Christianity in Eritrea is one of the oldest continuous Christian traditions in the world, going back roughly 1,700 years, and Christians make up about 47 percent of the population today. Yet the Eritrean government legally recognizes only three Christian denominations, and believers who fall outside them risk arrest, indefinite detention, and the loss of the identity documents needed for work, school, and travel.1United States Department of State. 2023 Report on International Religious Freedom: Eritrea
An Ancient Christian Tradition
Christianity reached the region through the Kingdom of Aksum, a trading empire that spanned parts of what are now Eritrea and Ethiopia. Around 324 AD, King Ezana converted after the influence of Frumentius, a Syrian Christian brought to the royal court as a young captive. Frumentius later traveled to Alexandria, was ordained a bishop by St. Athanasius, and returned to establish a formal church under Aksumite patronage. Tradition holds that 44 churches were founded during Ezana’s reign.
The church that grew from that foundation follows the Oriental Orthodox tradition and is known today as the Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church. “Tewahedo” means “being made one,” reflecting the Oriental Orthodox belief in the single, unified nature of Christ. For centuries the church operated under the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria, which appointed its top clergy. After Eritrea gained independence from Ethiopia in 1993, Pope Shenouda III of Alexandria granted the Eritrean church autocephaly in 1994, giving it its own patriarch and full administrative independence.
The Three Legally Recognized Christian Churches
Only three Christian bodies are permitted to operate legally in Eritrea: the Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church, the Roman Catholic Church, and the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Eritrea. Sunni Islam is the fourth and only other recognized faith.2United States Department of State. 2022 Report on International Religious Freedom: Eritrea Recognition allows these groups to own property, hold public worship, and maintain their institutions. The Orthodox church is by far the largest; the Catholic and Lutheran communities are much smaller.
Recognition does not mean independence. The government intervenes in church governance, including leadership appointments. In January 2006, authorities removed Patriarch Abune Antonios, spiritual leader of more than two million Orthodox faithful, after he demanded the release of imprisoned Christians and refused pressure to excommunicate members of a church movement.3Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission. Abune Antonios He was placed under house arrest, later moved to an undisclosed location, and reportedly denied medical care. A replacement patriarch was installed in 2007. Antonios died in state custody on February 9, 2022, at the age of 94, after 16 years of confinement.4United States Commission on International Religious Freedom. Abune Antonios
The 2002 Registration Decree
The legal instrument that shapes religious life in Eritrea is a May 2002 decree requiring every religious group to register with the state or stop operating. Facilities of every group outside the four recognized faiths were closed.5U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. RIC Query – Eritrea (28 January 2003) The 1997 constitution guarantees freedom of thought, conscience, and belief, but it was never implemented, which leaves the 2002 decree as the controlling authority.6United States Institute of Peace. Constitution Making in Eritrea: A Process-Driven Approach No new group has been approved since the decree took effect, so the registration process functions in practice as a permanent ban on every faith community outside the original four.
Christians Outside the Recognized Churches
The Christians most directly affected by the decree are Pentecostals and Evangelicals, often referred to collectively in Eritrea as P’ent’ay, along with Jehovah’s Witnesses and Seventh-day Adventists. They cannot hold public worship, build or maintain meeting places, or openly share their faith. Members who gather privately in homes risk arrest if discovered.7U.S. Department of State. 2021 Report on International Religious Freedom: Eritrea
The consequences reach far beyond worship. Members of unrecognized groups are routinely denied government-issued identity documents, which are required for employment, higher education, and travel. Jehovah’s Witnesses have been in an especially difficult position since October 1994, when President Isaias Afewerki issued a decree stating that they had revoked their own citizenship by declining to participate in the 1993 independence referendum and refusing national service. Their identity cards and travel documents were confiscated, their business licenses revoked, and they were barred from government employment.8The European Association of Jehovah’s Christian Witnesses. UPR Submission: Eritrea That status has not changed in the three decades since.
National Service and the Absence of Conscientious Objection
Every Eritrean citizen between the ages of 18 and 50 must perform national service. The law sets the term at 18 months, split between six months of military training and twelve months of deployment, but in 2002 the government extended service indefinitely, so conscripts can be held for years or decades. Eritrean law contains no provision for conscientious objector status.9United States Department of State. 2023 Report on International Religious Freedom: Eritrea
Religious practice is banned inside the military. Conscripts caught with religious materials or attending religious gatherings face severe punishment. Those who refuse to serve at all are detained, sentenced to hard labor, and stripped of their legal documents. Three Jehovah’s Witnesses have been imprisoned without trial since 1994 for refusing military service, making them among the longest-held religious prisoners of conscience anywhere in the world.10U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. USCIRF Annual Report 2018: Eritrea As of 2024, at least 32 Jehovah’s Witnesses were detained specifically for refusing to serve or renounce their faith.9United States Department of State. 2023 Report on International Religious Freedom: Eritrea Students must also complete their final year of high school at the Sawa Military Training Center; those who do not receive discharge papers cannot access formal employment or travel.11U.S. Department of State. July-December 2010 International Religious Freedom Report: Eritrea
Detention and Prison Conditions
Eritrea holds hundreds of people in prison for their religious beliefs. According to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, more than 350 Christians were imprisoned as of mid-2024, including over 80 arrested in just the first five months of that year. Sixty-three Jehovah’s Witnesses remained in prison as of October 2024. Broader estimates place the total number of prisoners of conscience of all kinds at around 10,000, held across more than 300 facilities.12U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. USCIRF Annual Report 2025: Eritrea
Detainees are held without formal charges and without trial, often for years. Prisoners are kept in military facilities, police stations, and in some cases metal shipping containers that become dangerously hot in Eritrea’s climate. Reports of torture, physical abuse, and sustained pressure to renounce one’s faith as a condition of release are consistent across multiple reporting periods. Release has sometimes been conditioned on a written statement formally abandoning the prisoner’s religious beliefs.7U.S. Department of State. 2021 Report on International Religious Freedom: Eritrea
International Designation
The United States has designated Eritrea a Country of Particular Concern for religious freedom violations every year since 2004.13U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. USCIRF Annual Report 2022: Eritrea That designation, established under the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998, applies to governments engaged in systematic, ongoing, and egregious violations, including torture, prolonged detention without charges, and forced disappearances.14U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. 2026 Recommendations In its 2026 annual report, USCIRF again recommended that the State Department redesignate Eritrea.15U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. USCIRF Annual Report 2026: Eritrea The U.S. has imposed targeted sanctions on Eritrean agencies and officials, but the government continues to hold religious prisoners and has not moved to loosen the registration framework or recognize conscientious objection.16U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. USCIRF Releases New Report on Eritreas Religious Freedom Violations Two decades of sustained international pressure have produced no measurable change on the ground.