{"id":5577,"date":"2006-09-26T10:40:59","date_gmt":"2006-09-26T10:40:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2006\/09\/christian-ethiopia.html"},"modified":"2006-09-26T10:40:59","modified_gmt":"2006-09-26T10:40:59","slug":"christian-ethiopia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/09\/christian-ethiopia.html","title":{"rendered":"Christian Ethiopia"},"content":{"rendered":"

A NYTimes travel piece takes you there, noting that some relative political calm has made travel more possible:<\/a><\/p>\n

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The most revered Aksumite kings were Kaleb and his son Gabremeskal (literally, Slave of the Cross), who spread Christianity from the royal court through the villages of Ethiopia in the sixth century. My guide, Sisay, who was incongruously clad in a bright red jacket and tie, black slacks and shiny black shoes \u2014 his official guide\u2019s uniform \u2014 led me on foot up a rutted road to the ruins of Kaleb\u2019s palace, at first glance an unimpressive pile of rubble. <\/p>\n

Then we descended a stone staircase into a network of subterranean burial chambers, constructed of huge, finely chiseled blocks of granite, that fit together as neatly as the blocks of a Rubik\u2019s cube. <\/p>\n

Entering the musty vault, where the monarchs were originally buried, Sisay illuminated the passageways with a thin candle. Fifteen-hundred-year-old carvings of elephants and distinctive Aksumite crosses \u2014 formed by four delicately shaped, not-quite-touching petals \u2014 were still clearly visible on the granite walls. <\/p>\n

Wandering through the ancient burial chamber had evidently moved Sisay deeply. With his eyes closed, swaying back and forth, candlelight flickering against his face, Sisay chanted the Lord\u2019s Prayer in Geez. <\/p>\n

After the hymn, we stepped back in the bright sunlight. <\/p>\n

\u201cCan you feel this place\u2019s holiness?\u201d he said. \u201cEthiopian Christianity was born here.\u201d <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A NYTimes travel piece takes you there, noting that some relative political calm has made travel more possible: The most revered Aksumite kings were Kaleb and his son Gabremeskal (literally, Slave of the Cross), who spread Christianity from the royal court through the villages of Ethiopia in the sixth century. 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The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/author\/awelborn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5577","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5577"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5577\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5577"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5577"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5577"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}