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Christine Chaillot's new book, The Traditional Teaching of the Ethiopian Orthodox Täwahedo Church: Faith and Spirituality, presents a topic that is little – if at all – known outside Ethiopia, even in Christian circles. Moreover, it is a much neglected field in the wider study of African education. It is a teaching based on ancient texts and books, taught orally to the students who will become the future clergy and who will then share their knowledge with the faithful in Church life. The studies of the different disciplines are pursued at different schools and at different levels, in liturgy, theology with commentaries of books (Old and New Testaments, books of the Church fathers and monks) as well as composition of poems (qenes) and iconography. All this teaching presented in the present volume is deeply related to the faith and spirituality of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. This teaching is a unique intangible cultural heritage. One wonders, however, what its future will be in the context of the modern educational methods and social attitudes that have evolved in Ethiopia over the last half-century.

The cradle of the Church of the East was in Mesopotamia (between the Tigris and the Euphrates), where it developed its first centre at Seleucia-Ctesiphon, then the capital of the great Persian Empire and today an archaeological site to the south of Baghdad. From the very beginnings of Christianity until the fourteenth century, this Church experienced a remarkable expansion in Asia, its missionaries carrying the Gospel from Persia to India, via the Persian Gulf, and even as far as China. The Church of the East reached China as early as the seventh century via Central Asia and the celebrated Silk Road that linked China to the Mediterranean world. Much later, in the late fourteenth century, the invasions of the Mongol conqueror, Timur Lang (Tamerlane), across Asia brought about a great decline of the Church of the East. Eventually, after the genocide suffered by Christians in the Ottoman Empire in 1915, and the massacres that followed in Persia, the Church of the East and its people were on the verge of extinction. In 1940 the patriarchal seat was moved to Chicago (in the United States) and then in September 2015 to Erbil (in northern Iraq). Many of the faithful have left the Middle East and have formed diaspora communities throughout the world. The history of Christianity in the Middle East and well beyond, in Central and Eastern Asia, is very little known. In this book, the reader is invited to travel in time and space and undertake the fascinating discovery of a very ancient apostolic Church, the Church of the East, whose two-thousand year history constitutes an indispensable chapter in the history of the universal Church.

The history of Orthodox Christians in Australia is that of immigrant communities which, mostly for political and economic reasons, left their countries of origin in Eastern Europe and the Middle East from the nineteenth century. Since the mid-twentieth century large numbers of Eastern Orthodox have settled in Australia, chiefly Greeks, Russians, Serbs, Antiochians (from Syria and Lebanon), Romanians, Bulgarians, Ukrainians, Macedonians and Byelorussians. This book presents five Orthodox Churches in Australia: the Greek, the Russian, the Serbian, the Antiochian and the Romanian.

Das Ziel dieses Buches ist, in den sehr alten orientalischen orthodoxen Kirchen syrischer, armenischer, koptischer und äthiopischer Tradition das Vorhandensein religiöser Bilder verschiedenster Art (Ikonen, Malereien, Buchmalereien) einschliesslich der Darstellung Christi sowie die Verehrung (nicht Anbetung) der Ikonen bzw. Bilder aufzuzeigen. Es geht darum, nicht nur die ikonographischen Dimensionen, sondern auch die liturgischen und vor allem die christologischen Aspekte vorzustellen, und dies anhand von Texten, die mit diesen vier Traditionen über die Jahrhunderte verbunden sind. Diese Kirchen haben keinen Ikonoklasmus gekannt, im Gegensatz zur byzantinisch-orthodoxen Welt, welche nach Streitigkeiten die Verehrung der Ikonen auf dem 2. Konzil von Nizäa (787) und in 843 etabliert hat.

The aim of this book is to demonstrate the presence in these very ancient Eastern Churches of religious images of all kinds (icons, paintings, illuminations), including the representation of Christ, together with the veneration (not the adoration) of icons/images. Presented here are not only the iconographic but also the liturgical and especially the Christological dimensions of the icon on the basis of texts used by these four traditions down the centuries. In contrast to the Byzantine Orthodox world, which after a controversy on this subject officially established the veneration of icons from the time of the Second Council of Nicaea (787) and in 843, these Churches did not experience Iconoclasm.

Le but de ce livre est de montrer dans ces très anciennes Églises orientales la présence des images religieuses de toutes sortes (icônes, peintures, enluminures), y compris la représentation du Christ, ainsi que la vénération (et non l'adoration) des icônes/images. Ces Églises n'ont généralement pas connu l'iconoclasme. Il s'agit d'en présenter ici les dimensions non seulement iconographique, mais aussi liturgique, théologique et surtout christologique sur la base de textes liés à ces quatre traditions à travers les siècles.

Depuis les années 70, les chrétiens Coptes d'Egypte subissent discriminations et persécutions. Le'Printemps arabe'fut un espoir de courte durée : des islamistes ont vite occupé le terrain de la contestation et du pouvoir. Ecrit par une spécialiste, ce livre est à la fois un ouvrage de référence, un cri d'alarme pour les Européens qui doivent prendre conscience de cette question au nom des droits de l'homme et du patrimoine, et une réflexion sur les problèmes Coptes aujourd'hui.

It is common knowledge that the majority of the population of Eastern Europe belong to the Christian Orthodox tradition. But how many people have an adequate knowledge of the past or even of the present of these Orthodox churches? This book aims to present an introduction to this history written for a general audience, both Christian and non-Christian. After the 1917 revolution in Russia, communism spread to most of the countries of Eastern Europe. By 1953, at the time of Stalin's death, the division between Eastern and Western Europe seemed absolute. However, the advent of perestroika at the end of the 1980s brought about political changes that have enabled the Orthodox Church to develop once again in Eastern Europe. The foundation of the European Union in 1993 has had a broader significance for Orthodox communities, who can now participate in the future development of Europe. Some Orthodox Churches already have their representatives at the European Union in Brussels. These include the patriarchates of Constantinople, Russia and Romania, along with the Church of Greece and the Church of Cyprus. Today, Europe is becoming increasingly religiously diverse, even within Christianity itself. A growing number of Orthodox Christians have come to work and settle in Western Europe. An understanding of the history of the Orthodox communities in Eastern Europe in the twentieth century will contribute, in a spirit of informed dialogue, to the shaping of a new united Europe that is still in the process of expansion. This book is translated from the French version (published 2009).