey spokesman yesterday reiterated its statement to Berhanu about being “very conscious of the sensitivity of the tabot”, adding: “The dean and chapter has no plans to change these arrangements.”
(Excerpt) Read more at theguardian.com ...
Church of England should do their moral and Christian duty, and return the tablet to Ethiopia where it belongs.
Orthodox, Catholic, or otherwise, my time living in the UK showed me that it’s primarily African believers keeping the churches of Europe alive.
And within the Anglican Communion, it’s Africa’s clergymen and parishioners holding fast to conservative doctrine while the U.K. leadership falls by the wayside.
Amen.
Safe to say,it is the countries in Africa and Asia that is keeping Christianity going.
I wonder why the extreme sensitivity by an establishment which generally has seemed to value political correctness?
If they wants to keep this stuff their emperor shouldn’t have kidnapped British citizens and held them hostage.
They stole it fair and square and now it’s theirs.Wow. Of course the COE is no longer a church it is a leftist social club so why should anyone be surprised?
Much like the church building it's housed in, which was built by Catholics for Catholics.
This topic was posted , thanks Cronos.
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