Patriarch Abune Paulos

Abune Paulos is a renowned scholar and peace advocate and a former exile in the United States who has worked on reconciliation between Ethiopia and Eritrea.

Patriarch Paulos was born in 1935 and elected to office in 1992. He has made remarkable contributions to the peace and stability of the Horn since taking office. Paulos took the initiative to the series of peace meetings between all Ethiopian and Eritrean religious leaders in 1998, 1999 and 2000. The meetings were successful and all the leaders urged the two presidents to find a solution to the Ethiopian-Eritrean war.

Paulos and the Ethiopian Orthodox Church have also been especially involved in the support of war-displaced and drought-hit Ethiopians, making the Church one of the major "relief organizations" in the country, alongside with the Muslim society. His peace efforts and humanitarian work were probably the key reasons for his being chosen to receive the Nansen Medal by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNCHR).

Patriarch Paulos indeed, himself has been a refugee. He was imprisoned for seven years by the Menghistu dictatorship after the then Patriarch Theophilos (who was deposed in 1976 and murdered in prison in 1979) ordained him a bishop without government approval in 1975. Paulos was released in 1983 and spent the next years in the United States as a political refugee.