wfn.org | NCCCUSA TO MAKE FIRST OFFICIAL VISIT TO ETHIOPIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH

[CAROL_FOUKE.parti@ecunet.org]

CHURCHES
Reply-to: CAROL_FOUKE.parti@ecunet.org
Date: Fri, 12 Jan 96 16:00:11 EST

National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A.
Contact: Carol J. Fouke, 1-212-870-2252 (New York)
Internet: carol_fouke.parti@ecunet.org

NCC GENERAL SECRETARY,
CHURCH WORLD SERVICE EXECUTIVE
TO MAKE OFFICIAL VISIT TO
ETHIOPIAN ORTHODOX TEWAHEDO CHURCH

 NEW YORK, Jan. 12 ---- The Revs. Joan Brown
Campbell and R. Lawrence (Lonnie) Turnipseed will
represent the National Council of the Churches of
Christ in the U.S.A. (NCC) in the Council's
first-ever official visit to the Ethiopian
Orthodox Tewahedo ("Unity") Church.

 Dr. Campbell, the NCC's General Secretary, and
the Rev. Turnipseed, Executive Director of the NCC's
Church World Service and Witness Unit, will
participate in the three-day dramatic and colorful
celebration of Timket (Feast of the Epiphany) Jan.
18-20, the church's greatest festival of the year.

 They also will visit Ethiopian Orthodox
historic sites and facilities, many of them only
recently returned to the church.  Many church
properties had been confiscated by Ethiopia's
previous Marxist government.

 The NCC officials' visit is in response to an
invitation from Abba Paulos, Patriarch of Ethiopia.
Abba Paulos spent 10 years in exile in the United
States, during which time he was active with the NCC
and in the World Council of Churches, served a local
congregation and earned his PhD from Princeton
Seminary.  Shortly after his return to Ethiopia in
1991, he was elected Patriarch by the Ethiopian
Orthodox Tewahedo Church's governing body, the Holy
Synod.

 The NCC and Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church
have a long history of relationship and there have
been many contacts, including NCC staff visits to
Ethiopia.  Through Church World Service, the NCC has
assisted with relief and rehabilitation during times
of drought and famine. However, this is the first
time an NCC General Secretary has visited Ethiopia,
said Willis Logan, Director of the NCC/CWSW Africa
Office, who will staff the trip.  "It is a
manifestation of the expanded relationship between
the NCC and EOTC since Abba Paulos' election," he
said.

-end-
-0-