Autocephaly was granted, not seized.
The Eritrean bishops went to Alexandria, and Pope Shenouda III consecrated the first Eritrean bishops in 1994 and enthroned the first patriarch in 1998 — with the Ethiopian church's consent on record. Eritrean clergy insist on this sequence; some Ethiopian voices still describe the separation as a political amputation performed on a church.
The sequence matters to both churches. The Coptic Holy Synod agreed in 1993 to grant autocephaly, consecrated five Eritrean bishops in 1994, and Pope Shenouda III enthroned Abune Phillipos as the first Eritrean patriarch in 1998; the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church recognised the new patriarchate. Relations between the two national churches then tracked the relations between the two states, including through the 1998-2000 border war. Eritrean clergy describe the process as canonical and consensual; the frankest Ethiopian accounts describe it as consented to under political pressure.
The same ground, other faiths
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