Orthodox Christians in the majority
The origins of Christianity in Ethiopia date back to the early 4th century, with the conversion of King Ezena under the influence of his Syrian tutor Frumentius, who later became the first archbishop of the Ethiopian Church. Nevertheless, it is certain that Christianity had long been introduced to the region by Christian Roman merchants, who had a strong presence in the Red Sea.
Once Christianity became the state religion, its expansion went hand in hand with the kingdom's territorial conquests and, above all, with the arrival of missionaries from the Near East, including the "nine Syrian saints" so dear to Ethiopian tradition (Za-Mikael, Pantaleouom, Isaac, Afsé, Gouba, Alef, Mata, Liqanos and Sehma). Throughout the centuries, monasticism was the cornerstone of the establishment of the Orthodox faith at the heart of society. Divided into small communities on the fringes of the territory, under the authority of major religious centers (Lake Tana, Dabra Damo, Dabra Libanos, Estifanos), monks translated sacred texts into Guèze and provided education for the people. Originally under the authority of the Patriarchate of Alexandria, the Ethiopian Church became autocephalous in 1959, before losing its status as official religion with the fall of the emperor. The doctrine of the "Unified Orthodox Church of Ethiopia" is Monophysism, which led to the splitting of the Egyptian, Armenian, Syrian and Ethiopian Coptic Churches at the Council of Chalcedon in 451, due to their adherence to the unique nature of Christ against the proponents of two distinct natures (human and divine).Theologically based on the Bible and numerous apocryphal texts, Ethiopian orthodoxy has preserved many Old Testament practices, such as circumcision, a certain respect for the Sabbath, animal slaughtering practices and even church architecture.
The Ethiopian Church, a special case
It boasts 45 million faithful (including the diaspora) and a clergy of some 400,000 members, double the number thirty years ago, serving in 30,000 parishes across the country. In addition to nine major and nine minor feasts, all linked to events in the life of Christ, apostles, martyrs and saints (especially St. George, St. John the Baptist and St. Michael) are celebrated in monthly commemorations. For the Virgin Mary, who is the object of special veneration, there are no less than thirty-three days dedicated to her. All major feasts are preceded by specific fasts lasting from three to fifty-five days. On average, the faithful observe one hundred and eighty days of fasting, and the clergy some two hundred and fifty days a year. What's more, during the holy days, believers are expected to cease all manual activities. Cultivation, forging and weaving, for example, are not recommended... The Church has always been involved in education, and directly supervises traditional schools in which religious instruction has a special place. Some of the children who attend the neba bet (reading house) elementary schools continue their ecclesiastical education at the qeddase bet (mass house). Many join the ranks of the clergy as priests, deacons or debtera (singing master), or join one of the eight hundred monastic communities. The regions of Godjam, Tigray and Gondar are the traditional strongholds of a Church that continues to animate society as it has done for seventeen centuries.
The legend of Ezana, the founding myth
The story is told by the Byzantine monk and historian Rufinus: accompanying their master Metropius, a Syrian philosopher visiting the African kingdom, Frumentius and Edesius, his two Christian pupils, were the only survivors of a shipwreck that decimated the expedition. Brought to court as slaves, the Syrians quickly earned the respect of the rulers for their erudition. And it was Frumentius, who became Ezana's tutor, who obtained freedom of worship for the small Christian communities from the king, before leading him to convert himself. Frumentius placed the new Church under the authority of the Patriarch of Alexandria, who in turn appointed him the first Ethiopian bishop. Initially confined to an elite, the new religion truly spread after the Council of Chalcedon in 451, which saw the separation of the Syrian, Egyptian and Armenian Monophysite Churches from Rome and Constantinople.
Growing numbers of Muslims
The arrival of Muslims in Ethiopia dates back to the birth of Islam, when the first followers of Mohammed, then persecuted in the Arabian Peninsula, found a benevolent asylum in Aksum. The mosque they built in Negash, Tigray, considered the "second Mecca", was sadly bombed during the war in Tigray. Today, the building stands isolated in the heart of Tigray, a bastion of orthodoxy, but symbolizes one of the most important holy places of Ethiopian Islam. In the 8th and 9th centuries, the new religion spread rapidly throughout the Near East. Arab incursions on the western shores of the Red Sea and by merchants further inland seriously weakened the Christian kingdoms, now isolated from maritime trade routes. Relations between the central power and the Ethiopian Muslim emirates of Ifat and Adal rapidly deteriorated, leading to the jihad (holy war) declared by Mahfouz as early as 1490, then relaunched in 1527 by the infamous Gragn (the Left-Hand Man), who waged a bloody war for sixteen years, the memory of which still haunts the Ethiopian subconscious. Today, the relationship between Ethiopia's two major religions seems to have calmed down and, despite the presence of strict Islam on its borders (Sudan, Somalia), fundamentalism is practically non-existent in the country. The city of Harar, which houses the tombs of several of Islam's earliest preachers and still enjoys a reputation as a center of Koranic learning, is greatly admired by Muslims, who regard it as a holy city. Last but not least, the tomb of Sheikh Hussein is the country's most important pilgrimage site, attracting thousands of worshippers on major feast days. The tomb of the saint, who was instrumental in the 13th-century conversion of the Bale and Arsi populations, merges with ancestral Oromo places of worship, giving rise to a form of syncretism between Islam and ancient beliefs, a practice also observed at the Sof Omar cave, the refuge of another Muslim preacher in the region.
Protestants and Catholics in the minority
Despite the presence of the Portuguese in the 16th century and the missionaries who followed them, and despite the relations developed by Menelik with Italy, then the occupation of the country by Mussolini's troops, Catholicism never managed to break through in Ethiopia and remains a confidential religion to this day. Only the kings Za Dengel and Susenyos dared, in the early 17th century, to declare their adherence to Catholicism under the influence of the Jesuits. The former was assassinated, while the latter abdicated following serious social unrest and strong opposition from the Orthodox clergy. The experience was short-lived, and led to great mistrust of foreigners and missionaries in particular. When the latter were once again accepted, they were subject to the strict condition of restricting their evangelization to non-Orthodox populations. Protestantism, on the other hand, was on the rise. In this race for converts, missionaries, some of whom had come from neighboring Sudan and were well established among the peoples of the South, enjoyed real success. Among the many churches present, the Mekane Yesus church seems to be the most powerful and the best equipped to "fish for souls". This expansion is not without its tensions with the Orthodox Church.
Ethiopian Jews or Falasha
The controversies surrounding the destiny of the only known Black Jews continue to agitate the community of specialists who study the subject. What is really behind the term Falasha, which in Guèze means "emigrants", when the Ethiopian, and more specifically Agaw, roots of these communities, who call themselves "Beta Israel", are well established? For some, it can be explained by the settlement in Ethiopia of part of the Jewish people expelled from Egypt; for others, by the cultural and commercial influence of the Kingdom of Israel. According to other hypotheses, Jews were part of Menelik's retinue, escorting the Ark of the Covenant, or were brought as slaves in the 6th century by King Kaleb, after his invasion of Yemen... More likely, Ethiopian Jews settled here around the 14th century. The Falasha, who were forbidden to own land, were mostly potters and blacksmiths, professions which earned them a reputation as sorcerers. After initial contacts with other Jewish communities in the 19th century, their Judaism, though deemed archaic, was confirmed by the Israeli rabbinate in 1973, giving them the right to the Law of Return. After the airlifts (Operation Moses, between November 1984 and January 1985, and Operation Solomon in 1991) which organized the repatriation to the Promised Land, very few Jews remained in Ethiopia, mainly concentrated in the Gondar region.
Animists, concentrated in the Omo valley
A multitude of animist cults are still practiced in Ethiopia, mainly among Cushitic peoples and nomadic or semi-nomadic ethnic groups in the east, south and south-west of the country. These include the famous Hamer, Kara, Mursi, Nyangatom... Even the largely Christianized or Islamized populations (Oromo, Sidama, Guragé) retain ancestral cult practices, creating a very particular kind of religious syncretism.
Pre-Christian Sabaean and Axumite cults
According to traditional sources, paganism and Judaism were practiced side by side in Ethiopia long before the advent of Christianity. Among these cults, snake worship, honored in sacrificial rituals, seems to have been widespread. The description of this cult in the Avesta, the sacred book of the Persians, overlaps with tradition in Ethiopia, suggesting that its spread was the result of extensive trade contacts with Middle Eastern countries. In the 1st century B.C., the Sabeans who settled in Ethiopia brought with them their own polytheistic religion, characterized by the veneration of the gods of Heaven, Earth and Sea, in whose pantheon Almouquah was a central deity - Yeha, the oldest temple identified in Ethiopia, dating from the5th century B.C., was certainly dedicated to him. Other divinities such as Astar, equivalent to the Greek Aphrodite and the Roman Venus, Sin, god of the Moon, and Shams, god of the Sun, were widely honored in temples built for their cult. Later, Hellenistic influence imposed the gods of the Greek pantheon, which Ethiopians gradually renamed: Marhem replaced Ares, Baher replaced Poseidon and Semay dethroned the Sabaean god Almouquah.
Myths and history in Ethiopian beliefs
Ethiopian history is rich in legends, miracles and prophecies, as well as founding myths that explain the birth and raison d'être of religious and political structures. This abundance can be explained by the temporal depth of Ethiopian history: the monumental remains of Aksum, for example, were repeatedly reused and re-explained by Ethiopian kings and the Church alike, and some of the monumental blocks in Maryam Syon Cathedral served as seats for the coronation of sovereigns. The fact that so many cultures coexisted here also contributed to the exchange of rites and legends. It was Christian and Muslim cultures that ultimately imposed their models, but they also incorporated many of the traditions of the peoples they subjugated and then assimilated. For example, the many stories in which cows and bulls play spiritual and symbolic roles probably have their origins more in pastoral cultures than in a common Christian background. Last but not least, the fact that history was transmitted both in written form, in the Guèze language - a language that remains impenetrable to the average person - and orally, in Amharic, the language shared by all, has certainly created different levels of understanding of the past. There are many exchanges between written and oral history, but what seems certain is that only oral tradition could afford to transmit the darker elements of official history. Thus, it would be several centuries before the hidden history of King Fasiladas was written down. This ruler, known for restoring the Orthodox faith and founding the city of Gondar, is also associated with some bloody and scabrous legends, one of which is worthy of the Arabian Nights: having his body covered with a thick fleece, Fasiladas satisfied his carnal desires every night with a woman whom he killed in the morning, until one day, moved by the prayer of the poorest slave in his castle, he began to seek his repentance, having bridges built over the main rivers around Gondar so that his people would praise and save him through their prayers.
So understanding and writing history from these different strata can be a tricky business. During visits to churches and historic sites, clergy, local guides and locals more readily share the legendary and miraculous aspects of their history than complex factual data, requiring a real knowledge of history and culture to be understood.
