 While the TPLF's organization of schools and clinics in the rural areas advanced the movement's popularity, its Marxist–Leninist sympathies risked gaining the enmity of the powerful Ethiopian Orthodox Church and offending the strong religious beliefs of the Tigrayan peasants.The Derg's approach to the established church was ill-adapted to winning popular support, due to its victimization of students and teachers.Distributing church lands was widely approved of, but atheism and attacks on church dogma, practices and priests were abhorred by the conservative Tigrayan peasants.