Reportedly churches were burned, Christians were enslaved, and Christian practice was nearly obliterated. It was during this dark age that historian Gibbon wrote, "Encompassed on all sides by the enemies of their religion, the Aethiopians slept near a thousand years, forgetful of the world by whom they were forgotten." The Axumite's only relations with other Christians during this time was with the Coptic Church of Egypt, from whom they received their bishop.
These dark ages revealed the resilience of Christianity. The Christian movement shifted further south, and a new heartland was established in Lasta, where it lasted for over a century. In the thirteenth century an indigenous Abyssinian Christianity emerged, as did the Abyssinian nation. The thirteenth-century document Kibre Nagast (The Glory of the Kings), which unites Ethiopian royalty to the Old Testament Solomonic dynasty, became an Ethiopian mythology that bound Ethiopia toancient Israel. Orthodox Christianity dominated the religious terrain of Ethiopia until the fall of Haile Selassie I in 1974.
Religious Tolerance
Until 1977 the Ethiopian Orthodox Church (EOC), the largest of the five Oriental Orthodox branches, was the state church of Ethiopia. The constitution now guarantees freedom of religion, which has helped bring about a genuine respect for those with different religious practices and traditions.
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