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 A 3,000-Year-Old Christian Church?
Catholics in Ethiopia face two major challenges: coping with their country’s recent disasters, and finding a way to come to grips with the peculiar ancient traditions of the local Orthodox Church.

By Nicholas Jubber

Dwarfed by the baroque edifice of Saint Peter’s Basilica, the pastry-colored church of San Stefano dei Mori is arguably Vatican City’s most unusual building. Its spartan 9th-century nave guides the visitor towards a baldacchino so lacking in elaboration that it looks like a poor man’s prototype for its spiralling counterpart in Saint Peter’s. A cavernous cryptoporticus winds past tiny stone cells once inhabited by ascetic pilgrims, who are commemorated in inscriptions scrawled into the walls: some of these are in Latin, but others display a more esoteric tongue. The lopsided characters belong to the Ethiopian dialect of Amharic, the language of the pilgrims who made San Stefano’s their home between 1481 and the construction of a Pontifical College in the Vatican Gardens in 1929.

At the new Pontifical College, seminarians (who came from the land now known as Eritrea as well as from Ethiopia) received the blessing of Pope Pius XI when, shortly after its foundation, he extolled “the love we foster for you and your noble fatherland Ethiopia, beloved to us as well as to you.” Visited by successive popes, as well as the last Ethiopian Emperor, Haile Selassie, in 1970, the Ethiopian College represents an engagement between the papacy and Africa’s oldest Christian community that stretches back to the 12th century.

Terra incognita
At that time, Pope Alexander III betrayed European ignorance about the only Christian state in pre-colonial Africa when he addressed its ruler as “King of the Indies.” Isolated from Christendom by its landlocked status and its hostile neighbors, Ethiopia was, as the 19th-century emperor Menelik II put it, “an island in the sea of Islam.”

Legends abounded in Europe, depicting Ethiopia as a land of plenty, the home of the mythical potentate Prester John, the Lost Tribes of Israel, vast reserves of silver and gold, and the Elixir of Life. When the Franciscan friar Francisco Alvares accompanied the first European mission to successfully penetrate the Ethiopian interior, in the early 16th century, he marveled at local traditions that seemed a far cry from his own: Lenten penances that included immersion in a tank of water and a prohibition against sitting down; unfamiliar dietary laws; large-scale ordinations; and the custom of “leaping upwards” at Mass. Fra Francisco pointed out that “the service of God, in whatever manner it was done, seemed to us good.” But many of his compatriots disagreed.

Later Portuguese missions attempted to change the practices of the local Christians, and to convert them to Catholicism. When Ethiopia was invaded by the Muslim emirate of Adal in the 16th century, the Portuguese king sent both musketeers and missionaries. According to Abba Tekle, rector of the Pontifical College:

They liberated Ethiopia, but then they wanted to change the alphabet, the culture, everything. So the people revolted; they overthrew the government because it was full of Portuguese, and from that moment there was a historical hatred of Catholicism.

The Ethiopian attitude toward Catholicism was definitely not improved when, in 1935-1936, the Italian army of Mussolini used mustard gas and superior artillery to bombard Ethiopia into submission, and attempted to replace the Orthodox patriarch with a Catholic.

Abba Tekle, a Catholic Eritrean who divides his time between his home country and Italy, believes that hostility towards the Catholic Church is only now beginning to diminish. He relates:

After they expelled the Portuguese, Ethiopia went on without any Catholics until the Capuchins tried to infiltrate the country in the 18th century. But the Ethiopians hanged them as they soon as they discovered they were Catholics. Until recently, Catholics were considered even worse than Muslims. But now this is changing, with better education.

Modern missionaries
The first missionary to succeed in Ethiopia in the modern era was the Vincentian St. Giustino de Jacobis, who penetrated the interior in 1840. “He dressed like them,” explains Abba Tekle, “and he spoke their language and entered their culture. He respected them.”

The Vincentian saint succeeded in evangelizing in Eritrea and Tigray, the northern province of today’s Ethiopia. He also developed a unique approach to the liturgy, creating a new ritual that used the traditional language, Ge’ez, which was already familiar to Ethiopians who had experienced the Orthodox liturgy. “He mixed the Latin rite with the Orthodox Church to create an Oriental Catholic rite,” says Abba Tekle.

Perhaps mindful of how the earlier Portuguese missionaries had been expelled, the Vatican welcomed de Jacobis’ policy, which incorporated the Ethiopian calendar—along with the use of leavened bread and local musical traditions—into a rite that was recognizable to Ethiopians, but also acceptable to Rome. “There ought to be one faith,” Pope Pius IX wrote in 1850 to a powerful provincial ruler, “just as there is one God and one Christ, but this truth in no way prevents different nations from using different rites, as was certainly done by the Fathers of the Holy Church.”

De Jacobis was consecrated apostolic vicar of Abyssinia (the alternative name for Ethiopia) in 1849 by the Capuchin missionary Msgr. Guglielmo Massaia. But despite his respect for the Vincentians, Msgr. Massaia pursued a different tactic when evangelizing in the predominantly pagan regions of southern Ethiopia. He introduced the Latin rite there. It might be said that Massaia was less sensitive than de Jacobis to the cultural legacy of Ethiopia. On the other hand in the south, where the Orthodox influence was minimal, Massaia encountered people who had no experience of Christian liturgy, and so he had no need to incorporate the features of another rite. More importantly, he was evangelizing among tribes whose animist beliefs and pagan practices were clearly antithetical to Christianity, and the clear opposition between the native culture and the Gospel message left him with little opportunity for compromises of any sort.

In northern Ethiopia today, Abba Tekle observes, there is little difference between the Orthodox and Catholic rites. The principal doctrinal dispute between the two bodies concerns the question of Christ’s divinity: Ethiopian Orthodoxy —a branch of the Oriental Orthodox movement that broke with Rome after the Council of Chalcedon in 451—asserts the tawahedo or unification of Christ’s human and divine natures, as opposed to the Catholic theory of hypostasis. The Orthodox also agree with the Byzantine Orthodox concept of the procession of the Holy Spirit: the stance that gave rise to later debates over the Filioque clause in the Nicene Creed. Otherwise, the doctrines of the Ethiopian Orthodox are rarely distinguishable from those of Catholicism.

“In general,” suggests Marc d’Souza, a representative of Catholic Relief Services (CRS) in Addis Ababa, “the theology of the two religions is almost identical—with the one major difference being that the Ethiopian Orthodox Church does not recognize the supremacy of the Bishop of Rome.” But it is the very lack of differences, Abba Tekle believes, that gives rise to hostilities between the two churches. “The Orthodox hierarchy know that there is no difference between us and them,” he claims, “and this is why they fear the Catholics. Because if they admit this, many people will convert to Catholicism.”

There is another reason, too, for the failure of Ethiopian Catholics to make any major inroads on the dominance of the Orthodox Church among the country’s Christians. “The Orthodox Church is a national church,” explains Abba Tekle, “so being Orthodox is being Ethiopian. Being a Muslim, or a Catholic, you [seem to] have been influenced by a foreign power, and Ethiopians are very suspicious of foreigners.”

But if there are few differences between the Ethiopian Orthodox and Catholic churches on the level of defined doctrine, there are very pronounced differences between the traditions of Ethiopian Christianity and those of their co-religionists elsewhere. As Abba Tekle points out, “we are an isolated country, so many ideas and beliefs have developed that have not been accepted in other parts of the world.” Some of those traditions have been successfully incorporated into the Ethiopian Catholic rite. Others, as interpreted by the Orthodox Church, are certainly in tension with the teachings of Catholicism.

Solomon’s legacy
The absorption of Ethiopian traditions into the Catholic rite—which is practiced today not only at Santo Stefano, but also by the majority of the approximately 200,000 Catholics living in Ethiopia—is epitomized by the presence in the college chapel of a tabot. “Without a tabot,” insists Abba Tekle, “it is not a church.” The tabot is a rectangular wooden tablet, which invokes a remarkable tradition that stretches back to King Solomon. That tradition is recorded in an epic tale of the 14th century, the Kebra Nagast (Glory of the Kings), which was composed by Orthodox monks to honor King Amda Seyon.

The Kebra Nagast has its beginnings in the Biblical account of the meeting between King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, whose realm covered what is now Ethiopia. As the epic tells the story, the queen, whose name was Makeda, visited Solomon in Jerusalem to learn his religion, and was converted to Judaism. During her stay, Solomon tricked her into sleeping with him. When she returned to Ethiopia, she gave birth to a son, whom she named Menelik. Having reached manhood, Menelik travelled to Jerusalem, where he was welcomed by Solomon and offered the throne. But Menelik had promised Makeda that he would return to Ethiopia, so he refused. Solomon insisted that he should be accompanied home by the eldest sons of his nobles. Before they left Jerusalem (as the Kebra Nagast tells the story), this group stole the Ark of the Covenant, which they carried down the Takkaze river and deposited in Ethiopia. Consequently, the epic makes the claim: “The people of Ethiopia were chosen from among idols and graven images, and the people of Israel were rejected. The daughters of Zion were rejected, and the daughters of Ethiopia were honored.” Ethiopia, the legend asserts, became the new Zion.

The belief that Ethiopian kings inherited divine sanction from their lineal connection with Solomon persisted well into the 20th century, to the reign of Haile Selassie, who was accorded the imperial title “Lion of Judah.” Despite his deposition in 1974, and the demolition of the monarchy, the belief in divine favor has survived. It is particularly prevalent in the northern regions of Ethiopia, where ancient and medieval churches and shrines contribute to the perpetuation of traditions conceived long before their construction.

In the ancient city of Axum, near the Eritrean border, where King Ezana was converted to Christianity by the Roman merchant Frumentius in the early 4th century, there is a small granite chapel fortified by barbed iron railings. The guardian of this little chapel proclaims, and most Ethiopian Christians believe, that he is the protector of the Ark of the Covenant. Such is the aura of mystery attached to this artifact that no one, not even the Patriarch of the Orthodox Church, is allowed to look upon it. But the Ark—and the tabotat that are kept in every church and carried in processions during religious festivals as its replicas—to this day is regarded one of the cornerstones of Ethiopian Christianity.

The claim to possess the Ark of the Covenant is only one of several traditions that distinguish Ethiopian Christians from their co-religionists elsewhere. During my travels in Ethiopia, wizened priests wrapped in the yellow drapes that indicate their office showed me the jaundiced pages of medieval texts that are integral components of the Orthodox canon. These include several books of apocrypha. The Book of Enoch incorporates a vision of world history and the Apocalypse; it was lost to the West until copies were stolen by a Scottish explorer in the 18th century. In the Ascension of Isaiah, the Hebrew prophet foretells the life and death of Christ. And the Apocalypse of Baruch is a mystical text set in the aftermath of Nebuchadnezzar’s destruction of Jerusalem in 586 BC. A study of the more detailed illustrations on mak’das chambers that enclose the tabotat points to the existence of unfamiliar stories that local worshippers attribute to the Bible. When I enquired about a depiction of Jesus, wrapped in his mother’s arms and facing a squadron of Herod’s soldiers who were being consumed by a fire-breathing dragon, I was informed that this was a well known incident from the New Testament.

Another tradition, which Ethiopian Orthodoxy shares with the Coptic Church in Egypt (under whose jurisdiction it fell until the 1950s), emphasizes the importance attached to fasting. “We fast on all holy days,” explains Abouna Qawstos, Archbishop of the Ethiopian Orthodox community in Jerusalem, “and therefore for 200 days in the year. We fast for Jesus Christ’s fast in the wild, because our Church retains the customs of Jesus’ time.” Such abstentions include a prohibition against all animal-based foods every Wednesday and Friday, and a 55-day Lenten fast.

But the traditions that most differentiate Ethiopian from other Christian creeds pertain to the Jewish influences—which, according to the legend, were carried back from Jerusalem by Makeda. As Abba Tekle suggests, “the Ethiopian culture is mainly Jewish—the way they pray, the way they worship.” Their unique traditions often cause some understandable confusion about the religious affiliations of Ethiopian people. As the Israeli expert on Ethiopian history, Dr. Steven Kaplan, puts it: “You’ve got a man called Zara Ibrahim, he rests on the Sabbath, he was circumcised at eight days old, he doesn’t eat pork. The chances are 99 percent that he’s a Christian.”

Orthodox Ethiopians insist that the similarities between their rituals and those of Judaism are indicative of the integrity of their faith. Archbishop Qawstos claims:

Before Jesus Christ, we were Jewish. Then we converted to Christ. So the Ethiopian Church is three thousand years old. We believe in the Old and the New Testaments. Some churches only believe in the New Testament, and the Jews believe only in the Old Testament, but we believe in both.

Ethiopia’s Jewish heritage was, until recently, further attested by its Falasha community. Claiming the same Solomonic heritage as their Christian compatriots, the Falashas developed a brand of Judaism that excluded post-Solomonic festivals such as Purim and Hanukkah, and the Mishnah and Talmud texts, and included non-rabbinical books such as the Apocalypse of Gorgorios and the Death of Moses. Consequently, there were disputes about their rabbinical status; but these were reconciled in the 1970s, after which nearly all the Falashas were airlifted to Israel.

United by disaster
Despite its venerable history, the Orthodox Church is now beginning to lose ground to newly emerging Christian denominations, brought to the African nation by Western missionaries. According to Abba Tekle, “the Protestant church is very popular with the young, and has succeeded in converting 5 to 6 million people in a very short time.” Such achievements have caused resentment among Orthodox traditionalists. Minor skirmishes have occurred in recent years, including stone-throwing at Pentecostal services, arrests, and a demonstration against the construction of a Protestant church.

The Catholic Church has managed to avoid such confrontations with Orthodox believers because, as Abba Tekle points out, “we don’t purposefully try to convert the Orthodox to the Catholic rite, but try to maintain good ecumenical relations, whereas the Protestants are purposefully setting out to convert, and are succeeding.” Marc d’Souza of CRS notes another crucial difference between the Catholic and Protestant approaches: “Since the vast majority of the Catholic Church’s growth is taking place in the southern and western parts of the country—where the population is mostly animist, not Orthodox—relations between the two churches is mostly good.” The Catholic Church also enjoys good relations, he believes, with the government. He explains that the government looks upon the Catholic Church as a valuable social influence: “On the whole, the Catholic identity in Ethiopia is quite positive, as the Church manages some of the best schools, vocational training institutes, and health facilities in the country.”

The social programs operated by the Catholic Church in Ethiopia also provide a means of fostering unity between Ethiopian Catholics and Orthodox. Local Catholics enjoy strong ties with the West, and organizations such as CRS—which has sustained a presence in Ethiopia since 1958—bring crucial support to needy Catholics and Orthodox believers alike. Further, as d’Souza observes, “the majority of staff at the CRS office are Orthodox.” He adds that the staff also includes “a handful of Muslims and Protestants.”

The need for distinct religious groups to work together has been amplified by the torrent of disasters with which Ethiopia has been visited in recent decades. The fall of the monarchy was preceded— and in part caused by—a long period of famine. The widespread famine recurred in subsequent years, most notably in the aftermath of the drought of 1984-1985.

Meanwhile, after the fall of the monarchy, the country fell under the control of the Derg, a military junta that was characterized by violent instability and —especially under the leadership of Mengistu Haile Maryam—fierce repression. And after the Derg finally fell and democracy was established in 1991, Ethiopia was plunged into a new series of disasters: a civil war, a border war with Eritrea, further famine, a drought in 2000 and flooding a year later, and the twin disasters of malaria and AIDS. The spread of AIDS today, d’Souza warns, is particularly alarming. “After South Africa and India,” he explains, “more people are infected by HIV/AIDS in Ethiopia than any other country in the world. At last count, an estimated 2.6 million people (or 7.6 percent of the 15-49 age group) are living with the virus, with one million children left orphaned by the epidemic.”

As the Ethiopian people faced these trials, Christian churches united to assist them. For example, the Joint Relief Partnership—a conglomerate of Catholic, Orthodox, Evangelical Protestant, and Lutheran groups—was inaugurated during the 1984-1985 drought to combat the effects of that disaster. “The Joint Relief Partnership,” d’Souza reports, “has been one of the principal mechanisms for channeling over 1 million metric tons of emergency food aid to drought-affected communities throughout Ethiopia over the past fifteen years.”

Today, the Joint Relief Partnership is devoting more of its attention to a new effort, supporting peace initiatives on the tense border that separates Ethiopia from its former province, Eritrea. Despite the June 2000 cease-fire that officially ended a two-year border dispute, Abba Tekle believes that the situation is still “in turmoil: there is no goodwill.” His fears are reflected by the comments of a UN soldier in Axum. “They will never be friends,” the soldier predicts, “because they have caused each other too much pain.” He points to the more than 100,000 people who have been killed in the fighting, and the greater number who are now refugees.

In a country where nearly half of the population lives below the poverty line, one disaster builds on another. Fearful of the spread of malaria, poor people who cannot afford modern medicines rely on cheap pesticides, which damage their crops. Since 80 percent of the nation’s employment is based on agriculture, this is catastrophic. Farmers also face floods and drought, the scarring caused by war and the pillaging by rival soldiers, the raids by bandits who are free to roam in a country where law-enforcement is weak, and the land mines that remain even after battles are over. The farmers’ woes make it nearly impossible to secure their property, and thus ensure the survival of their families.

Such problems are only made worse by the country’s political difficulties. Although most Ethiopians insist that conditions have improved since the Derg regime—when suspected opponents of Mengistu Haile Maryam’s government were shot, and their families forced to pay for the bullets that killed them—few are content with the present administration of Meles Zenawi. A typical opinion is expressed by Ashagur, a student at Bahir Dar University. “The development is very slow,” he concedes, “but we are young in democracy. We will try to make it better. But the economy is no good, so I would like to go to America.” The “brain drain” caused by the emigration of educated and ambitious Ethiopians like Ashagur does not bode well.

The government is also frequently criticized for its “regionalism”—its tendency, real or imagined, to favor the people of one region over all others. The federalization of the republic into nine autonomous states has failed to satisfy the aspirations of the country’s 89 ethnic groups. The principal criticism is that the dominant Tigreans, who represent only 7 percent of the population, are maintaining power at the expense of others. “If you are a Tigrean,” complains Fisseha, a mechanic from Woldia, “you can have anything—the best jobs, money, everything works well for you. But if you aren’t Tigrean, you have nothing.” An element of the same problem, he suggests, is factionalism. He reports: “The Oromo hate the Tigreans, the Tigreans hate the Amhara, the Amhara hate the Harari. Everyone hates each other.”

This animosity, which is primarily along ethnic and linguistic lines, is more pronounced than any religious divisions in Ethiopia. Yet the problem does have religious dimensions, because confessional ties are broadly connected with ethnic identity. Most Tigreans are Orthodox Christians; most Harari are Muslims; most Gallans are animists or Catholic.

National symbol
The social problems afflicting Ethiopians at large are also reflected in the condition of the clergy. The Orthodox churches of northern Ethiopia swarm with priests in rags, many of them teenagers, holding out begging-bowls. The patriarchal appointment in 1992 of Abouna Paulos, an American-educated PhD who spent seven years in one of Mengistu’s prisons, was greeted with acclaim, especially when his background was contrasted with the dubious credentials of his predecessor, a puppet of the Derg. But his subsequent performance has prompted accusations of nepotism, financial impropriety, and incompetence.

The new Orthodox leader is also a member of the dominant ethnic group: a fact that gives rise to new complaints. “The Orthodox Church,” claims Abba Tekle, “is very submissive. During the reign of Haile Selassie, the patriarchs were related to the monarch. The Marxist government brought a simple man from a monastery. Now the Tigreans come and we have a Tigrean Patriarch.”

More seriously, Abba Tekle charges that order and discipline within the Orthodox Church have deteriorated to the point where “anyone can be a priest.” He elaborates:

You just say a few prayers, and you don’t need an education. You find thousands and thousands of priests, but many cannot even celebrate Mass. The Ethiopian church has never been challenged.

Still, the survival of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church seems inevitable. Despite the success of Protestant missionaries, and despite the fact that Muslims now outnumber Christians in the country, it is the Orthodox Church that provides Ethiopia with her distinctive identity: as one of the world’s oldest states, with a Christian heritage that can only be challenged for antiquity by Armenia. As the historian Edward Ulendorff points out in his book The Ethiopians:

The identification of Abyssinian Christianity with the political and cultural life of the country is so complete that no numerical increase in Islam has been able to touch the intrinsic nature of this phenomenon.

Nicholas Jubber, a free-lance writer who specializes in the Middle East, is a regular contributor.