Abune Antonios

Abune Antonios (; 11 July 1929 – 9 February 2022) was the third Patriarch of the Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church. He was deposed by the Synod of Asmara in 2006, and was placed under house arrest thereafter. north of Asmara in the province of Hamasien. He was ordained priest in 1943 and later elected Abbot in 1955. When the Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church sought autocephaly, he was one of five abbots of monasteries that went to Egypt to be ordained as bishops so that the church would have its own Holy Synod. He was ordained as Bishop Antonios of Hamasien-Asmara on 19 June 1994 in Saint Mark's Coptic Orthodox Cathedral, Cairo, by Shenouda III, Pope of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria. Following the death of Yacob in 2003, he was elected Patriarch in popular elections which were unanimously endorsed by the Holy Synod of the church. His ordination and enthronement as Patriarch took place on 23 April 2004 in Asmara, at the hands of Pope Shenouda III, assisted by Eritrean and Coptic Orthodox Metropolitans and Bishops. He was the first Patriarch of Eritrea to have been enthroned who had not previously been a bishop in the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church.

Removal from church In January 2005, the Patriarch's annual Nativity message was not broadcast or televised. On 27 May 2007, he was replaced as Patriarch by Dioskoros, with the support of the Eritrean government. Antonios remained under house arrest and strict surveillance and held without charge. He reportedly seldom received visitors, including relatives, and had no telephone service. Since 2007, Antonios had been considered by the United States to be a religious prisoner of conscience.

In July 2019, in an unprecedented move, bishops of the Holy Synod of the Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church excommunicated Antonios for heresy.