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‘An evil soul producing holy witness is like a villain with a
smiling cheek.’
William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice
General Maletti’s church-burning campaigns had been conducted for several months in the face of Rome’s new policy of embracing and rehabilitating the Ethiopian Church. Although Graziani would have been entirely aware of it—indeed, Maletti was doubtless following his instructions—we do not know the extent to which Mussolini was aware. However, the upshot was that on 10 November 1937 the Duce relieved Graziani of his position of viceroy. Although he did not leave for Rome immediately, he was described by Lessona as showing signs of derangement, and was replaced by the courtly and more even-handed Duke of Aosta. The ruthless Pirzio-Biroli and the notorious Captain Corvo were also removed from Ethiopia.
Graziani fought bitterly to stay on as commander-in-chief of the troops in Italian East Africa. He was allowed to return to Addis Ababa and stay on in that capacity just for a few weeks. Sent back to Italy in January 1938, he was replaced as commander-in-chief of the armed forces by General Ugo Cavallero.
Graziani certainly never concurred with Rome’s change of policy towards the Ethiopian Church, as may be judged from the way he was to write proudly of the massacre of Debre Libanos as a highly successful instrument of terror, and as one of his greatest accomplishments, which had ‘made the entire clergy tremble with fear, from the bishop to the last of the priests and monks’.1
Although deportations to Danane authorised by Graziani were to continue until late November 1937, the new viceroy soon began to implement new, more subtle policies, using the Ethiopian Church as a tool to help gain support for the Italian administration, rather than trying to destroy it. Having successfully courted and made use of the Catholic episcopate, and having raised their expectations in order to get the Vatican and the Holy See to turn a blind eye to his homicidal adventure in Ethiopia, Mussolini had now done the unthinkable: his administration was now to be hand in glove with the ‘heretics and schismatics’. In his Ethiopian adventure the Duce had no further use for the Catholic episcopate, for he was bringing Italy’s holy war to an ignominious end.
Fighting Alexandria
Official implementation of the new policy meant that the Church of Ethiopia would fall directly under the control of the Fascist administration. This also meant, of course, that the ancient ties that linked the Ethiopian Church with the Coptic Patriarchate of Alexandria would have to be cut. However, the Holy See saw its opportunity for a consolation prize. Even if the plans of the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith had been largely thwarted, the Holy See might still be able to bring the Ethiopian Church under the umbrella of the Catholic Church. After all, as the historian Peter Kent pointed out, the Catholic Church ‘had given the Italian government active support in its war effort, believing that it would be given as privileged a role in the empire as it held in Italy proper and, thus, that its missionary work would serve as a fitting complement to the “civilising mission” of the Italians in East Africa’.2
However, having promised the Ethiopian clergy independence from the Copts, there was no way the Italian authorities in Addis Ababa were going to tell them that they were now to be subservient to the Catholic Church. So, like bank robbers quarrelling over their loot, the Italian government and the Holy See were now at loggerheads. The marriage of convenience was coming apart at the seams.
At the end of November 1937, the Governo Generale in Addis Ababa asked the Egyptian archbishop Qérillos, who had earlier been taken on a visit to Rome, to take over the spiritual aspects of the Ethiopian Church on Italy’s behalf, severed from Alexandria, with administration in the hands of the Italian-appointed ichegé. However, the archbishop refused, and returned to Cairo.
Graziani, who had not yet returned to Italy, was looking around for a suitable Ethiopian replacement for Qérillos. Having executed the energetic Bishops Pétros and Mikaél, there were only two Ethiopian bishops left alive, and of those he settled for the elderly and partially blind Bishop Abraham.3 Informed of this on 2 December, the outraged Alexandrian patriarch launched intense discussions with the Italian government, only to learn on 8 December that Abraham had been appointed patriarch of the Ethiopian Church and that he had already consecrated three archbishops and three bishops. By the end of December the furious Coptic patriarch had excommunicated the hapless Abraham and declared his consecrations null and void. Nonetheless, the Italian government insisted on continuing with the new arrangements and went ahead regardless. As far as they were concerned, the Ethiopian Church was now independent of the Alexandrian Patriarchate.4
Repair and Restoration
Ethiopian churches—at least in the towns where the Italians were in control—were, at least in theory, now exempt from attack or desecration, and it was at this time, in mid-December 1937, that an example was made of Italian soldiers who were doing what had been routine since 1935. Two groups of three soldiers were arrested after entering the well-known Addis Ababa churches of Intotto Maryam and Tekle Haymanot, where, armed with rifles, they had threatened to kill the priests and had robbed the churches of money and sacred artefacts. Graziani, who was coming to the end of the extension of his tenure in Ethiopia, reported that he had instructed the court to proceed against the men with the utmost rigour.5
On 16 December, Abraham, who had submitted to the Italians, made a public proclamation on behalf of the Italian administration, promising that it would protect the churches, rebuild those that had been destroyed, and restore the property and estates that the Ethiopian Church had previously owned. Work began almost immediately on the burned-out cathedral of St George in Addis Ababa. The Italian government, Abraham assured his audience, was full of compassion.6 Almost overnight, far from being a warning to other clergy who might consider opposing the might of the occupying forces, the slaughter of countless Orthodox clergy and their families across Ethiopian Christendom for more than two years had become unmentionable—an embarrassment to be forgotten, and eventually denied.
The collaborating bishop also addressed the Patriots, his speech leaving no doubt that the objective of the Italian church-burning campaign and the massacres that accompanied it had been to blackmail the Patriots into surrendering:
God has chosen Italy to govern Ethiopia. And you, rebels, who live in the bush and the mountains, if, on account of you the churches are burnt and the old people, women and children are massacred, if the country is destroyed, God will hear their cries and see their blood and will punish you. But if you cease to do wrong, we will obtain pardon for your faults in the past.7
Abraham even announced excommunication of the Patriots, but many priests, including the entire clergy of Gojjam, never recognised him, and refused to attend his synods.8
A Christmas Message
On 25 December, having received more than a thousand letters and Christmas cards from America, Emperor Haile Selassie broadcast a radio message from London to the American people: ‘Shame on those of us who are Christians and do not follow the ways of the Saviour of the World, whose life was filled with kindness, humility and martyrdom! If we lived by the laws he gave us and were worthy of being called Christians, peace would have reigned on this earth.’ Despairing of the behaviour of the Italians, he went on: ‘the spirit of the wicked continues to cast its shadow on this world. The arrogant are seen visibly leading their people into crime and destruction. The laws of the League of Nations are constantly violated.’
Echoing his earlier remarks at Geneva (‘Today it is us; tomorrow it will be you’), the emperor foresaw the horrors of Fascism that would shortly be visited upon the world, for he continued: ‘The two-thousand-year-old Christian civilisation is threatened with destruction. If this happens, there will be a return to the days of barbarism, when the mighty could realise their aspirations at will.’ Finally, he pleaded with the American people to ‘remember in your prayers all those weak and endangered peoples who look to the flags of the free nations with confidence, hoping to discern the star which will announce their peace and future security’.9
A Masquerade
The year 1938 opened with feverish activity by the Italian administration in Addis Ababa. Now desperate to defuse the holy war and neutralise the Ethiopian Church as the symbol and rallying point of Ethiopian nationalism, the new viceroy ramped up the newly launched programme of repair and rehabilitation of churches and monasteries where some of the most egregious atrocities had taken place, and several of the Ethiopian clergy prudently played along. Entering into the spirit of the charade, they expressed homage in speeches extolling the goodness of Mussolini’s government, and the Italian commanders would respond by kissing the Orthodox cross or Bible, and regale their audience with stories of the wonderful things they had done for the welfare of the Ethiopian Church.10
The Ethiopians were playing their part quite convincingly; it was perfect theatre, and it would continue throughout 1938. Calvin Shenk put it bluntly, pointing out that ‘much of the forced subjection was merely superficial and Church leaders who praised the Italians did so quite insincerely as this seemed to be the option of greatest convenience’.11 Indeed, the Orthodox prelates had decided that discretion was the better part of valour. In order to preserve what was left of their Church and the lives of the remaining clergy, they would accommodate the demands of the occupying forces; they would bide their time.
A Disaster
For Pius XI, the Addis Ababa administration’s favouring of Islam was bad enough, and its failure to declare Catholicism the state religion in Ethiopia was a crushing disappointment. But Italy’s embrace of the Ethiopian Church independent of Catholic control was the last straw, particularly as before the invasion the prospects for the Catholic Church under Haile Selassie had been relatively good—certainly far better than they had now become. Italy was clearly public enemy number one in Ethiopia, and Catholicism, now clearly identified with the enemy, had become as unpopular there as it had been after the religious wars of the early 17th century. For the Roman Church, the great crusade had been a disaster.