The Ethiopian Orthodox Church in the Holy Land

ABSTRACT

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.

KEYWORDS:

• Ethiopia
• Ethiopian Orthodox Christianity
• food
• injera

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Professor Nurit Stadler of the Hebrew University and three anonymous reviewers for their comments on earlier drafts of this paper. In particular, the author would like to thank Professor Fran Markowitz, for numerous comments and questions, which pushed him to more fully define and develop his work.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 Terms from Amharic and Ge’ez are transliterated using a simplified version of the system found in Leslau (1976).

2 Ethiopian names have been listed in notes and the bibliography second name, first name and NOT as is traditional in Ethiopian: Personal name, Father’s name.

3 Until quite recently the Ethiopian diaspora received far less attention than its West African or other counterparts. This has been somewhat remedied in recent years see in particular the special issues of journals, including Shelemay and Kaplan (2006); Woubshet, Tillet, and Giorgis (2010); Bonacci (2015); Demissie (2016).

4 Dr Stephane Ancel and Dr Eloi Fiquet are currently engaged in a research project, which considers some of the economic issues involved in the administration of Church property outside Ethiopia. Cf. Ancel and Ficquet (2015).

5 For a general discussion of the Ethiopian Christian Diaspora and particularly its divisions, see Engedayehu (2013).

6 Significantly, only in the past year or so did the Eritrean Church send a tabot (ark) to Israel. Without a tabot, no building can serve as a true church (Oral communication, Omer Hacker May 3, 2017). When I visited Israel in May 2017, Mr Omer Hacker briefly shared his findings based on fieldwork conducted for a M.A. about relations between Eritreans and Ethiopians in Israel. He is writing at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and is being co-directed by Prof. Nurit Stadler and me. Since his fieldwork began after mine concluded it serves as a valuable supplement to my own and gives an important picture of recent developments. I am grateful for his permission to incorporate a few relevant observations.

7 The issue of Ethiopian Pentecostals would take me far beyond the limits of this article. Cf. Seeman (2015).

8 In recent years, this flag has been the subject of some controversy (Oral communication Omer Hacker, May 3, 2017).