Page 23 - Then Came the Glory

CHAPTER THREE
DECENCY FOR THE DEAD
Under the Emperor and during the reign of the Derg the Pentecostals suffered the degradation of having no place to bury their dead. The authorities considered a dead Pentecostal no more significant than a dead dog. Older churches refused to share their allotted graveyards, hoping to force the peoples' return to their dead religions.
In a land where embalming is unknown, a body four
days dead becomes a serious problem. Often the believers felt compelled to lay the bodies of their departed loved ones
in front of the police station or the Coptic Priest's gate to call attention to their plight. The matter did not end with the
government forcing someone to unwillingly allow burial in their cemetery. Most likely, a hired person would dig up the
body under cover of the night and ring the church bell to awake the people declaring, "The earth spits out the body because their religion is odious and unclean." They will do almost anything to give the church a bad name.
Sometimes, the believers looking for a place to bury their dear ones, would find a desolate area, not part of a farm and the very day of the funeral a local chairman would
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