Abune Antonios, a confined Eritrean Orthodox Church patriarch and the longest-serving prisoner of conscience in the Horn of Africa, died on February 9 at the age of 94.
He was still serving detention in the Eritrean capital, Asmara, after his arrest in 2006 just two years after his installation as the third patriarch of the Eritrean Orthodox Church. For 16 years, he was kept in solitary confinement under the orders of the country’s authoritarian leader, President Isaias Afwerki, for his resistance to government interference in the ancient church.
Eritrea has long been on the US State Department’s list of worst religious freedom violators, and ranks No. 6 on Open Doors’ 2022 list of where Christian persecution is worst.
Rashad Hussain, the newly confirmed US religious freedom ambassador, said in a tweet that he was “saddened by the news” and that “Patriarch Abune Antonios was a true leader.”
“It is very unfortunate that the patriarch died while in detention. There was no reason for the government of Eritrea to put him in detention,” Francis Kuria, the secretary general of the African Council of Religious Leaders, told RNS. “The Orthodox Church in Eritrea and elsewhere is always very supportive of the people’s development.”