“Ethiopia is currently undergoing a religious transformation that could be of major significance for the rapidly growing country of 91 million people. For centuries the territory that now constitutes the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia was divided between an Ethiopian Orthodox Christian core (with a Jewish minority), a Sunni Muslim zone in the east, and an animist/indigenous-faith area in the south and the lowland reaches of the far west.

Ethiopia’s Jewish community, however, has been diminishing rapidly over the past several decades, and is scheduled to essentially disappear this year as the last members of the Beta Israel community depart for Israel. Indigenous faiths are also diminishing, in most cases yielding to Protestant Christianity, which in turn is said to be growing at a brisk annual rate of 6.7 percent. Protestantism is also apparently making headway in some areas of Orthodox Christianity, generating tension between the two communities.”

Source Lewis, Martin W. 21 June 2013. Religious Change and Tension in Ethiopia. GeoCurrents.

As every Wednesday and Friday, restaurants are not serving meat or any animal products. It’s a fasting day. When I visited Ethiopia for the first time, I was surprised to discover a country in which Christianity is still so important, and how it seeps through everyday life. Visiting age-old Lalibela gave me a feeling of what Christianity might have been in an early stage. Similarly to in Armenia, bare stone churches ooze spritual power and faith of the thousands of people who have prayed and gathered there over centuries. ––AZ