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Above: celebration of the Feast of the Baptism of Christ (Theophany) in Ethiopia |
One of the few pre-colonial Christian churches of Sub-Saharan Africa, it has a membership of about 40 million people, mainly in Ethiopia, and is thus the largest of all Oriental Orthodox churches.
The Ethiopian Church traces its earliest origins from the royal official said to have been baptized by Philip the Evangelist (Acts of the Apostles, Chapter 8). Orthodox Christianity became the established church of the Ethiopian Axumite Kingdom under king Ezana in the 4th century through the efforts of a Syrian Greek named Frumentius, known in Ethiopia as Abba Selama, Kesaté Birhan ("Father of Peace, Revealer of Light"). As a youth, Frumentius had been shipwrecked with his brother Aedesius on the Eritrean coast.
The Ethiopian Orthodox Church has preserved many ancient sacred texts which had been lost in the rest of the Christian world, such as I Enoch and Jubilees.
There is a persistent tradition that the Ark of the Covenant has been preserved in Ethiopia since the days of the prophet Jeremiah (see book "The Sign and the Seal").
Photo above: The Church of Saint Mary of Zion - the place where the Ark of the Covenant is reputed to be kept. Mary the Mother of Jesus is biblically a fulfilment of the Ark of the Covenant. |