Dispute over Patriach splits Norwegian Orthodox church in two

By Bjørgulv K. Bjåen Vartland

[Computer translation from Norwegian]

The song of praise fills the hall. The white-clad Eritreans sing with emotion in Tigrinja. The sound of the church gathers into a final, powerful verse. Then the Sunday service is over. As usual, a patriarch has been honoured.

Habteab Dagbew is a spokesman for the new church. He was chairman of the old board.

The congregation that gathers at the Bryn Church in Bærum (Oslo) is called Orthodox Tewadho Debre Kdusan Hawaryat. It is one of around 40 Eritrean churches in Norway. And this one is new.

The congregation was established in 2021 as a result of a bitter dispute in a large congregation. The dispute that has divided the church into two congregations is about:

• To what extent should the voice of the congregation in Norway should be loyal to the Eritrean regime.

• The position of Patriarch Antonios during his life. He was under house arrest until he died in February.
• Who will sit on the board of the church.

• Who should have control the funds for the church.

Underneath all this lies a dispute over the collection of the two percent tax, which Eritreans in exile are required to pay the Eritrean government.

Handpicked Patriarch

One of President Isaias Afwerki’s generals controls - or tries to control - the churches of Eritreans in Norway, Habteab Dagnew told Vårt Land.

The retired head of accounting at Equinor explained that the governing authorities in Eritrea control the Orthodox church by handpicking the church’s supreme leader, the patriarch. Today’s patriarch is called Qerlos. He was appointed last year.

Dagnew is a spokesman for the new church that rents the Bryn church to hold services. For a long time he was chairman of the larger congregation, until it split.

Send a letter with demands

This church is called the Eritrean Orthodox Tewahdo Church Debrehawaryat Kdus Petros & Paulos Asker & Bærum established in 2014.

But in July 2019, a letter came to the Church, from the church leadership in Asmara, the capital of Eritrea. It contained a clear demand: Patriarch Antonios’ name shall not be mentioned. Anyone who defied the order would face “strict measures”.

The UN’s special rapporteur for Eritrea wrote in this year’s report that “supporters of Patriarch Abune Antonios were exposed to pressure from the government “.

The Eritrean Orthodox

The church has effectively been taken over by the president’s regime, says the international organization Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW). The regime controls church finances, who will be appointed as leader and which priests will go to prison.

- This is a precise presentation of the circumstances, Ed Brown told Vårt Land, and elaborates: “Through loyal bishops and church leaders, the regime has full control of the Orthodox Church.” Brown is secretary general of the Norwegian Christian campaign organization Stefanusalliansen.

Patriarch under house arrest

In the church at Bryn, in the assembly that was established last year, as a result of the dispute, they always have an image of Patriarch Antonios with them. When the services start, his picture is at the front of the hall, in full patriarchal robes.

Until 2019, Antonios was honoured at Eritrean church services all over Norway, because he was an important symbol for the opposition in exile; those who want an end to today’s dictatorship, those who stand up to President Afewerki.

The president put Antonios under house arrest in 2007 and stripped him of his role as head of the Eritrean Orthodox Church. A new patriarch was approved by the regime.

Therefore, the letter that came from Eritrea in July 2019 created controversy in the Eritrean Orthodox Tewahdo Church Debrehawaryat Kdus Petros and Paulos Asker and Bærum.

Habteab Dagnew - and several others with him - refused to abandon Patriach Antonios, defying the order. “Antonios was our most senior leader. He who was recognized as patriarch will not conform to us”, says Dagnew.

Others in the church decided to go along with the order. The split in the church had become a reality.

Church conflict since 2019

Vårt Land has followed the church dispute in Asker and Bærum, which began in 2019, rolled through 2020 and 2021 and continued into 2022, through a review of the records.

Three public bodies are involved, the Brønnøysund registers, the county governor, later the State Administrator in Oslo and Viken and finally, as the appeal body, the Ministry of Business.

In 2020, the county governor in Oslo and Akershus wrote that “The faith community is split in two”. Now the office is called the State Administrator in Oslo and Viken.

The state subsidy put on hold

For three years, debtors have been corrected in writing and orally. Both groups said they represent the legally elected board. Both said they were willing to meet and negotiate a solution.

But the solutions failed. And the dispute had consequences: “The state administrator put the state subsidy for 2020 on hold (…). This is due to the internal conflict in the religious community”, reported the State Administrator.

The board dispute was finally appealed to the Ministry of Trade and Industry, which in January of this year reached a conclusion: “The ministry will suspend the appeal until a legally binding judgment has been issued.”

Transferred money to a new account

The board that is registered in the National register, manages the organization number of a church community. Thus, it has the right to apply for and receive support from the state and municipality.

In the church dispute, the board of both groups has alternately been registered as the authoritative board.

In 2019, the original assembly, the Eritrean Orthodox Tewahdo Church Debrehawaryat Kdus Petros & Paulos Asker & Bærum, received almost Norwegian Krone 214,000 from the state for 363 members, according to the State Administrator for Oslo and Viken.

At one point in the dispute, Habteab Dagnew, who represents the group critical of the regime, transferred NOK 2.1 million of funds to an account managed by the new church.

Dagnew explains that the transfer was made to prevent the other group from gaining control of the entire sum.

Last summer, the other group filed a civil case against Habteab Dagnew and his group with demands for “the return of the church’s embezzled or stolen liquid funds”.

Dagnew stated both to the Ministry of Trade and Industry and in a court document that he withdrew money from the church’s account, but that, as stated in a court document, he “represents the correct board and that the withdrawals were made in consultation with the other board and that they are who are the proper representatives of the church”.

“The funds must of course be fairly shared,” says Dagnew.

Agree on a legal settlement

The dispute between the two groups was settled in Ringerike, Asker and Bærum District Court.

In February, the plaintiff and the defendant agreed on a court settlement. Here the parties say that they will distribute the funds to the church based on the membership list of each group, and that only those who were church members on a specific date in December 2019 can be distributed between the two lists.

The two assemblies must also share it and ecclesiastical equipment according to the same criteria.

In the district court, the groups agreed to set up a committee with two representatives from each group. The committee was to distribute money and church equipment. This work has been completed.

Regime-friendly church

During the church dispute between Eritreans in Asker and Bærum, a year-long tax dispute simmers.

When Eritrea became independent, the state introduced a “rehabilitation and reconstruction tax for Eritreans living outside the country”, says Landinfo, the Swedish Immigration Service’s professional body.

In 2020, Proba delivered a social analysis report to the Ministry of Education. The report says that many Eritrean church leaders in Norway “are perceived to be regime-friendly and politicized, in the sense that they submit to the government-appointed patriarch, and that opposition members and parishioners who fail to pay the two percent tax are frozen out”.

Many were loyal to the instructions

The old church Eritrean Orthodox Tewahdo Church Debrehawaryat Kdus Petros & Paulos Asker & Bærum, is today represented by Heilom Zeree.

When Vårt Land calls the chairman along questions about tax collection, he answers by breaking off the conversation with a brief answer: “Call my lawyer.”

Bjørn Getz is a lawyer for the congregation. He answered Vårt Land’s questions in writing.

- How did Heilom Zeree react to the letter that was sent to the congregation in July 2019, where the church leadership in Eritrea forbade the church to honor Patriarch Antonius by calling out his name at the start of the service?

“The Church held a meeting about the so-called “instructions” in October 2019 and, according to the Church, about 80% of the members chose to conform to the instructions, and maintain their loyalty and membership in the Church,” writes Getz.

- What does Heilom Zeree say about the findings in the Press og Kontroll report, which says that the Eritrean church noises in Norway are important power bases for tax collection and social control?

“The church does not recognize itself at all in the report’s claim that the Eritrean church/the Eritrean churches in Norway are important bases for tax collection and social control of Eritreans in Norway.”

- How does Heilom Zeree stand as trustee in the church for the collection of the two percent tax - is this a legitimate tax Eritreans in Norway should pay to their homeland Eritrea?

“The church does not actively involve itself in the worldly affairs of its members, beyond participating in conversations about morality and law.”

- Does Heilom Zeree pay the two percent tax himself?

“This is a completely personal matter, and it would, in my view, be pointless for me to obtain or give you an answer for Heilom Zeree”, writes Getz.

Pays dues to Eritrea

The collection of money between exiles is about more than the collection of the two percent tax.

The Orthodox churches in Norway must annually send money to Eritrea, a kind of church tax, says Habteab Dagnew.

He states that as chairman of the original church sound he paid in 2016, 2017 and 2018. In one year, for example, 14,442.90 was paid in “contingent”, accounts show.

The quota or tax is, among other things, authorized in a letter sent by the church office for Europe to all church leaders in June 2017. In the letter, they are required to pay an annual sum of 1,500 euros.

- Will the new church sound you are involved in pay money to Eritrea? “I will not pay a penny”, says Dagnew.

In Bryn Church in Bærum, the collection basket is sent around the rows of pews. Bills are put down.

- The collection is an important source of income for the new church sound, says the spokesman.

“Possibly a legal obligation”

Vårt Land asks lawyer Bjørn Getz if chairman Heilom Zeree knows about the church tax transfers to Eritrea in 2016, 2017 and 2018 - and if his church will continue to pay the annual sum:

“The church is not aware of such payments,” writes Getz.

But he admits that money has been sent. Getz writes that if Habteab Dagnew has transferred money “from the Church to the “Mother Church”, there could possibly be a legal obligation, such as for immaterial obligations and rights between the Church and the Mother Church without my knowledge of them”.

The lawyer does not answer whether the leader of the church Zerees will insist on paying.

The only legal party in Eritrea has an office in Oslo

- The tax office is located in here.

Hilde Heimdal of the organization Mothers for Peace has brought parliamentary representative and ex-minister Ola Elvestuen from the Liberal Party to an office entrance in central Oslo.

Both Heimdal and Elvestuen put their hands on the glass door and look into the hallway. There is no bell to be seen. The PFDJ office for Norway is here. Here they coordinate the collection of the two percent the tax from Eritreans in Norway, says Heimdal.

The information upsets Elvestuen: “Such a tax is a robbery, a theft.”

He has been heavily involved in the ranks of Eritreans in Norway who are exposed to pressure, threats and control in Norway.

PFDJ stands for People’s Front for Democracy and Justice, and is the only legal political party in Eritrea. The office in Oslo was established in 1994.

Vårt Land has tried to get a response from PFDJ Oslo, which is organized as an association. The telephone number for the office is “not in use”. He, who is listed in the National registers as daily manager since 2011, tells Vårt Land that he no longer has this job, and that he does not remember when he quit, and does not know who fills the position today. PFDJ Oslo has no chairman. At the end of 2020, it says to read in Brønnøysund-National registers.

Outside the office entrance, there is no visible bell. Vårt Land is told that everyone who is going into the office must have made an agreement in advance.

Set up illegal embassy

In September 2016, Finansavisen revealed that the Eritrean Information Office, which shared an office with PDFJ Oslo, demanded the two percent tax from Eritreans in Norway. In the Brønnøysund registers it was registered as “Embassy of the State of Eritrea”, as a department of the Eritrean embassy in Sweden.

The then Minister for Foreign Affairs, Høgres Børge Brende, called Eritrea on the carpet: the Information Office cannot carry out tasks on behalf of the Eritrean state in Norway.

State Secretary Erling Rimestad (Ap) in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs states in an e-mail to Vårt Land that Eritrea has a Chargé d’Affaires in Stockholm who covers Norway: “Chargeen was summoned to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs regarding the matter in September 2016. He has not been summoned to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs since.”

Collects personal information

Mirjam van Reisen knows the Eritrean tax practice well. One of the countries he and the research group behind the report The 2% Tax for Eritreans in the diaspora looked at was Norway.

To Vårt Land the professor at Tilburg University in the Netherlands, tells that the two percent tax serves another important purpose, in addition to the millions in revenue for the state treasury: “Through the tax payments, the regime in Eritrea receives information about persons abroad that are used by the intelligence service, which controls citizens both inside and outside the country.”

Van Reisen says that church bells are important when the tax is to be collected. Here it is announced that the tax is about loyalty.

Must have a tax agreement

The Ministry of Finance tells Vårt Land that “the so-called 2 per cent tax raises questions about how far states’ right to impose a tax obligation on someone goes”. But communications manager Therese Riiser wrote in an e-mail that “what is clear anyway is that the authorities of other countries do not have the right to collect taxes or carry out other exercise of authority or coercive measures in Norway, without approval from the Norwegian authorities”.

Eritrea does not have such approval.

State Secretary Rimestad in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs points to the police: “It is not allowed to collect taxes using threats and coercion. The police are responsible for preventing and investigating types of offenses to which the diaspora community is exposed. Among other things, this could be unlawful coercion or threats,” he writes in an email two Our Land.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs encourages exiles to report tax collection to the police. But when this is done, the cases are not investigated.

“(…) the matter has been dropped as it is believed that there is no reasonable ground to investigate whether there are criminal circumstances”, the Oslo police concluded in a case this spring.

Hilde Heimdal in Mothers for Peace did not give up. Soon she will submit a new report to the Oslo police.

The symbol of the resistance struggle

In Bryn Church in Bærum, Habteab Dagnew sees that the poster of Patriarch Antonios is hooked down and rolled into the box. In a week, he will come again. Antonios is the very symbol of the resistance struggle.

Therefore, no one in the new church pays the two percent tax to Eritrea.

Eritrea

President Isaias Afwerki has ruled Eritrea since then the country broke loose Ethiopia in 1993.

Thousands escape every year from the long, brutal one community service.

Around 28,000 Eritreans live in Norway. The first came in the decades until they became independent in 1993, and many are loyal to the liberation leader Isaias Afwerki.

In 2015-2020, around 15,000 Eritreans applied for and received residence and protection in Norway, according to the Immigration the directorate.

The state-controlled Eritrean Orthodox Tewahdo Church is said to have around three million members at home and abroad.