EoC should appologise Ethiopians specially the south. In the name of religion it exploited the poor. It obstructed the true gospel of Jesus from being preached or evangelicals entering the country. It obstructs and obstructed modernization. A swath of Ethiopians still follow EOC doctrine with problems at all levels specially forcing old testament rules not even the Judaic belief reinforces. It caused major food security and malnutrition issues. As a messenger of God, it should apologize for its past sins and deliberate exploitation!
_______________________
«Ye siso mengist» (Amharic for "one-third of the state") was a foundational concept in imperial Ethiopia describing the absolute interlocking power of the state, the Emperor, and the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church. This principle legitimized the church claiming vast tracts of the country's land, effectively making it a dominant socio-political and economic power.
How it worked
Historically, through the ye siso mengist framework, the Ethiopian state was heavily intertwined with the Orthodox Church, which was the official state religion.
* Land Grants: The church held immense territorial estates known as samon land in perpetuity. While estimates varied, the church historically held and controlled a substantial percentage of the country’s most fertile cultivated land.
* Gult Rights (Tribute): Instead of paying taxes to the central government, peasants working on church lands (gabbars) were required to pay heavy tributes and perform labor directly for the church or local monasteries.
How it hurt Ethiopians
This concentration of wealth and land severely disenfranchised vast segments of the Ethiopian population:
* Severe Exploitation: Peasants living on samon land were reduced to tenant farmers with little to no security. They had to surrender a large portion of their harvest to the church, leaving many in chronic poverty.
* Economic Stagnation: Because the church held massive swathes of property in perpetuity—meaning it could not be taxed or legally bought and sold—it created a rigid feudal system that stifled agricultural innovation and economic mobility.
* Marginalization of Minorities: As the Ethiopian Empire expanded into southern and eastern territories where Islam and traditional faiths were dominant, the ye siso mengist ideology was used to dispossess indigenous populations of their ancestral lands. Local people were often subjugated as tenants on the lands they previously owned.
* Social Inequality: The vast financial and political divide cemented by the church-state alliance prevented structural reforms, fueling the systemic inequality that eventually led to the 1974 Marxist revolution. During the revolution, the Derg regime overthrew the imperial government, officially separated the church from the state, and nationalized all church lands