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يتناول البحث الدور الديني والسياسي للمطارنة المصريين الذين رأسوا الکنيسة الإثيوبية الأرثوذکسية في الفترة من(1635-1699م)، وترجع أهمية تلک الفترة إلى عودة الکنيسة الإثيوبية إلى کنف الکنيسة القبطية الأرثوذکسية، بعد تخلص إثيوبيا من محنة التحول إلى المذهب الکاثوليکي، وبداية عصر الفوضى في التاريخ الإثيوبي، وتهدف الدراسة إلى أن: دراسة دور المطارنة المصريين خلال الفترة (1635-1699م)، والوقوف على الإسهام الديني والسياسي لکل منهم من واقع بعض النصوص الجعزية، واعتمادا على ما ذکرته المصادر العربية والأجنبية، باستعمال المنهج الوصفي التاريخي، ثم المنهج النقدي المقارن للنصوص التاريخية التي تعتمد عليها الدراسة، وخلصت الدراسة إلى: الدور الديني والسياسي للمطارنة المصريين فرض نفسه على تدوين تاريخ إثيوبيا، وکان موقف المطارنة المصريين من الجدل الديني حول طبيعة السيد المسيح متغيرا، اعتمادا على الحاکم وقناعاته، وقد کان ظهور الدور التشريعي لهم محدودا في فترة الدراسة، وکان تداخل الدورين السياسي والديني للمطارنة المصريين في تاريخ إثيوبيا حتميا، وکانت رغبة الحاکم في إضفاء الشرعية على حکمه وقراراته السياسية تدفعه للاستعانة بالمطران المصري، لإضفاء صفة الشرعية الدينية على القرارات السياسية المختلفة کضمانه لقبول الشعب الإثيوبي بها. Abstract The research deals with the religious and political role of the Egyptian Bishops, who headed the Ethiopian Orthodox Church from (1635-1699), and the importance of that period is due to the return of the Ethiopian Church to the Coptic Orthodox Church, after Ethiopia ridded of converting to Catholicism. The beginning of the chaotic era in Ethiopian history. The study aims to: Study the role of Egyptian bishops during the period (1635-1699), and to identify the religious and political contribution of each of them from the reality of some of Ge’ez texts, and based on what Arab and foreign sources stated, using the descriptive method, and the study concluded: the religious and political role of Egyptian Bishops imposed itself on the codification of the history of Ethiopia, The Egyptian Bishops' position on the religious debate over the nature of Christ was changing, depending on the ruler and his convictions, and the appearance of their legislative role was limited during the study period, the overlap of the political and religious roles of Egyptian bishops in Ethiopia's history was inevitable, and the governor's desire to legitimize his rule and political decisions prompted him to use the Egyptian bishop, to legitimize various political decisions as a guarantee of acceptance by the Ethiopian people.

This article traces the history of twentieth-century Ethiopian Orthodox student movements formed in response to modernity, especially the influential Maḫbärä Qəddusan, ‘Association of Saints’, established in 1991 when Ethiopia's Communist regime fell. It explores parallels in Egyptian and Indian miaphysite Churches; balances the prevailing narrative of explosive Pentecostal growth which has obscured the influence of such movements; provides insight into networks that have stimulated renewal and responses to contemporary challenges through strong engagement with traditional literary and intellectual heritage; and explores training and publications promoting contemporary reflection on this heritage, the revival of important religious practices and the targeting of influential ecclesiastical and public positions.

The aim of the study is to consider the role and place of the Ethiopian Orthodox Christian Church in preserving the ancient traditions and culture of the peoples of Ethiopia. The history of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church is closely related to that of the Alexandrian Orthodox Church, but for a significant part of its history it fought for autocephaly, which was achieved only under Emperor Haile Selassie I. The most important function of the Church in Ethiopia was education and spread of literacy, the preservation and transfer of knowledge in the field of religion and public administration. The objective of the study is to analyze how this function was implemented during the first half of the XX century. The research is based on the documents of the Archive of Foreign Policy of the Russian Federation and of the Ethiopian Microfilm Laboratory EMML.

Debtera are Ethiopian Orthodox ritual specialists known for their advanced religious education, as well as for engaging in illicit magic. This article traces how their secret magical knowledge and practices emerge from the official Orthodox tradition. Yet, while drawing on this tradition, the debtera’s ritual repertoire also transgresses some of its central proscriptions. Transgression, in this context, does not abolish the boundaries it violates, but reinstates their legitimacy. This dynamic prompts debtera to engage in imaginative ethical reassessments of the unstable relationship between illicit knowledge and official tenets. Through their transgressive performances, debtera enable their clients to secretly address and actualise sinful desires that otherwise remain unacknowledged or are suppressed by the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. By examining this ritual management of covert desires, I conclude that the study of debtera’s secrecy illuminates fundamental complexities and contradictions in Ethiopian Orthodox sociality which operate beneath the surface of public moral discourse.

This article discusses the exorcism of Protestant spirits from Ethiopian Orthodox hosts in Addis Ababa. This controversial ritual is animated by injunctions to draw essential distinctions and boundaries between Protestantism and Orthodoxy, at a time of religious liberalisation. The expulsion of Protestant spirits provides an occasion to reaffirm the centrality of local Orthodoxy to Ethiopian identity, construing Protestantism as a foreign religion at odds with the country’s ancient Orthodox history. However, this ritual project is marked by profound ambiguities, as exorcism’s means, aesthetics and themes are suspiciously similar to those characteristic of Protestantism. By foregrounding ritual ambiguity, I argue that exorcism publically exposes and vividly magnifies the irreparable permeability of the very inter-religious boundaries that it seeks to demarcate. In contrast to classic understandings of ritual as an ordering process, exorcism rituals become hazardous events that balance uncertainly on the edge of the ever-present risk of becoming the other.

This article argues that at the Council of Florence, arguably the most important instance of European–Ethiopian diplomacy before the 16th century, the delegates representing the Ethiopian Orthodox Church were Ewosṭatean monks—schismatics, whose positions were not yet accepted by Ethiopian religious authorities nor permitted to other Ethiopian Christians. It further proposes that the monks’ participation in the Council of Florence was part of the Ewosṭateans’ larger strategy of pressuring Ethiopian authorities to adopt their own religious positions, at a time when the king’s sympathy for their views was not yet clear; that the Council of Florence highlighted Ethiopian tensions with the Coptic patriarch in a way that furthered the Ewosṭateans’ goals; and that subsequent events suggest that their participation in the Council did indeed contribute to their full incorporation in the Ethiopian Church, and possibly to King Zära Ya‘ǝqob’s interest in continued European diplomacy. Cet article propose qu’au Concile de Florence, le plus important des cadres d’échanges diplomatiques entre l’Éthiopie et l’Europe du xve siècle, les délégués qui représentaient l’Église éthiopienne étaient des eustathéens, c’est-à-dire des moines schismatiques dont les positions religieuses n’étaient alors pas encore acceptées par les autorités religieuses éthiopiennes. Plusieurs idées sont ensuite avancées : d’une part, que la participation de ces moines au concile s’inscrivit dans la stratégie plus large des eustathéens visant à faire pression sur les autorités éthiopiennes pour leur faire adopter les positions eustathéennes, à une époque où la sympathie du roi envers leurs positions était encore douteuse ; d’autre part, que le concile de Florence accentua les tensions entre le roi éthiopien et le patriarche copte d’une façon qui concourut aux fins des eustathéens. Enfin, les évènements postérieurs suggèrent que leur présence au concile contribua à l’incorporation complète des eustathéens dans l’Église éthiopienne et contribua peut-être aussi à renforcer l’intérêt du roi Zära Ya‘ǝqob pour les échanges diplomatiques avec l’Europe.

Book Review

This chapter discusses the processes by which people confront and seek to address failures in their lives by looking at one specific material: holy water. It considers several key questions for evaluating when things go wrong by specifically interrogating the processes of knowledge-production when using materials to achieve desired effects. The chapter highlights how for certain urbanizing locales in Ethiopia, these sorts of material encounters should not be interpreted exclusively as reflections of local limits of access but as a conscious open- ended approach to everyday causality. Holy water is most visible in relation to healing activities and spiritual renewal. The capacity of holy water to mediate a morally unstable world establishes it as a means for leaving open the real possibility for the failure of clinical treatment. In Ethiopian Orthodox conceptual framing, potential sacramentality extends to a broader sacred ecology, such as liturgical prayers for propitious rains and bountiful harvests.

For centuries, the core religious values of Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahido Church communities have ensured the protection of church forests. Despite this strong and longstanding tradition, however, co...

Ethiopian Orthodox Christianity is an ideal laboratory in which to study the theories of C. G. Jung. We can see living examples of Jung's conceptual framework concerning human psychology and healin...

1 Enoch disappeared centuries ago from the Jewish and the Christian world where it originated, and from where it spread widely gaining canonical authority. It survives in its entirety in the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewhahedo Church (EOTC) to date. Hence, it is to be expected that traces of the book's legacy can still be detected in the church. Evidently, the book has attracted a great deal of scholarly attention in the last hundred years, more specifically since the landmark discoveries of the Dead Sea Scrolls. However, its legacy in the EOTC and its influence on the community that is credited with honouring it for many centuries, keeping its original authority and usage intact, have been largely omitted from the discussion. This article, therefore, asks what traces the influence of 1 Enoch has left in Ethiopia and in what its legacy consists. In its attempt to respond to these questions, the article focuses particularly on the literary influences the book has on Ethiopian literature. Though the influence and legacy of the book is not limited to the literary realm, the article limits itself to it alone. Subsequent discussions may go beyond this to consider ways in which the book may have contributed to the making of Ethiopia at large.

The Ethiopian Orthodox Tawahedo Church community has had a presence in the Holy Land for at least several hundred years. Throughout most of this period it was composed of a small ecclesiastical corps of monastic clergy who sought to protect the national church’s rights at various holy places in the region of Christianity’s birth. Only in the twentieth century, were these clergy joined by lay people. In this paper, I discuss the way the type of food served at church celebrations and the rhythm of fasts and feasts emphasize the shared national origins of the small diaspora. At the same time, where people sit when eating, and in what order they are served, expresses distinctions within the ranks of the clergy, between clergy and lay people, between men and women, and between Ethiopians and their former compatriots from Eritrea.

Ethiopia is an ancient country that has existed as an independent country for more than three millennia. Modern Ethiopia emerged with its present borders and ethnic makeup at the beginning of the twentieth century after the territorial expansion undertaken by Emperor Menelik II (1889–1913). Menelik continued the process of centralization and modernization of the Ethiopian state that was started in Imperial Ethiopia in 1855. Emperor Tewodros took land from the peasantry in the newly conquered territories, the Ethiopian Orthodox Church was established as state religion and the language and culture of the Amhara were promoted throughout the country.

Studies on Ethiopian Orthodox Christian (EtOC) religious fasting with vegan diet influencing body composition and blood metabolites remain limited. This study assessed the effect of consuming a vegan diet on changes of body composition and blood metabolites in a group of EtOC religious fasters and associated results with cardio-metabolic health. Participants were 98 EtOCs, with a mean age of 27 years. They 1st consumed a non-vegetarian omnivorous (OM) diet for 7 weeks. Then they switched to a vegan diet (VD) on the occasion of the Ethiopian Orthodox fasting (EOF) again for 7 weeks. Body compositions including height (m), weight (kg), BMI (kg/m2), percent body fat (%BF), and waist-to-hip (W/H) ratio were measured after the end of the OM and VD dietary regimen. Moreover, blood metabolites including TC, TG, LDL-C, HDL-C, glucose, urea, and total protein (TP) were analyzed and calculated for significant differences. The Ethiopian OF with vegan diet induced significantly lower BMI, %BF, TC, LDL-C, HDL-C, and blood urea levels compared with the (OM) diet (p 0.05). Changes in TC were positively and significantly correlated (r = 0.9, p

The Ethiopian Orthodox monastery of Santo Stefano degli Abissini in Rome was one of four diasporic Ethiopian communities around the Mediterranean and played a central role in disseminating knowledge about Ethiopian language, culture, and religion in sixteenth-century Europe. Yet apart from its most famous member, Tasfa Ṣǝyon, very little is known about the identities and careers of its monks. This article draws on the surviving Geez manuscripts of Santo Stefano’s own library, as well as European correspondence and archival documents, to reconstruct the biographies of two influential denizens of Santo Stefano. Hitherto believed to be a single person, Yoḥannǝs of Qanṭorare and Giovanni Battista “the Indian” (whom we identify instead as Yoḥannǝs of Cyprus) in fact followed quite different career trajectories, and illustrate the variety of ways in which Ethiopian Orthodox identity could be negotiated in a Catholic European setting.

The article presents an old folio kept in the church of Däbrä Śaḥl (Gärˁalta, northern Ethiopia), one of a few other leaves, all originating from a codex dating to a period well before the mid–14thcentury. The codicological and palaeographical features reveal the antiquity of the fragment. The content of the folio is remarkable since it contains chants dedicated to St. Gärima (also known as Yǝsḥaq) which can be identified as the chants for the Saint from the Dǝggwa, the main Ethiopian chant book. In the Ethiopian Orthodox Täwaḥǝdo Church the feast of Gärima is celebrated on the 17th of Säne. By means of the fragment of Däbrä Śaḥl, the composition of the liturgical chants for Gärima can be dated to a time much prior to the mid-14th century. Moreover, both the chants and the 15th-century Acts of Gärima by Bishop Yoḥannǝs refer to a famous miracle worked by the Saint. This fact proves that the miraculous account, in whatever form, was in circulation prior to the mid-14th century.

Our study of contextualization must be basically descriptive, that is, to observe and describe how the gospel is understood and shapes practices in the context of a people. Especially we have to take into consideration different global church traditions in our discussion of contextualization. The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahido Church (eotc) provides a compelling historical example of contextualization. It has developed its own unique tradition by weaving together elements from different sources of both internal and external traditions through dynamic interaction with other traditions. These include Ethiopian primal, Hebraic-Jewish, apostolic, Syriac and Egyptian Coptic. Ethiopian nationalism has functioned as the guiding principle underlying Ethiopian contextualization. The eotc will continue to display how a church with a long history and tradition copes with new challenging situations and establishes its distinctive tradition in a dynamic interaction of its local and global orientations.

Ethiopia is home to a rich and diverse set of religious communities. A reasonable estimate is that, today, 40% of the population is Orthodox, 35% are Muslim, 20% are Evangelical, and the rest are R...

This dissertation examines the relationship between royally-sponsored Roman Catholic and Ethiopian Orthodox art and architecture during the 1557 to 1632 Jesuit Ethiopian mission. The first part of the dissertation examines key religious and secular sites, demonstrating how these structures combined elements drawn from classicizing architectural treatises, the Portuguese estilo chão, and Ethiopian architecture. The second part of the project assesses the role of books, prints, and religious art as tools of conversion and as artistic models. In contrast to studies that posit that European visual culture supplanted the Ethiopian during the mission era, the dissertation argues that the period’s art and architecture demonstrates the Jesuit strategy of cultural accommodation, and that far from being apart from Ethiopian art history, it shares stylistic and iconographic hallmarks with the so-called “Gondärine style.”, Aethiopica, Vol 20 (2017)

Review, Aethiopica, Vol 20 (2017)

This work on the Ethiopian orthodox church’s tradition on the Holy Cross is a volume in which Ethiopic literature on the Cross is presented together with an English translation. The sources include homilies and poetic hymns by ancient Greek and Ethiopian teachers.

Review, Aethiopica, Vol 19 (2016)

An Ethiopian Reading of the Bible Biblical Interpretation of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahido Church

For the first time in Ethiopia’s history, the head of state is not a member of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, but a Protestant. Moreover, Hailemariam Desalegn, who was sworn into the office of the prime minister following Meles Zenawi’s death in the summer of 2012, is a Pentecostal, and more significantly a Oneness Pentecostal, belonging to the Apostolic Church of Ethiopia – a church which in the past has been ostracized by Orthodox, mainline Evangelicals and Pentecostals alike, because of its rejection of the dogma of the Trinity. This recent transition of power thereby highlights an interesting part of Ethiopia’s increasing religious diversity, which to date has hardly been addressed. Briefly sketching the background of Oneness Pentecostalism in the USA, this paper focuses on the history of the Apostolic Church of Ethiopia as well as its present relations to other churches. It also takes a look at Hailemariam’s relationship with his church and discusses possible implications of his ascendency for religious politics in Ethiopia.

This study examines whether traditional customs affect household's welfare by taking the case of the work prohibition related with religion in rural Ethiopia. Although the anecdotal evidence suggests that work prohibition by the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, to observe the religious holidays, is one of the reasons for the high poverty incidence in Ethiopia, the estimation results do not show that there is a significant effect of the number of religious holidays observed on agricultural productivity and household welfare. Observance of religious holidays affects crop choice and income source.

The northern Ethiopian landscape is dotted with small patches of church forests that are religious centers for the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahido Church (EOTC). These sacred groves are what remain of the once vast tropical Afromontane dry forest. Herein we review the landscape pattern of sacred groves in the Amhara region of Ethiopia, and their local scale nutrient status at two sites, Zahara and Debresena. A total of 1,488 sacred groves were inventoried within the study area, yielding an overall density of one sacred grove for every twenty square kilometers. Sacred groves averaged a little over five hectares and were separated from one another by more than two kilometers. At the local scale we found that soil carbon and nitrogen stocks have decreased significantly between the forest interior and the clearing indicating decreased soil fertility. Together our data indicate that these sacred groves are vulnerable to loss because of their small average size, isolation from seed sources, and decreasing soil status.

Tel qu’il est defini par l’Eglise catholique, le Purgatoire ne fait pas partie de la doctrine de l’Eglise ethiopenne orthodoxe Tawaḥədo meme si l’on peut deduire, a partir de diverses sources emanant de cette derniere, que la damnation pouvait ne pas etre eternelle. Le texte presente ici, issu de l’Eglise ethiopienne, montre que la theologie relative a ce point s’est en quelque sorte immiscee dans un miracle de la Vierge Marie. Le fait que les manuscrits divergent a un moment crucial de l’episode raconte indique en effet que les maitres ne savaient pas trop comment interpreter l’etrange enseignement contenu dans le recit, appele (əsata anṣəḥo ; a savoir «le feu de la Purification», le «Feu qui purifie» ou Purgatoire).

This essay examines the creation of places of worship by Ethiopian Orthodox congregations in North America, focusing primarily on the District of Columbia and adjacent areas in the states of Maryland and Virginia. Following a discussion of the historical background and development of church architecture in Ethiopia, the essay demonstrates that the shaping of the interior space of Ethiopian Orthodox churches in North America follows a modern model developed in Addis Ababa during the early 1960s. The study concludes with a brief analysis of painted decoration, a necessary component of the sacred space of an Ethiopian Orthodox church. (3 February 2009)

This paper had done as part of a course work called Culture Based Tourism and was also served as a requirement for a Master Degree Program in Tourism and Development in 2012. As a result, all the used data and facts in this article were collected and referred in the same year. The study focused on assessing the church museums as a tourist attraction in Addis Ababa. Out of the thirteen all types of museums of the city, six of them are owned and administered by the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. Museums are one of the tourism attractions where many tourists flock to perceive the culture and history of human predecessors. The research employed both primary and secondary data which were gathered using interview and thorough observation, published and unpublished written materials, respectively. Using these methods, the research has investigated the three church museums which differ from other church museums in terms of collection, number of visitors and history. Thus, the researcher has deliberately selected on the basis of the above criteria i.e. Ta’aka Be’ata Mariam, Genet Tsige Kudis Georgis and Saint Mariam church museums. They were thoroughly studied and findings were drawn. The research revealed that the church museums have had challenges concerning facilities, absence of promotion, handling of heritages, skilled man power and enticing tourists. Besides, the research also identified the opportunities of the church museums. The research concluded that the church museums could avert the challenges and could capitalize on the prospects if all stakeholders be it government, private and NGOs could play their own role in the promotion, conservation and human development for the betterment of the church museums. Similarly, the church and the community could also play their own part for the progress of the museums.

This paper attempts to explain the policy of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church and its goal of achieving a centralized ecclesiastical authority during the 20th century. The joint initiatives of the political powers, both monarchical and revolutionary, and the holders of high-ranking ecclesiastical positions made possible the establishment of an ecclesiastical decision-making body, centralizing all the decision-making processes in the Ethiopian Church administration. Through the establishment of a long list of reforms enacted during the 20th century, while upsetting the old traditions of this particular Church, the Ethiopian bishopric was able to assume, step by step, an unprecedented ecclesiastical hegemony over the ecclesiastical establishment. Beyond serving the purpose of revealing previously unknown facts through the analysis of archival documents, this paper contributes to our knowledge about the recent evolution of one of the most influential institutions in Ethiopia.

This article relates the concept of the tabot, the central symbol of divine presence in the Ethiopian Orthodox Church to the European Diaspora experience. The tabot represents the arc of the covenant in Solomon's Temple, and is likewise associated with Noah's arc. Thus the Church is conceptualised as facilitating the traversing of the ‘ocean of troubles’ to reach the ‘safe haven’ of the divine presence. This is experienced in an especially intense way in the diaspora context. Beginning with the concept of diaspora the article gives an overview of the history of the establishment of Ethiopian Orthodox churches in Europe and explores related trajectories. The Church is experienced as a place of memories, and is also a place where the sojourner can feel at home and belong. It facilitates preserving identity and culture, re-creating morals and values, and through aesthetics creates a hermeneutic frame of experience, satisfying the ‘fourth hunger’.

Briana B. Simmons The Ethiopian Orthodox Church (EOC) has produced iconographic religious painting since the sixth century ce, but with the onset of mechanical reproduction and faster printing technologies, worshippers now have access to new types of religious images.1 Today, foreign and locally produced chromolithographic images (or color prints) depicting Christian religious figures are readily available in Ethiopia and have become one of the most popular and prevalent art forms in the country. This is due in part to their high volume but also to their variety, malleability, and relatively low price, which places them into a category of decorative and ritually important objects that most Orthodox Ethiopians desire. Images such as Figure 1, of the Virgin and Child, generally depict Biblical figures that are copied from historical Western paintings or drawings. This research note outlines how Ethiopian Orthodox Christians use these religious images and briefly addresses their effect on the construction of an Orthodox identity.2 I will also discuss how church-trained painters have responded to these images and what the influx of chromolithographs has meant for their business. These reproduced images are part of a continual process of adaptation and change in the religious practices of Ethiopian Orthodox Christians. Rather than dismissing them as kitsch or artistic degeneration, this study examines how they are used as aesthetic objects and the value they hold for the Christian faithful. For this note, “chromolithograph” refers to any color print displayed in Ethiopia that is mechanically produced in Ethiopia or abroad. This comprehensive definition includes a number of printing technologies, ranging from traditional chromolithography to more modern photo offset printing processes. The prints can be purchased for one or two birr, which is approximately 10 to 20 US cents, and they are sold on sidewalks, especially outside Ethiopian Orthodox churches. Vendors often set up open-air stalls to exhibit the images, sometimes using upturned umbrellas to easily display numerous prints. It is common for peddlers to traverse local neighborhoods on foot carrying large stacks of images for sale. The prints range in size from small, 3" x 4" cards to large posters that are several feet across.3 Several scholars have examined the use of religious and secular chromolithographs in other countries (Jain 2007, Cosentino 2005, Pinney 1997, 2004, Rush 1999), but only one general overview of chromolithograph use in Ethiopia exists (Silverman, in All photos Are by the Author