Eritrea’s Orthodox church holds funeral prayers in Asmara for Abune Lukas, who ran its patriarchate


Official portrait of Abune Lukas of the Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church in black clerical robes and hat, holding a hand cross

Abune Lukas, chief administrator of the patriarchate of the Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church, in an official portrait released by Eritrea’s Ministry of Information on November 9, 2026, when it announced his death. The date the portrait was taken is not known. Credit: Ministry of Information, Eritrea.

Eritrea’s Orthodox Tewahedo Church holds funeral prayers in Asmara on Wednesday for Abune Lukas, the archbishop who ran its patriarchate and died on Monday at 94, ahead of his burial on Thursday.

The church’s Holy Synod said in an announcement published by the Ministry of Information that the funeral prayers would be held on Wednesday morning, November 11, at the Debre Tsion St. Mary’s church in Asmara, which the church calls the head of its churches. He is to be buried on Thursday, November 12, at the monastery of Abune Libanos in Ham.

Abune Lukas died after an illness during the night that ended on Monday morning, November 9, the announcement said, without giving details. Besides running the administration of the patriarchate, he was a member of the Holy Synod and the Archbishop of the Southern Diocese, which has its seat in Adi Keyih. Ministers, senior officials of the government and of the People’s Front for Democracy and Justice, religious leaders and diplomats were invited to sign condolence books at the patriarchate compound on Tuesday.

On Tuesday, the official schedule was repeated across X in an unusual way. Within about five minutes, starting at about 7:40 AM Asmara time, more than a dozen accounts posted short Tigrinya summaries of the funeral plans, each ending with the same three hashtags for Eritrea, Abune Lukas and the Eritrean Orthodox church. Many of the accounts carry Arabic or other names that do not match the language they posted in. Late on Tuesday evening, a second group of accounts posted the same details in English, again within a few minutes of one another. Mereja Media could not determine who is behind the accounts, and the posts added nothing beyond the ministry’s announcement.

Reactions from Eritreans who post under their own names remained divided. Sirak Bahlbi, an Eritrean commentator, wrote that he had met Abune Lukas several times and had always been in awe of his authoritative wisdom, and that the church would greatly miss him.

Tekle Tade, who writes in Tigrinya, took the opposite view. He wrote that Abune Lukas was among the church leaders who had “denied” Patriarch Abune Antonios, had let the Eritrean Orthodox church fall “under the rod of a dictator,” and had sown distrust among the faithful. Mereja Media did not find any response to those accusations from the Holy Synod, and they reflect a long running dispute rather than anything the church has accepted.

That dispute goes back to 2006, when Patriarch Abune Antonios was removed from office after he reportedly objected to government interference in church affairs. He spent most of the following years confined to a residence and died in February 2022. Rights groups and exiled clergy have long cited his case as evidence that the state controls the church, while church officials inside Eritrea have treated the removal as a decision of the Holy Synod.

As chief administrator of the patriarchate, Abune Lukas was one of the most senior clerics in a church that counts a large share of Eritrea’s population among its members. The government recognizes it as one of only four officially permitted religious bodies, together with the Catholic and Lutheran churches and Sunni Islam.

Earlier Mereja Media coverage of Eritrea includes President Isaias Afwerki’s meeting with China’s Horn envoy Hu Changchun and the information ministry’s publication of Ethiopian generals’ words on Assab.

Sources

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