Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church
The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church, also sometimes known as the Abyssinian Church or the Church of Abyssinia, is the largest of the Oriental Orthodox Churches. One of the few Christian churches in Africa originating before European colonization of the continent, the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church dates back to the Christianization of the Kingdom of Aksum in 330; it has between 38 million and 46 million adherents in Ethiopia, and 60 million members worldwide. It is a founding member of the World Council of Churches. The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church is in communion with the other Oriental Orthodox churches.
The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church had been administratively part of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria from the first half of the 4th century until 1959, when it was granted autocephaly with its own patriarch by Pope Cyril VI of Alexandria, Pope of the Coptic Orthodox Church.
Tewahedo is a Geʽez word meaning "united as one." This word refers to the Oriental Orthodox belief in miaphysitism, meaning one perfectly unified nature of Christ, i.e., a complete union of the divine and human natures into one nature is self-evident to accomplish the divine salvation of mankind, as opposed to the "two natures of Christ" belief commonly held by the Latin and Eastern Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Anglican, Lutheran, and most other Protestant churches. The Oriental Orthodox Churches adhere to a miaphysite Christological view followed by Cyril of Alexandria, the leading protagonist in the Christological debates of the 4th and 5th centuries, who advocated "", or "one nature of the Word of God incarnate" and a hypostatic union. The distinction of this stance was that the incarnate Christ has one nature, but that one nature is of the two natures, divine and human, and retains all the characteristics of both after the union.
Miaphysitism holds that in the one person of Jesus Christ, divinity and humanity are united in one nature without separation, without confusion, without alteration and without mixing where Christ is consubstantial with God the Father. Around 500 bishops in the patriarchates of Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem refused to accept the dyophysitism doctrine decreed by the Council of Chalcedon in 451, an incident that resulted in the second major split in the main body of the Catholic-Orthodox Church in the Roman Empire.
Name
is a Geʽez word meaning "being made one" or "unified". This word refers to the Oriental Orthodox belief in the miaphysite nature of Christ, as opposed to the dyophysite nature of the hypostatic union, which is the belief held by the Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church.The Oriental Orthodox Churches fall under the umbrella of Non-Chalcedonian Christianity, due to their theological rejection of the Council of Chalcedon, the church council following the Council of Ephesus held in 451. The Oriental beliefs are sometimes incorrectly described by outsiders as monophysite ; however, the Ethiopian Church and other Oriental Orthodox Churches adhere to miaphysitism, and the Ethiopians argue that the monophysite epithet is offensive.
History
Origins
speaks of the "Ethiopians present in Jerusalem" as being able to understand the preaching of Saint Peter described in Acts 2:38. Possible missions of some of the Apostles in the lands now called Ethiopia are also reported as early as the 4th century. Socrates of Constantinople includes Ethiopia in his list as one of the regions preached by Matthew the Apostle, where a specific mention of "Ethiopia south of the Caspian Sea" can be confirmed in some traditions such as the Roman Catholic Church among others. Ethiopian Church tradition tells that Bartholomew accompanied Matthew in a mission which lasted for at least three months. These missions are depicted in paintings by Francesco Trevisan and Marco Benefial in the Church of St. Matthew in Pisa.The earliest account of an Ethiopian converted to the faith in the New Testament books is a royal official baptized by Philip the Evangelist, one of the Seven Deacons :
The passage continues by describing how Philip helped the Ethiopian treasurer understand a passage from the Book of Isaiah that the Ethiopian was reading. After Philip interpreted the passage as prophecy referring to Jesus Christ, the Ethiopian requested that Philip baptize him, and Philip did so. The Ethiopic version of this verse reads "Hendeke" ; Queen Gersamot Hendeke VII was the Queen of Ethiopia from c. 42 to 52. Where the possibility of gospel missions by the Ethiopian eunuch cannot be directly inferred from the Books of the New Testament, Irenaeus of Lyons around 180 AD writes that "Simon Backos" preached the good news in his homeland outlining also the theme of his preaching as being the coming in flesh of God that "was preached to you all before." The same kind of witness is shared by 3rd and 4th century writers such as Eusebius of Caesarea and Origen of Alexandria.
File:Ezana.jpg|thumb|Coin of King Ezana, under whom Early Christianity became the established church of the Kingdom of Aksum
Early Christianity became the established church of the Ethiopian Axumite Kingdom under king Ezana in the 4th century when priesthood and the sacraments were brought for the first time through a Syrian Greek named Frumentius, known by the local population in Ethiopia as "Selama, Kesaté Birhan". As a youth, Frumentius had been shipwrecked with his brother Aedesius on the Eritrean coast. The brothers managed to be brought to the royal court, where they rose to positions of influence and baptized Emperor Ezana. Frumentius is also believed to have established the first monastery in Ethiopia, named Dabba Selama after him. In 2016, archaeologists excavated a 4th-century AD basilica in northeastern Ethiopia at a site called Beta Samati. This is the earliest known physical evidence of a church in sub-Saharan Africa.
Middle Ages
Union with the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria continued after the Arab conquest of Egypt. Abu Saleh records in the 12th century that the patriarch sent letters twice a year to the kings of Abyssinia and Nubia, until Al Hakim stopped the practice. Cyril, 67th patriarch, sent Severus as bishop, with orders to put down polygamy and to enforce the observance of canonical consecration for all churches. These examples show the close relations of the two churches throughout the Middle Ages. In 1439, in the reign of Zara Yaqob, a religious discussion between Giyorgis and a French visitor led to the dispatch of an embassy from Ethiopia to the Vatican.During the Middle Ages, the Ethiopian Church also witnessed the rise of influential monastic movements that challenged established religious and political norms. Abba Ewostatewos founded the so-called Ewostathian movement, which emphasized strict Sabbath observance and monastic independence, leading to tensions with the ecclesiastical hierarchy and the Coptic Orthodox Church. However, in the mid-15th century, his disciples secured recognition from the Alexandrian patriarchate, and the practice of observing both Saturday and Sunday as Sabbaths was officially accepted in Ethiopia. A century later, Abba Estifanos of Gwendagwende led the Stephanite movement, which rejected veneration of the cross and royal authority over the Church, provoking harsh persecution under Emperor Zara Yaqob. Beyond doctrinal disagreements, the Stephanites articulated a radical critique of imperial authority and the sacralization of kingship, which some scholars interpret as an early Ethiopian form of religious dissent. These currents illustrate the diversity of theological and ecclesiastical debates within Ethiopian Christianity during the medieval period.
Jesuit interim
The period of Jesuit influence, which broke the connection with Egypt, began a new chapter in church history. The initiative in Roman Catholic missions to Ethiopia was taken not by Rome, but by Portugal, in the course of a conflict with the Muslim Ottoman Empire and the Sultanate of Adal for the command of the trade route to India via the Red Sea.In 1507, Mateus, or Matthew, an Armenian, had been sent as an Ethiopian envoy to Portugal. In 1520, an embassy under Dom Rodrigo de Lima landed in Ethiopia. An account of the Portuguese mission, which lasted for several years, was written by Francisco Álvares, its chaplain.
Later, Ignatius Loyola wished to take up the task of conversion, but was forbidden to do so. Instead, the pope sent out João Nunes Barreto as patriarch of the East Indies, with Andrés de Oviedo as bishop; and from Goa envoys went to Ethiopia, followed by Oviedo himself, to secure the king's adherence to Rome. After repeated failures some measure of success was achieved under Emperor Susenyos I, but not until 1624 did the Emperor make formal submission to the pope. Susenyos made Roman Catholicism the official state religion but was met with heavy resistance by his subjects and by the authorities of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, and eventually had to abdicate in 1632 in favour of his son, Fasilides, who promptly restored Ethiopian Orthodox Christianity as the state religion. He then in 1633 expelled the Jesuits, and in 1665 Fasilides ordered that all Jesuit books be burned.
Influence on the Reformation
David Daniels has suggested that the Ethiopian Church has had a stronger impact on the Reformation than most scholars acknowledge. For Martin Luther, who spearheaded the Reformation, Daniels says "the Ethiopian Church conferred legitimacy on Luther's emerging Protestant vision of a church outside the authority of the Roman Catholic papacy" as it was "an ancient church with direct ties to the apostles". According to Daniels, Martin Luther saw that the Ethiopian Orthodox Church practiced elements of faith including "communion under both kinds, vernacular Scriptures, and married clergy" and these practices became customary in the Lutheran churches. The Ethiopian church also rejected papal supremacy, purgatory and indulgences, which the Lutherans disagreed with, and thus for Luther, the Ethiopian church was the "true forerunner of Protestantism". Luther believed that the Ethiopian church kept true apostolic practices which the Lutherans would adopt through reading the scriptures.In 1534, a cleric of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, Michael the Deacon, met with Martin Luther and affirmed the Augsburg Confession, saying "This is a good creed, that is, faith". In addition, Martin Luther stated that the Lutheran Mass agreed with that used by the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. As a result, Luther invited the Ethiopian church and Michael to full fellowship.