Meserete Kristos Church

Meserete Kristos Church is a Mennonite denomination in Ethiopia (P'ent'ay/Evangelical). It is a member

of the Mennonite World Conference. The headquarters are in Addis Ababa.

History
The Church has its origins in an American mission of the Lancaster Mennonite Conference in the 1940s. [1]
The first church was founded in 1951 in Addis Ababa. Meserete Kristos Church (meaning "Christ is the
foundation Church", based on I Cor. 3:11) was officially founded in 1959. [2] According to a census
published in 2022, it would have 1160 churches and 370,909 baptized members.[3]

Meserete Kristos College

The college was located in Addis Ababa until January 2007. Since its founding in 1994, the college has
produced 262 graduates,[4] and had 110 full-time and 42 part-time students enrolled in the fall of 2006.[5]
Construction of a permanent campus in Bishoftu is underway.[6] In January 2007, all physical assets were
moved to the new campus, and classes began there on February 6. The five-story education building, the
first of 11 planned buildings, is half-completed, and currently houses all classrooms, academic offices,
library, and language and computer labs. A men's residence was completed in 2010. Negash Kebede was
installed as College President on 11 March 2007.[4] Kiros Teka Haddis was installed as President on
September 12, 2012.[7] Fall 2014 enrollment at the college was 214 students (183 male, 31 female).[8]

See also
Christianity in Ethiopia

Notes
1. Girma Bekele, The In-Between People: A Reading of David Bosch through the Lens of
Mission History and Contemporary Challenges In Ethiopia, Wipf and Stock Publishers,
USA, 2011, p. 225
2. Girma Bekele, The In-Between People: A Reading of David Bosch through the Lens of
Mission History and Contemporary Challenges In Ethiopia, Wipf and Stock Publishers,
USA, 2011, p. 225
3. Mennonite World Conference, Global map (https://mwc-cmm.org/global-map), mwc-
cmm.org, Canada, retrieved September 19, 2022
4. Meserete Kristos College Newsletter (May 2007).
5. "Meserete Kristos College moves in," The Mennonite, 15 May 2007
6. "Meserete Kristos College" (https://web.archive.org/web/20190830022618/http://mkcollege.o
rg/). Archived from the original (http://www.mkcollege.org/) on 2019-08-30. Retrieved
2006-05-25.
7. Meserete Kristos College Newsletter (September 2012).
 8. Meserete Kristos College Newsletter (December 2014): 1.

Relevant literature
Mashas, Andrew. 2017. Buried we will grow. Anabaptist Witness. Article about MKC for
American audience (http://www.anabaptistwitness.org/journal_entry/buried-we-will-grow/)
Hege, Nathan B. 1998. Beyond Our Prayers: Anabaptist Church Growth in Ethiopia, 1948–
1998. (Scottdale, PA: Herald).

External links
Mennonite World Review's articles on the history and growth of the Meserete Kristos Church
(https://archive.today/20130916210634/http://www.mennoworld.org/subject/meserete-kristos
-church/)
Meserete Kristos Church (http://gameo.org/index.php?title=Meserete_Kristos_Church) at
Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online

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