Religion in Ethiopian
Religious Life
The
1955 constitution stated, "The Ethiopian Orthodox Church, founded in
the fourth century on the doctrines of Saint Mark, is the established
church of the Empire and is, as such, supported by the state." The
church was the bulwark of the state and the monarchy and became an element
in the ethnic identity of the dominant Amhara and Tigray.
By
contrast, Islam spread among ethnically diverse and geographically
dispersed groups at different times and therefore failed to provide the
same degree of political unity to its adherents. Traditional belief systems
were strongest in the lowland regions, but elements of such systems
characterized much of the popular religion of Christians and Muslims as
well. Beliefs and rituals varied widely, but fear of the evil eye, for
example, was widespread among followers of all religions.
Officially,
the imperial regime tolerated Muslims. For example, the government retained
Muslim courts, which dealt with family and personal law according to
Islamic law. However, the imperial authorities gradually took over Muslim
schools and discouraged the teaching of Arabic. Additionally, the behavior
of Amhara administrators in local communities and the general pattern of
Christian dominance tended to alienate Muslims.
The
revolution brought a major change in the official status of the Ethiopian
Orthodox Church and other religions. In 1975 the Mengistu regime
disestablished the church, which was a substantial landholder during the
imperial era, and early the next year removed its patriarch. The PMAC
declared that all religions were equal, and a number of Muslim holy days
became official holidays in addition to the Christian holidays already
honored. Despite these changes, divisions between Muslims and Christians
persisted.
Demography and Geography of Religious Affiliation
Statistical
data on religious affiliation, like those on ethnic groups, are unreliable.
Most Orthodox Christians are Amhara and Tigray, two groups that together
constitute more than 40 percent of the population. When members of these
two groups are combined with others who have accepted Orthodoxy, the total
Christian population might come to roughly 50 percent of all Ethiopians.
Muslims
have been estimated to constitute 40 percent of the population. The largest
ethnic group associated with Islam is the Somali. Several other much
smaller Islamic groups include the Afar, Argobba, Hareri, Saho, and most
Tigre speaking groups in northern Eritrea. Oromo also constitute a
large proportion of the total Muslim population. There are also Muslims in
other important ethnic categories, e.g., the Sidamo speakers and the
Gurage. In the far north and the east, and to some extent in the south,
Islamic peoples surround Orthodox Christians.
The
only people (variously estimated at 5 to 15 percent of the population) who
have had little if any contact with Orthodox Christianity or Islam live in
the far south and the west. Included among adherents of indigenous
religions are most of those speaking Nilo-Saharan languages and many of
those speaking Omotic and Cushitic, including sections of the Oromo, such
as the pastoral Borana. It is among these peoples that the few converts to
missionary Christianity-- Protestant and Roman Catholic--are to be found.
Ethiopian
Orthodox Christianity
John
Markakis has remarked of Ethiopia that "the dominant element
in this culture and its major distinguishing feature is the Christian
religion." Yet almost all of the analysis of Orthodox Christianity as
practiced by Ethiopians has focused on the Amhara and Tigray. The meaning
of that religion for the Oromo and others is not clear. For some Oromo who
achieved significant political power in Amhara kingdoms in the eighteenth
century and after, adherence to Christianity seemed to be motivated by
nothing more than expediency.
By
the mid-twentieth century, some educated Amhara and Tigray had developed
skepticism, not so much of doctrine-- although that also occurred as of the
church's political and economic role. They had developed similar feelings
toward the clergy, most of whom were poorly educated. Nevertheless, the
effects of the church's disestablishment and of the continuing social
upheaval and political repression impelled many Ethiopians to turn to
religion for solace.
Organization of the Church and the Clergy
The
Ethiopian Orthodox Church's headquarters was in Addis Ababa. The
boundaries of the dioceses, each under a bishop, followed provincial
boundaries; a patriarch (abun) headed the church. The ultimate authority in
matters of faith was the Episcopal Synod. In addition, the Church Council,
a consultative body that included clergy and laity, reviewed and drafted
administrative policy.
Beginning
in 1950, the choice of the abun passed from the Coptic Church of Egypt
in Alexandria to the Episcopal Synod in Addis Ababa. When
Abuna Tewoflos was ousted by the government in 1976, the church announced
that nominees for patriarch would be chosen from a pool of bishops and
monks-- archbishops were disqualified--and that the successful candidate
would be chosen on the basis of a vote by clergy and laity. The new abun
was a fifty-eight-year-old monk who took the name of Tekla Haimanot, after
a fourteenth-century Ethiopian saint.
From
the Christian peasant's point of view, the important church figures are the
local clergy. The priest has the most significant role. An estimated 10 to
20 percent of adult male Amhara and Tigray were priests in the 1960s--a not
extraordinary figure, considering that there were 17,000 to 18,000 churches
and that the celebration of the Eucharist required the participation of at
least two priests and three deacons, and frequently included more. Large
churches had as many as 100 priests; one was said to have 500.
There
are several categories of clergy, collectively referred to as the kahinat
(priests, deacons, and some monks) and the debteras (priests who have lost
their ordination because they are no longer ritually pure, or individuals
who have chosen not to enter the priesthood).
A boy between the ages of seven and ten
who wishes to become a deacon joins a church school and lives with his
teacher--a priest or debtera who has achieved a specified level of
learning--and fellow students near a church. After about four years of
study, the diocesan bishop ordains him a deacon.
After
three or four years of service and additional study, a deacon can apply to
be ordained a priest. Before doing so, he has to commit himself to celibacy
or else get married. Divorce and remarriage or adultery result in a loss of
ritual purity and loss of one's ordination.
A
priest's chief duty is to celebrate the Eucharist, a task to which he is
assigned for a fixed period of weeks or months each year. He also
officiates at baptisms and funeral services and attends the feasts
(provided by laymen) associated with these and other events. His second
important task is to act as confessor, usually by arrangement with specific
families.
Most
priests come from the peasantry, and their education is limited to what
they acquire during their training for the diaconate and in the relatively
short period thereafter. They are, however, ranked according to their
learning, and some acquire far more religious knowledge than others.
Debteras
often have a wider range of learning and skills than what is required for a
priest. Debteras act as choristers, poets, herbalists, astrologers,
fortune-tellers, and scribes (for those who cannot read).
Some
monks are laymen, usually widowers, who have devoted themselves to a pious
life. Other monks undertake a celibate life while young and commit
themselves to advanced religious education. Both kinds of monks might lead
a hermit's life, but many educated monks are associated with the great
monastic centers, which traditionally were the sources of doctrinal
innovation or dispute that had sometimes riven the Ethiopian Orthodox
Church. Nuns are relatively few, usually older women who perform largely
domestic tasks in the churches.
Faith and Practice
The
faith and practice of most Orthodox Christians combine elements from
Monophysite Christianity as it has developed in Ethiopia over the
centuries and from a non-Christian heritage rejected by more educated
church members but usually shared by the ordinary priest. According to
Monophysite doctrine, Christ is a divine aspect of the trinitarian God.
Broadly, the Christian elements are God (in Amharic, Egziabher), the
angels, and the saints. A hierarchy of angelic messengers and saints
conveys the prayers of the faithful to God and carries out the divine will.
When an Ethiopian Christian is in
difficulty, he or she appeals to these angels and saints as well as to God.
In more formal and regular rituals, priests communicate on behalf of the
community, and only priests may enter the inner sanctum of the usually
circular or octagonal church where the ark (tabot) dedicated to the church's
patron saint is housed.
On
important religious holidays, the ark is carried on the head of a priest
and escorted in procession outside the church. The ark, not the church, is
consecrated. Only those who feel pure, have fasted regularly, and have generally
conducted themselves properly may enter the middle ring to take communion.
At many services, most parish members remain in the outer ring, where
debteras sing hymns and dance.
Weekly
services constitute only a small part of an Ethiopian Orthodox Christian's
religious observance. Several holy days require prolonged services, singing
and dancing, and feasting. An important religious requirement, however, is
the keeping of fast days. Only the clergy and the very devout maintain the
full schedule of fasts, comprising 250 days, but the laity is expected to
fast 165 days per year, including every Wednesday and Friday and the two
months that include Lent and the Easter season.
In
addition to standard holy days, most Christians observe many saint's days.
A man might give a small feast on his personal saint's day. The local
voluntary association (called the maheber) connected with each church
honors its patron saint with a special service and a feast two or three
times a year.
Belief
in the existence of active spirits--many malevolent, some benevolent--is
widespread among Ethiopians, whether Christian, Muslim, or pagan. The
spirits called zar can be male or female and have a variety of personality
traits. Many peasants believe they can prevent misfortune by propitiating
the zar.
The
protective adbar spirits belong to the community rather than to the
individual or family. The female adbar is thought to protect the community
from disease, misfortune, and poverty, while the male adbar is said to
prevent fighting, feuds, and war and to bring good harvests. People
normally pay tribute to the adbars in the form of honey, grains, and
butter.
Myths
connected with the evil eye (buda) vary, but most people believe that the
power rests with members of lowly occupational groups who interact with
Amhara communities but are not part of them. To prevent the effects of the
evil eye, people wear amulets or invoke God's name. Because one can never
be sure of the source of illness or misfortune, the peasant has recourse to
wizards who can make diagnoses and specify cures. Debteras also make
amulets and charms designed to ward off satanic creatures.
The
belief system, Christian and other, of peasant and priest was consonant
with the prerevolutionary social order in its stress on hierarchy and
order. The long-range effects on this belief system of a Marxist-Leninist
regime that ostensibly intended to destroy the old social order were
difficult to evaluate in mid-1991. Even though the regime introduced some
change in the organization of the church and clergy, it was not likely that
the regime had succeeded in significantly modifying the beliefs of ordinary
Christians.
Islam
Basic Teachings of Islam
Islam
is a system of religious beliefs and an all encompassing way of life.
Muslims believe that God (Allah) revealed to the Prophet Muhammad the rules
governing society and the proper conduct of society's members. Therefore,
it is incumbent on the individual to live in a manner prescribed by the
revealed law and incumbent on the community to build the perfect human
society on earth according to holy injunctions.
Islam
recognizes no distinctions between church and state. The distinction
between religious and secular law is a recent development that reflects the
more pronounced role of the state in society and of Western economic and
cultural penetration. Religion has a greater impact on daily life in Muslim
countries than it has had in the largely Christian West since the Middle
Ages.
Islam
came to Ethiopia by way of the Arabian Peninsula, where in A.D.
610, Muhammad--a merchant of the Hashimite branch of the ruling Quraysh
tribe in the Arabian town of Mecca--began to preach the first of a
series of revelations he said had been granted him by God through the angel
Gabriel.
A fervent monotheist, Muhammad denounced
the polytheism of his fellow Meccans. Because the town's economy was based
in part on a thriving pilgrimage business to the shrine called the Kaaba
and to numerous other pagan religious sites in the area, Muhammad's censure
earned him the enmity of the town's leaders. In 622 he and a group of
followers accepted an invitation to settle in the town of Yathrib,
later known as Medina (the city), because it was the center of
Muhammad's activities. The move, or hijra, known in the West as the hegira,
marks the beginning of the Islamic era and of Islam as a force in history;
indeed, the Muslim calendar begins in 622.
In Medina,
Muhammad continued to preach, and he eventually defeated his detractors in
battle. He consolidated the temporal and the spiritual leadership in his
person before his death in 632. After Muhammad's death, his followers
compiled those of his words regarded as coming directly from God into the
Quran, the holy scriptures of Islam. Others of his sayings and teachings,
recalled by those who had known him, became the hadith.
The
precedent of Muhammad's personal behavior is called the sunna. Together,
these works form a comprehensive guide to the spiritual, ethical, and
social life of the orthodox Sunni Muslim.
The
duties of Muslims form the five pillars of Islam, which set forth the acts
necessary to demonstrate and reinforce the faith. These are the recitation
of the shahada ("There is no god but God [Allah], and Muhammad is his
prophet."), salat (daily prayer), zakat (almsgiving), sawm (fasting),
and hajj (pilgrimage). The believer is to pray in a prescribed manner after
purification through ritual ablutions each day at dawn, midday, mid-afternoon,
sunset, and nightfall. prescribed genuflections and prostrations accompany
the prayers, which the worshiper recites facing toward Mecca.
Whenever possible, men pray in
congregation at the mosque with an imam, or prayer leader, and on Fridays
they make a special effort to do so. The Friday noon prayers provide the
occasion for weekly sermons by religious leaders. Women may also attend
public worship at the mosque, where they are segregated from the men,
although women usually pray at home. A special functionary, the muezzin,
intones a call to prayer to the entire community at the appropriate hour.
Those out of earshot determine the time by the position of the sun.
The
ninth month of the Muslim calendar is Ramadan, a period of obligatory
fasting in commemoration of Muhammad's receipt of God's revelation.
Throughout the month, all but the sick and weak, pregnant or lactating
women, soldiers on duty, travelers on necessary journeys, and young
children are enjoined from eating, drinking, smoking, or sexual intercourse
during the daylight hours. Those adults who are excused are obliged to
endure an equivalent fast at their earliest opportunity.
A
festive meal breaks the daily fast and inaugurates a night of feasting and
celebration. The pious well-to-do usually perform little or no work during
this period, and some businesses close for all or part of the day. Because
the months of the lunar year revolve through the solar year, Ramadan falls
at various seasons in different years. A considerable test of discipline at
any time of the year, a fast that falls in summertime imposes severe
hardship on those who must do physical work.
All
Muslims, at least once in their lifetimes, are strongly encouraged to make
the hajj to Mecca to participate in special rites held there
during the twelfth month of the lunar calendar. Muhammad instituted this
requirement, modifying pre-Islamic custom, to emphasize sites associated
with God and Abraham (Ibrahim), considered the founder of monotheism and
father of the Arabs through his son Ismail.
Other
tenets of the Muslim faith include the jihad (holy war), and the
requirement to do good works and to avoid all evil thoughts, words, and
deeds. In addition, Muslims agree on certain basic principles of faith
based on the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad: there is one God, who is a
unitary divine being, in contrast to the trinitarian belief of Christians;
Muhammad, the last of a line of prophets beginning with Abraham and
including Moses (Musa) and Jesus (Isa), was chosen by God to present His
message to humanity; and there is to be a general resurrection on the last,
or judgment, day.
During
his lifetime, Muhammad was spiritual and temporal leader of the Muslim
community. Religious and secular law merged, and all Muslims traditionally
have been subject to Sharia, or religious law. A comprehensive legal
system, sharia developed gradually through the first four centuries of the
Islamic era, primarily through the accretion of interpretations and
precedents set by various judges and scholars.
After
Muhammad's death, Muslim community leaders chose Abu Bakr, the Prophet's
father-in-law and one of his earliest followers, to succeed him. At that
time, some persons favored Ali ibn Abu Talib, Muhammad's cousin and the husband
of his daughter Fatima. But Ali and his supporters (the Shiat Ali, or Party
of Ali) eventually recognized the community's choice.
The
next two caliphs (successors)--Umar, who succeeded in A.D. 634, and Uthman,
who took power in 644--enjoyed the recognition of the entire community.
When Ali finally succeeded to the caliphate in 656, Muawiyah, governor
of Syria, rebelled in the name of his murdered kinsman Uthman. After
the ensuing civil war, Ali moved his capital to the area of
present-day Iraq, where he was murdered shortly thereafter.
Ali's
death ended the last of the so-called four orthodox caliphates and the
period in which the entire community of Islam recognized a single caliph.
Muawiyah proclaimed himself caliph from Damascus. The Shiat Ali
refused to recognize him or his line, the Umayyad caliphs, and withdrew in
the great schism to establish the dissident sect, known as the Shia, who
supported the claims of Ali's line to the caliphate based on descent from
the Prophet. The larger faction, the Sunnis, adhered to the position that
the caliph must be elected, and over the centuries they have represented
themselves as the orthodox branch.
Early
in Islam's history the Sufism movement emerged. It stressed the possibility
of emotional closeness to God and mystical knowledge of God in contrast to
the intellectual and legalistic emphasis of orthodox Sunni theology. By the
twelfth century, this tendency had taken a number of forms. Orders, each emphasizing
specific disciplines (ways) of achieving that closeness and knowledge, were
organized. Disdained by orthodox Islamic theologians, Sufi orders
nevertheless became an integral part of Islam, although their importance
varied regionally.
Local Character of Belief and Practice
Ethiopian
Muslims are adherents of the dominant Sunni, or orthodox, branch of Islam.
Shia is not represented in Ethiopia. The beliefs and practices of Ethiopian
Muslims are embodied in a more or less integrated amalgam of three elements:
the Islam of the Quran and the Sharia, the worship of saints and the
rituals and organization of religious orders, and the still-important
remnant of pre-Islamic patterns. Islam in the traditional sense is dominant
only on the Eritrean coast among Arab and Arab-influenced populations and
in Harer and a few other towns.
In
general, the most important practices of the Islamic faith, particularly
regular prayer and fasting during the month of Ramadan, are observed in
urban centers rather than in the smaller towns and villages and more among
settled peoples than among nomads. Records of the pilgrimage
to Mecca by Ethiopian Muslims are scarce.
Under
Haile Selassie, Muslim communities could bring matters of personal and
family law and inheritance before Islamic courts; many did so and probably
continued to do so under the revolutionary regime. However, many Muslims
dealt with such matters in terms of customary law. For example, the Somali
and other pastoralists tended not to follow the requirement that daughters
inherit half as much property as sons, particularly when livestock was at
issue.
In Ethiopia's
Muslim communities, as in neighboring Sudan and Somalia, the
faithful are associated with, but not necessarily members of, specific
orders. Nevertheless, although formal and informal attachment to Sufi
orders is widespread, the emphasis is less on contemplative and disciplined
mysticism than on the powers of the founders and other leaders of local
branches of the orders. Most believe that these persons possess
extraordinary powers to intercede with God and have the ability to promote
the fertility of women and cure illness.
Indigenous Religions
Among
indigenous religious systems, the names of certain deities and spirits
recur frequently, especially among groups speaking related languages.
Certain features of these traditional belief systems are broadly
similar--for example, the existence of a supreme god identified with the
sky and relatively remote from the everyday concerns of the people and
addressed through spirits.
Surface
similarities notwithstanding, the configuration of the accepted roster of
spirits, the rituals addressed to them, the social units (some based on the
territorial community, others on common descent, generation, or sex)
participating in specific rituals, and the nature and functions of
religious specialists are peculiar to each ethnic group or subsection.
Common to almost all indigenous systems is a range of spirits, some closely
resembling in name and function the spirits recognized by neighboring
Christians or Muslims.
Among
the Oromo, especially those not fully Christianized, there is a belief in a
supreme god called Waka, represented by spirits known as ayana. The ayana
are mediators between the high god and human beings and are themselves
approached through the kallu, a ritual specialist capable of being
possessed by these spirits. The kallu is said to communicate directly with
Waka and bless the community in his name.
Foreign
Missions
In
a 1944 decree, Haile Selassie forbade missionaries from attempting to
convert Ethiopian Orthodox Christians, and they had little success in
proselytizing among Muslims. Most missionaries focused their activities on
adherents of local religions--but still with only little success. In the
1960s, there were about 900 foreign missionaries in Ethiopia, but many
were laypersons. This fact was consistent with the emphasis of many such
missions on the education and vocational training of the people they sought
to serve.
One
obstacle to the missions' success in the rural areas may have been the
imperial government's insistence that Amharic be used as the medium of
religious instruction except in the earliest stages of missionary activity.
There was also some evidence that Ethiopian Orthodox priests residing
outside the Amhara and Tigray heartland, as well as local administrators,
were hostile to the missionaries.
In
the late 1960s, there were 350,000 to 400,000 Protestants and Catholics
in Ethiopia, roughly 1.5 percent of the population. About 36 percent
of these were Catholics, divided among those adhering to the Ethiopian rite
(about 60 percent) and those following the Latin rite. The three bishops
were Ethiopians.
Protestants
were divided among a number of denominations. The largest, nearly equaling
in number the size of the Catholic congregation, consisted of adherents to
the Fellowship of Evangelical Believers, the Ethiopian branch of the Sudan
Interior Mission. The next largest group, about half as large, was the
Ethiopian Evangelical Church Mekane Yesus, an entity that was fostered
jointly by Scandinavian, German, and American Lutheran groups.
This
group claimed 400,000 members in the late 1970s and had an Ethiopian head.
Several other groups, including
the Bethel Evangelical Church (sponsored by the
American United Presbyterian Church) and the Seventh-Day Adventists, had
between 5,000 and 15,000 members each.
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