High and hidden, the Gheralta churches’ positions served two purposes: to bring devotees closer to heaven and to be out of sight to raiding armies passing through the valleys below. So in order to experience these churches, visitors must hike slot canyons, free climb sheer sandstone walls and skirt cliff edges – a cultural foray that is not for the faint of heart....Click through all the photos.
September 6, 2014
Within the "sheer cliffs, surreal rock formations and vertical spires [of] northern Ethiopia’s Gheralta Mountains... rock-hewn Ethiopian Orthodox cave churches..."
"... some of which are more than 1,000 years old."
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6 comments:
Damn. Arturo Perez-Reverte, in one of his "Captain Alatriste" novels set in the 17th century, wrote of a character, a Christian Berber, who described similar mountaintop churches, kept scrupulously hidden away from the Muslim rulers of those countries. It's quite possible that in those churches are books and manuscripts that are considered lost to history, or even were never part of the historical record.
The Ethiopian Coptic is a thing of wonder.
It's sad that many African-Americans in their search for "African" spirituality glommed on to fraudulent pastiches like "Kwanzaa" rather than a religious motherlode like the Ethiopian Church. I'm not sure how welcoming the Ethiopian Church would prove to be to outsiders, but it would certainly repay study in depth.
And, besides, every Ethiopian I've ever spoken to about the faith assures me that the Ethiopian Church has in its possession the real Ark of the Covenant, sent by the Israelites for safe keeping over lines of communication between the two kingdoms begun by King Solomon & the Queen of Sheba.
It was an amazing year with our Egyptian daughter. We discovered Kansas City's Coptic community.
YoungHegelian, I've often wondered the same thing. Nothing struck my as more ironic than Cassius Clay renouncing his slave name in favor of Mohammed Ali.
The Ethiopian Coptic Church believes that Menelik, the son of Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, took the Ark of the Covenant. That deed is supposed to signify that the Ethiopian Christians became the chosen people in place of the Jews. Nothing ecumenical about that belief.
In a Land of Beheadings, the Christian prays in private.
Gee, thank you BBC for identifying more Islamist targets...
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