ETHİOPİA - THE LAND OF EARLY CHRİSTİANS

I went to Ethiopia for the first time in 2008 with a rather large group of friends ( 15 people in all). We decided to do Northern Ethiopia, to the North of Addis Ababa, the capital of the country. We were to do the ''Historical Trail'', meaning a flight each morning.

I have to admit I did not know Ethiopia was such a profoundly Christian country before I went there. Ethiopia's most famous legend is that Belkis, the Queen of Sheeba, was from Northern Ethiopia.  Around 1083 B.C. she travelled to Jerusalem to visit King Salomon of Israel. Salomon assured her he would take nothing from her as long as she took nothing from him. He then placed a glass of water on her bedside, which Belkis drank during the night. Salomon asked for his part of the deal, and the Queen  returned to Ethiopia carrying his child, the future King Menelik. Menelik as a young man,  visited his father and returned to Ethiopia with the Ark of the Covenant taken from the Temple. (The Ark of the Covenant is a chest described in the Old Testament, Book of Exodus, as containing the tablets of stone on which the Ten Commandments are inscribed. It is also believed to contain the first Torah scroll as written by Moses. Jews believe it was lost after the destruction of the Temple by the Babylonians. Ethiopians say they have it since it was stolen from the Temple by Menelik). Menelik also brought 12.000 Israelites through North Africa, from Jerusalem to Ethiopia. He eventually became the Emperor of Ethiopia and established a dynasty that would reign for the next 3000 years. Many Ethiopians believe this legend with all their heart; the last Emperor, Haile Selassie himself claimed direct descent from King Salomon and therefore the divine right to rule and his people accepted that with no contention. This monarchy that descended from the Queen of Sheeba and King Salomon remained in power in Ethiopia until 1974, the year Haile Selassie died.
Apart from the Queen of Sheeba story, early Ethiopian ties with Judaism also find expression in other traditions still adhered to today: circumcision for all men; Saturday still being celebrated as the Sabbath; following food prescriptions akin to those of the Jews; the Falashas, an Ethiopian sect still following the Judaic religion (of which many have emigrated to Israel after the fall of the monarchy).
Ethiopia is one of the earliest Christian countries in the world. The Ethiopian church claims that Christianity first reached Axum at the time of the Apostles. What is certain is that Christianity was the state religion in the 4th century A.D. For long years, the Ethiopian Orthodox Church was ruled by the Patriarch of the Coptic Church in Egypt, and it is only in the 20th century that  the Ethiopian Orthodox Church had its own Patriarch.

Our first stop was Lake Tana, a lake with 37 islands, 20 of which house monasteries, many dating from the late 16th or early 17th centuries, but most founded much earlier. You need to visit only a couple of them to capture the magic of the place. And of course, you need a boat to do that.
Our first stop was a small monastery : Entos Eyesu where the chief priest greeted us and showed us around. On the way up to the monastery, we met some interesting people.

MAN AND WOMAN DOİNG EMBROİDERY

A MAN İS READİNG HİS BİBLE

THE CHİEF PRİEST

ANOTHER PRİEST WİTH HİS BİBLE.

From there we continued to another island where the Ura Kidane Meret Monastery is. This is the region's most famous monastery as can be witnessed by the large number of stalls lining the way up from the lake to the main church, a fifteen minutes walk,  and the large number of people wanting you to buy something. 

As all local churches, Ura Kidane Meret is round too with the Coptic cross on top. What is most interesting though are the wall paintings of Biblical stories . Some are interpreted in such a way I have not seen in any other country.  

THE ENTRANCE

THE CLASSİCAL VİRGİN MARY AND BABY JESUS



JESUS ON THE CROSS

PRİESTS ALSO VİSİT CHURCHES

MARY BREAST FEEDİNG BABY JESUS.
YOU DO NOT OFTEN SEE THE BREAST OF MARY

THİS EVEN LESS

FURİOUS MARY SCOLDİNG LİTTLE JESUS FOR
BREAKİNG A CLAY WATER JUG.
WHERE ELSE HAVE YOU SEEN THİS ?

Then return to the hotel and sunset on Lake Tana. Tomorrow we are going to Lalibela.

Lalibela, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, ranks among the greatest religious-historical sites in the Christian world and  is one of Ethiopia's holiest cities and center of pilgrimage for much of the country. Furthermore, Lalibela is famous for its rock-cut churches, connected by a labyrinth of tunnels and passageways. The town and its churches were built during the reign of King Lalibela (late 12th and early 13th centuries) who spent his youth in Jerusalem and the Holy Land. As Jerusalem was captured by the Muslim army of Salaadin in 1187 halting Christian pilgrimage to the Holy Land, King Lalibela decided to build a New Jerusalem in Ethiopia. As such, many places in Lalibela have biblical names and even the town's river is known as the River Jordan.
There are eleven churches in Lalibela, not constructed in the traditional way from individual bricks, but rather hewn from the monolithic blocks of rocks. Every church is carved out of one piece of rock from above with ground level roofs. The church is totally freed from the rock which is further chiseled out, forming doors, windows, columns and roofs. Each church is still a working church, though some too small for holding a mass inside. In the bigger churches, there are dark corridors, rugs cover the floors and incense is burning. Each church has its own resident priest dressed in long robes and holding huge crosses made out of solid silver. And there are the pilgrims at every corner, chanting with beads, monks reading the Bible, priests blessing the pilgrims with their crosses. Centuries old rituals and traditions are being upheld here and the whole atmosphere is pretty amazing. This world stands as if frozen in stone.

The only problem while visiting the churches is caused by the structures UNESCO built to supposedly preserve the churches. Those structures are not at all pleasing to the eye and do little more than protecting the roof of the churches. They do not seem to protect the sides from the sun and the rain.

BET MEDHANE ALEM - SAVİOUR OF THE WORLD CHURCH
LARGEST ROCK-HEWN CHURCH İN THE WORLD
RUİNED BY THE HORRİBLE UNESCO PROTECTİON

THE ROOF İS AT GROUND LEVEL
YOU GO DOWN TO WALK AROUND THE CHURCH

PRİESTS PREPARİNG DİNNER

MASS TİME
LET US RİNG THE BELL







İNSİDE BET MARYAM - SMALL CHURCH DEDİCATED TO THE VİRGİN,

PARTICULARLY  VENERATED İN ETHİOPİA

PRİESTS GİVİNG ABLUTİONS TO BELİEVERS

THE PRİESTS WİTH THEİR CEREMONİAL ROBES

EVERY COLUMN AND ARCH İS DECORATED

BEAUTİFUL PİLGRİM

LADY READİNG HER BİBLE

HARD WALK

PİLGRİMS BETWEEN CHURCHES

THİS GİRL İS KİSSİNG THE WALL WHİLE PRAYİNG
ANOTHER İNFLUENCE OF JUDAİSM :
 THE WALL OF LAMENTATIONS İN JERUSALEM

Now to Bet Giyorgis , Church of St George the patron saint of Ethiopia, Lalibela's masterpiece in my opinion. This church is the most visually perfect of all, a 15 meters high building in the shape of a Greek cross. And being in good condition, it luckily enough did not require a UNESCO protection.

Visiting Lalibela has been an awesome experience that I would recommend to all. But a traveller must go on and the next morning we flew to Axum.

Axum was the capital of the ancient kingdom of Axum which was once one of the most powerful kingdoms of the Ancient World. It had control over both sides of the Red Sea. Axum was also the place where Christianity entered Ethiopia and it is still believed by Ethiopians that it is the resting place of the Ark of the Covenant. Axum is famous for its massive stelae, ruins of palaces and underground tombs and is a Unesco World Heritage site. But for me , Axum was a disappointment. The stelae in the field were lying on the ground broken, failing to impress me how hard I tried, the tombs were not that interesting and the palace ruins were too much ruin and less palace.

A TOMB

PALACE REMAİNS

THE TALLEST STELEA İN THE WORLD
LYİNG ON THE GROUND (33M)

THE ROME STELAE OR AXUM OBELİSK.
SHİPPED TO ITALY ON MUSSOLİNİ'S ORDERS İN 1937,
RETURNED İN 2005 AND BEİNG ACTUALLY ERECTED.

What was much more interesting was a funeral taking place just in front of the stelae field.

FLAGS ARE CARRİED AND THE DRUM İS ON

THE COFFİN İS İN THE MİDDLE OF THE STREET
FOR PEOPLE TO PAY THEİR RESPECT

THE PRİESTS ACCOMPANY İT.
THEY WİLL THEN TAKE İT TO THE CHURCH
BEFORE BURİAL.

GROUP OF WAİLİNG WOMEN.

The girls weaving baskets and the such in front of the museum of the stelae field were also more colorful.

Our next stop was the Saint Mary of Zion Churches; there are two churches here, the huge new Church of St Mary built by Emperor Haile  Selassie in 1960 and the old church built by Emperor Fasiladas in 1665. It seems the original Church of St Mary of Zion was the first ever to be built in Sub-Saharan Africa in 330, but nothing remains of it.  It is in the old church into which only men can enter, in a carefully guarded chapel into which nobody can enter, that the Ark of the Covenant is said to be kept. The Ark is a vital part of the Ethiopian Orthodox religion. All churches have a replica of the Ark but the real Ark is here, guarded by a priest selected by the highest in the hierarchy of the Ethiopian Orthodox religion. Once this priests enters the chapel, he never comes out until his death. He is there for life and is not allowed to answer any question such as ''is it there ?'' ; ''what does it look like?'' which anyway are not questions at all for Ethiopians because it is part of their faith that the Ark is there.

THE NEW CHURCH

THE OLD CHURCH

THE CHAPEL WHERE THE ARK İS KEPT

I HAVE NEVER SEEN CHRISTIANS PRAY THİS WAY İN A CHURCH.
COULD THİS BE AN İNFLUENCE OF ISLAM ?

BELİEVERS

Returning to our hotel, we saw a crowd, all wearing white, going to the church next to it. They chanted religious songs all through the night and were still there in the morning. It was a sight I enjoyed a lot.  

 

The next morning it was time to fly back to Addis Ababa. On the way from the airport we saw a Sunday mass and stopped. It was very interesting : a very Christian mass with very African drums beating the rhythm for gospels.  

GOSPELS SUNG AT THE BEAT OF A DRUM

THE CONGREGATION ALL İN WHİTE

THİS MUST BE THE SUNDAY UMBRELLA

 

I am very happy to have visited Ethiopia, or at least the Northern part of it. I saw and learned things I did not expect. I did not expect Christianity to have such old and deep roots in Ethiopia. I did not expect Ethiopians to be such proud people : you cannot even give candies to children . And that is explained by another thing I did not know : that Ethiopia is the only country in Africa that has never been a colony under the domination of a European country, if you do not count the two-three decades where Mussolini  sent his troops there. I did not know Judaism had such an influence here. I did not know a place like Lalibela could exist in Africa. And that is the result of European counter-propaganda telling us anything African cannot be developed since Africans are second-grade humans (!). I saw a lot, learned a lot , what more could I want ?