The streets of San Fernando were ablaze in colour on Sunday as members of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church, St Peter’s Parish, participated in a street procession in celebration of Emancipation.
Dressed in beautiful African attire and accompanied by the Cadet Force band, members burned incense and rang bells as they walked from the church in Cocoyea Village to Pointe-a-Pierre Road.
They were joined by Archbishop Abuna Thaddaeus of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church in the Caribbean and Latin America, who earlier officiated at a special service at the church as part of their 31st Emancipation celebrations.
Thaddaeus said they gave thanks to God for his mercies and goodness and prayed for the nation. On the troubling issue of crime, he said crime occurred because of disobedience and lawlessness.
He advised people to keep themselves busy and productive, saying, “Everybody, as families, as parents, as government, as the church, my advice is to pray to be productive.”
Parish Priest Kes Gabre Yesus Lesanne-Selassai said as an Ethiopian Orthodox Church, they were a light and hope for the freedom of Africans, as Ethiopia was never enslaved.
Lesanne-Selassai noted that spiritual enslavement was the main form of slavery still affecting people and that the struggle continued.
Commenting on the crime situation, he said there was a “whole system” worldwide feeding crime.
“Drugs and guns—who bringing them into the country? Is not the poor little black boy in Laventille. Who giving them guns? That is being orchestrated,” he said.
“I don’t know who will reach out to the youths and give them the strength to see themselves as brothers and sisters and stop killing one another. I hope one day we pray for that, but it is not an easy situation.”
From this year in T&T, the Emancipation Day holiday on August 1 has been renamed African Emancipation Day.