{"id":277781,"date":"2019-06-01T12:00:06","date_gmt":"2019-06-01T16:00:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.google.com\/articles\/CAIiEAcswpt-rwRdxUeoQx3FJL4qFwgEKg4IACoGCAowl6p7MN-zCTDZ4PsF?oc=5"},"modified":"2026-09-25T11:18:58","modified_gmt":"2026-09-25T15:18:58","slug":"the-guardian-said-westminster-abbey-barred-ethiopian-priests-from-their-looted-tabot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/277781","title":{"rendered":"The Guardian said Westminster Abbey barred Ethiopian priests from their looted tabot"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In June 2019 The Guardian reported that Westminster Abbey had a looted Ethiopian holy tablet, or tabot, behind an altar, and that Ethiopian Orthodox priests said the abbey had failed to respond properly when they asked to visit and pray with it.<\/p>\n<img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" height=\"780\" width=\"780\" class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-598256\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/east-wollega-featured.jpg?fit=780%2C780&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"The Guardian said Westminster Abbey barred Ethiopian priests from their looted tabot\" \/>\n<p>Critics called the refusal culturally insensitive because only ordained Ethiopian clergy are supposed to handle a tabot, and the object itself is part of the wider Magdala loot story from the 1868 British expedition.<\/p>\n<p>Kept as heritage archive, the Guardian investigation dates a living restitution dispute between Ethiopian Christians and a major London church.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Sources:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2019\/jun\/01\/westminster-abbey-ethiopian-holy-tablet-tabot\">The Guardian<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Westminster Abbey stops Ethiopian priests visiting holy tablet&nbsp;&nbsp;The GuardianAt the back of an altar in Westminster Abbey is a looted tablet deemed so holy by Ethiopian Christians that only priests from the country\u2019s Orthodox church are able t&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":598256,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-277781","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ethiopian-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/east-wollega-featured.jpg?fit=1280%2C720&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9NivD-1agl","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277781","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/30"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=277781"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277781\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":755004,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277781\/revisions\/755004"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/598256"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=277781"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=277781"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=277781"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}