The Ethiopian Church, an Adult Daughter of the Coptic Church

Abstract

As the Ethiopian Church (which until some twenty years ago included the Eritrean Church) developed following the conversion of Axum to Christianity by Abba Salama (a young Syrian Christian called Frumentius, ordained a bishop by S. Athanasius of Alexandria between 346 and 356 AD), it took its liturgical, canonical, and literary fonts mainly from Egypt. Up to the mid-twentieth century, the Metropolitan of Ethiopia was an Egyptian, and most of the time the country’s only bishop. This situation shows why Egypt had so deep an influence on Ethiopian culture. Nevertheless, Ethiopia, which was a Christian kingdom while Egypt was under Islamic rule, has been able to develop her own civilization, inculturating the liturgy, adapting the law and writing out of her own sensitivity, in such a way that, today, both Churches and cultures are clearly different. Ethiopia’s Egyptian roots are still visible to the scholars’ eyes, but most people would hardly notice them.