IN TRINIDAD & TOBAGO
At 26, Garnet Springer travelled to Ethiopia, and returned to Trinidad with the Ethiopian priest Abba Meshesha, and the administrator of the church, Abera Jimbere in 1952.
On African Libration Day, Garnet Springer, the Garveyite and defender of the Ethiopian Faith, was honoured by the Ethiopian Orthodox Church (EOTC) in Trinidad and Tobago.
They honoured him, and will continue to do so every year because he assisted in founding the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahido Church in Trinidad and Tobago in 1952—ten years before his nation attained independence from British domination.
This made him the first member of the UNIA, to put Marcus Garvey’s teachings into practice — which said, “We Negros believe in the God of Ethiopia, the everlasting God.”
IN JAMAICA
In 1960, Mr. Gordon Brooks, wrote to the Ethiopian Orthodox Patriarchate, with the intention of establishing the faith of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church in Kingston, Jamaica.
Abba Theophilos wrote, ” we are fully sympathetic towards the ideals and aspirations, and we may inform you that His Holiness the Patriarch, with the Holy Synod, will take the necessary steps in the matter of establishing the ancient Apostolic Church there. In the meantime, we shall be glad to receive more information about the conditions and situations there.
Through Mr Gordon further correspondence with Lisane Work Woubou in New York. Abba Laike Mandefro, was given the task of establishing the Ethiopian Orthodox Faith in the Western Hemisphere. In 1970, Abba Mandefro established the Orthodox Church in Jamaica.
There are also Ethiopian churches on the Caribbean island of Saint Kitts, and Guyana.
“The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church believes when the word of God became man, the divine nature became the property of flesh. The human became the property of the divine, and in this union there is one body and one nature. The word of God became flesh in the womb of the Virgin Mary, and took possession of a human nature.” Kessis Kefyalew Merahi – Addis Ababa.
ACAP Team.