Merkorios remained Patriarch for three years until 1991, when the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) overthrew the Communist military junta known as Derg in Addis Ababa.
Abune Merkorios would later face accusations of not only having kept silent during the horrors of the "Red Terror" in Gondar, but of having a particularly close relationship with Governor Melaku.
These allegations of closeness to the Communist Derg regime helped undermine the Patriarch, when the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) came to power.
[3] The following year he fled to Kenya, later relocating to the United States in 1997, where churches had begun to secede from the synod in Ethiopia following the leadership of Abuna Yesehaq.
However, the sudden deaths of both Patriarch Abune Paulos and Prime Minister Meles Zenawi caused efforts to slow down as the synod in Ethiopia went through a leadership transition.