Ethiopia – The Churches and Monasteries
As I wrote earlier, this is a land of 37,000+ Ethiopian Orthodox churches. It also has a lot of mosques and other Christian sect churches, but I was not hear to look at them. Of the 37,000, three hundred are ancient rock-hewn churches. A rock-hewn church is one that is literally carved out of rock. There are three types – 1) monolithic which are free-standing cut completely out of a solid rock, 2) three-quarter monolithic which have one side still attached to the surrounding rock and 3) those carved into cliff faces usually in natural caves. All of the rock-hewn churches and monasteries that I visited are quite mind-boggling and I also visited many other non-rock churches and monasteries that are quite interesting, too.
Lalibela is famous for its monolithich variety. This little town is built around two major sites where maybe a dozen churches were cut into the rock. This is a bit hard to describe, but I will try and will post pictures soon so you can see it (or look it up on the internet now). Imagine a ground that is solid granite. They dug a trench into the rock ground so that a square was created leaving a solid monolith in the center of the square. Then they carved the monolith so that it looks like a church on the outside and they hollowed out the center of it so that it looks like a church within including doors, windows, columns and ornamentation. Some have one wall connected to the surrounding granite ground so they are the three-quarter variety. These churches of Lalibela and surrounding hills are the strangest houses of worship that I have ever seen and in some ways they are the most beautiful. I especially liked the limited light that filtered in. It made for some exceptional atmosphere and I spent a good amount of time trying to capture that atmosphere with some success in photos. You can be the judge when I post them, but understand the very limited light and no tripod made for some technically difficult photography. The only bad thing about these churches is that the timing of my visit could not be worse because they are erecting free-standing metal roofs over each of them for future protection against rain damage. Most are currently surrounded by the scaffolding being used for the construction. A few weeks earlier or later and the scaffolding would not be there.
I also visited other churches and monasteries in the surrounding rugged mountains around Lalibela. They were all different and equally impressive. Those that are in caves are quite strange, but have the added benefit of dripping water that they use for more atmosphere. In each they have the Holy of Holies or the area where they keep their ancient sacred items including a copy of the Ark of the Covenant. No one except the head priest go into the Holy of Holies similar to there only being one living monk who takes care of the “real” Ark in Axum. A priest shows the visitors some of the treasures including very old brass, bronze, gold and silver crosses with amazing details as well as crowns and ancient texts written on goat skin parchment in Ge’ez (Ethiopia’s ancient language used by the Orthodox church). The best part of these books is that they have beautiful painted drawings in amazingly good condition even though some are about 1000 years old!!! I was able to look at these old manuals and I wondered if there is any opportunity like this on earth unless you are a researcher. Of course, these are not handled in clean rooms with gloves yet the books are in fantastic condition. In fact, I was reluctant to believe the age of the first books I looked at thinking it was another Ethiopian story, but I later realized they are really as old as they say. The artwork is some of the best I have ever seen. As you know, I am not a bible-thumper or a church-goer, but I am always amazed that there are people who refuse to go to churches because they are anti-church. The Dutch in particular are always telling me that they would never enter a church. I am amazed because they are missing some of the most amazing and beautiful creations of humanity and like it or not there was hundreds of years where the only art was created for churches. I pity anyone that comes to Ethiopia and does not get a chance to look at the treasures at these houses of faith. What a shame to be so closed-minded. At no time do I feel drawn to these churches nor do I sit there and judge them negatively for their existance.
The monasteries of Ethiopia are numerous and they contain a lot of monks. Old and yound monks, Catholic church take note! While the “regular” Christian churches are failing to find new recruits, the church of Ethiopia obviously has no such problem. We went to Debre Damo in between Adrigat and Axum in the far north near the troubled border with Eritrea to see this very special monastery of three hundred monks. The entrance is quite unusual because it involves scaling a fifteen meter cliff to get on top of the mesa where the complex resides. To do this, monks have a rope made from stitched together rawhides which they lower to the base. The locals are able to climb up just holding onto the rope. I have rock-climbed with modern equipment and this would be the most difficult climb of my life. Us first-timers as well as the old monks and such are basically hoisted up the mountain with another rope tied around our waist. Because of the pilgrims headed to Axum there was a mob scene at the base and I had to watch a few people when we arrived. What I saw was so scary that I started to opt out of having to do anything with it. I witnessed crazy stuff like two people being hoisted up at once, two more people climbing up and passing literally over them using the rope and two more coming down also climbing over each other as they passed – that’s six people on the rope four of which are not tied to anything. No way was I going to have anything to do with that! Also, women are not allowed up to the monastery and they were at the bottom screaming in high pitches as you see Jewish and Muslim women do in videos from the Middle East. Hysterical wailing to help the men up!!! My guide, Tetek, managed to talk me into it by promising me that they would not allow anyone else to go up or down while this faranji was being hoisted. I relented and the scariest moments of my life were about to begin.
Everyone was cheering for me because I was the only faranji and therefore the only non-Orthodox person there. I was freaking out when they got the “rope” tied around my waist and I grabbed hold of the other thick rope of rawhide. They had just hoisted a big fat guy up who was the only one there with more weight than me so I was somewhat confident the ropes would hold. I started to walk up the verticle wall inching my hands up the rope while they pulled. There were some footholds and I used them, but I was also using all my arm strength to get myself up. The hoisting was the bare minimum to help me along. The women were yelping it up, but things got very serious only two meters above the ground and everything except the wall and the top faded from my mind. I remmeber nothing except struggling like I have never done before and being absolutely terrified since I hate climbing heights like ladders. A ladder would have been a joy compared to this. I got halfway up and realized the hoisting rope was slack by two meters because I had climbed faster than they had pulled. Now terror really went through me because I was at the hardest place on the wall where footholds were difficult to locate. The rope finally caught up and as I struggled with progress, they started pulling faster than I could climb and there was a time where my legs were not holding me up and my hands hurt a lot with a death grip on the rope. My feet finally found some holds as I was being dragged over the rock and the steepness got a little easier and the top was getting close. The last meter was very difficult, but the cheering guys at the top pulling got me over the lip. I crawled past their legs and through the door and my whole body was shaking as they removed the rope and welcomed and congratulated me. All I could think about was that I now had to go down what I had just come up!!! The monastery was nice including many ancient painted walls in the main church area and the views of the surrounding mountains and mesas was beautiful. For the climb down, a guy led me over the lip – damn scariest thing I ever want to do – and I slid and climbed down the wall while the guys at the top prevented me from falling to the bottom with the rope around my waist. More cheering for the faranji at the base when I arrived and I could only think that a life insurance company would cancel my policy if they saw that act. By two days later, I realized that I had some bruising of ribs, a bruised knee and my hands and arms were strained. But I made it and I am glad I was talked out (kind of) of my fears.
As with Debre Damo, many of the Ethiopian old churches especially those that are the more common wood structures have fantastic paintings on their walls. The best one is Debre Birhan Selassie church in Gonder where there are paintings covering all of the walls and the ceiling. It includes a great depiction of the devil as a monster, people burning in hell and angels in heaven (f course!), cherubic faces on the ceiling, many other bible and Orthodox scenes as well as one image of a captive Mohammad being led to hell by the devil – OUCH! I don’t know of any other Christian church art that actually goes this far with anti-Islamic art. All quite good entertainment for me.
Tags: Africa, ethiopia, Travel
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