DABRA BIRHAN SELASSIE CHURCH
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Famous church much frequented by pilgrims during Fasika, featuring a wooden ceiling and extremely rich walls.
The church (also known as the Trinity on Mount Lumière) is surrounded by a high stone wall and tall juniper trees. Built by Iyassou I at the end of the 17th century as Gondar's main sanctuary and a venue for the coronations of the dynasty's kings, the church suffered extensive damage before finally being rebuilt on a rectangular plan in the 19th century. Legend has it that it was the only building to resist looting by Sudanese Mahdists (or dervishes) who came to devastate the city in 1888. The church is said to have been protected from the attackers by a gigantic swarm of menacing bees.
Its rich pictorial decoration makes it one of Ethiopia's most famous churches. Its wooden ceiling, painted with eighty cherub faces whose wide-eyed gaze seems to follow the visitor's every move, is a real delight. Below this celestial cloud, the walls are adorned with an extremely rich iconography. On the east wall, which opens onto the holy of holies through two vaulted doors, the Crucifixion, dominated by the Holy Trinity to which the church is dedicated, and all around, scenes from the lives of Mary and Christ (the Flight into Egypt, the Palm Sunday, the Passion, the Last Supper...). In the midst of this profusion of images featuring saints, martyrs and royalty, the prophet Mohammed is shown taken captive on a camel, pulled by the devil. A popular pilgrimage destination during Fasika.
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