Meserete Kristos Church

The Meserete Kristos Church ( Christ is the foundation of the Church ) is a Mennonite church in Ethiopia.

Formation and development phase to 1974

It was formed after the expulsion of the Italians from Ethiopia shortly after the end of World War II. At the invitation of Emperor Haile Selassie then various Protestant relief agencies came into the country in order to alleviate the suffering. So also the Mennonite Relief Committee of the Mennonites from the United States. The committee members first distributed clothes and food - then later they built a hospital with doctor and nurses. At the request of the organization they were assigned in 1948, a mission field. They were instructed to proselytize not members of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. In 1951, the missionaries baptized the first ten believers. The official founding congress of the church took place in 1959. In 1973, she then consisted of nine municipalities with 819 baptized members and 2,000 trailers. The MKK entertained then ten schools, a school for the blind and a Bible College ( Dresser Bible School ), which also trained doctors and nurses.

Communist period

In the era after the fall of Emperor Haile Selassie most religious institutions were zwangsverstaatlicht. In order to destroy the small church, its leaders were arrested. Since the MKK had always trained preachers and missionaries, they survived the harassment by the authorities. They even grew quickly. Instead they had in 1991 already 1973 2.000 50,000 followers in 83 parishes. In 1983 a school was established for training preachers in the underground in Addis Ababa.

From 1991 to 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 community of faith 275 parishes, 584 mission stations, 98 025 baptized members and twice as many followers. Only a year later, the MKK was the world's largest church within the Mennonite World Conference with 120 160 members and 250,000 worshipers. They overtook as its former parent church, the Mennonite Church USA. Since 2000 there is a church of the MKK partnership with the Association of Mennonite communities in Germany.