The Ethiopian Church Journal Blog

7 Facts about Ethiopian Christianity Ethiopian Christianity forms one of the oldest branches of the Christian faith. Read on to discover important facts about sub-Saharan Africa’s most ancient Christian tradition. May 8, 2023 • By Greg Pasciuto Located in the northeastern corner of Africa, Ethiopia’s importance to global religious traditions cannot be overstated. Both the Bible and the Qur’an make reference to the country repeatedly. Over the past two thousand years, both Christianity and Islam have found a home in Ethiopia. For this article, we’ll be looking at Ethiopian Christianity and its developments since the foundation of the Church. Due to its historical isolation from other Christian countries, Ethiopia developed its own unique traditions. These practices can still be observed today. Yet Ethiopian Christianity is not a relic by any means. It is a living religious tradition with relevance to the world at large. Read on as we explore some of the fascinating history and practices...

  Barista keeps 100-year promise with Ethiopian emperor Chuncheon's Ethiopia Bet is more than just a coffeehouse: Cho Soo-kyung By Kwak Yeon-soo | koreatimes.co.kr | 2023-01-19 15:33 CHUNCHEON, Gangwon Province ― Making a perfect cup of coffee is a delicate affair, from selecting healthy green beans, roasting them and determining the perfect brewing ratio to choosing the ideal serving temperature.      Barista Cho Soo-kyung, the second-generation owner of Ethiopia Bet (Ethiopia House) coffeehouse in the Gangwon provincial city of Chuncheon, learned about coffee from her mother who opened Korea's first roastery cafe in 1968 to serve high-quality Ethiopian coffee to visitors.      The coffeehouse specializes in Ethiopian coffee, from the Harar, Yirgacheffe and Sidamo regions, which are all roasted daily in small batches.      "My 91-year-old mother can still tell if beans are roasted properly or not. I took after her, and ...

A Note on Ethiopian Chess By Professor Richard K. P. Pankhurst Ethiopia deserves an horourable place in the great history of chess which appears to have been traditionally popular in court circles and among the nobility. The game was known in Amharic as Sentherej, a name borrowed from the Arabs who called it Shatranj, a corruption of the Persian Chatrang, itself derived from the Sanskrit chaturanga.      In the early sixteenth century the Emperor Lebna Dengel (1508-1540) is said to have played chess as well as cards with the Venetian artist Gregorio or Hieronimo Bicini, as was related by the Ethiopian ecclesiastic, Brother Thomas of Ganget, in his conversations with the Italian Alessandro Zorzi. [i]      Sahle Sellassie, the early nineteenth century King of Shoa, was another notable chess player. The French travellers Comkes and Tamisier, who visited Ethiopia in 1835-37, relate that he used to play in the evening with one of his courtiers, who, they allege...

    Summing It All Up By Mitiku Adisu If you were to sum up in a few words the trajectory of your life, what would those words be? "Can’t drink coffee on a running horse?" "The best is yet to come?" "Life goes on" was how the octogenarian Robert Frost (d. 1963) responded to a journalist’s query. Frost is gone, but his memory lives on. What about Tsegaye Gabre-Medhin (1936-2006), Ethiopia's preeminent communitarian poet-playwright? We'll look at the quintet briefly below, even as we recall the glory days of Ethiopian theater ( እናት ዓለም ጠኑ Enat Alam Tannu, an adaptation of Brecht's Mother Courage; ሀ ሁ በስድስት ወር Ha Hu Basidst Wer, The Alphabet in Six Months), each of which was packed for months on end, with audiences poring over the playwright's perky prose like possessed monastic holy men. Not unlike the prophets of old, Tsegaye had a disposition to carry in his person the tragedies, beauty, and hopes of the Motherland. The verse was likel...