According to an ancient tradition, the first great evangelizer of the Ethiopians was St. Frumentius, a Roman citizen from Tyre who had been shipwrecked along the African coast of the Red Sea. He gained the confidence of the emperor at Aksum and eventually brought about the conversion of his son, who later became Emperor Ezana. Ezana later introduced Christianity as the state religion around the year 330. Frumentius was ordained a bishop by St. Athanasius of Alexandria and returned to Ethiopia to help with the continued evangelization of the country.

Around the year 480 the “Nine Saints” arrived in Ethiopia and began missionary activities. According to tradition they were from Rome, Constantinople and Syria. They had left their countries because of their opposition to Chalcedonian christology and had probably resided for a time at St. Pachomius monastery in Egypt. Their influence, along with the church’s strong links with the Copts in Egypt, probably explains the origin of the Ethiopian Church’s rejection of Chalcedon’s teaching that there are two natures in Christ. Indeed, the word “Tewahedo” that is included in the official name of the church today, means “being made one” or “unified,” and expresses the unity of Christ’s humanity and divinity in a single nature. The Nine Saints are credited with largely wiping out the remaining paganism in Ethiopia, with introducing the monastic tradition, and with making a substantial contribution to the development of Ge’ez religious literature by translating the Bible and religious works into that classical Ethiopian language. Monasteries quickly sprang up throughout the country and became important intellectual centers.

The Ethiopian Church reached its zenith in the 15th century when much creative theological and spiritual literature was produced and the church was engaged in extensive missionary activity.

The very negative experience of contact with Portuguese Roman Catholic missionaries in the 16th century Ethiopian Catholic Church] was followed by centuries of isolation from which the Ethiopian Church has only recently emerged.

This church is unique in retaining several Jewish practices such as circumcision and the observance of dietary laws and Saturday as well as Sunday sabbath. This is probably due to the fact that Christianity arrived in Ethiopia directly from Palestine in a form that was still strongly influenced by its Jewish roots. There is also a tradition that Judaism was practiced by some Ethiopians even before the arrival of Christianity.

The Ethiopian liturgy is of Alexandrian (Coptic) origin and influenced by the Syriac tradition. The liturgy was always celebrated in the ancient Ge’ez language until very recent times. Today a translation of the liturgy into modern Amharic is being used increasingly in the parishes. A strong monastic tradition continues.

From ancient times, all bishops in Ethiopia were Egyptian Copts appointed by the Coptic Patriarchate. Indeed, for many centuries the only bishop in Ethiopia was the Coptic Metropolitan. In the early 20th century the Ethiopian Church began to press for greater autonomy and the election of native Ethiopian bishops. In 1929 four native Ethiopian bishops were ordained to assist the Coptic Metropolitan. With the support of Emperor Haile Selassie (reigned 1930-1974), an agreement was reached with the Copts in 1948 which provided for the election of an ethnic Ethiopian Metropolitan upon the death of Metropolitan Qerillos. Thus when he died in 1951, an assembly of clergy and laity elected an Ethiopian, Basilios, as Metropolitan, and the autonomy of the Ethiopian Church was established. In 1959 the Coptic Patriarchate confirmed Metropolitan Basilios as the first Patriarch of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church.

An Ethiopian Orthodox faculty of theology, Trinity College, functioned as part of the University of Addis Ababa until it was closed by the government in 1974. In the same year, the church established St. Paul Theological College in Addis Ababa to provide a theological education for candidates for the priesthood. It has long been common for many Ethiopian Orthodox men to seek ordination; it was estimated in 1988 that there were 250,000 clergymen in the country. In order to provide them with an adequate level of education, six Clergy Training Centers have recently been established in various parts of Ethiopia. Every parish is now expected to have a Sunday School program.

Especially in recent years, the Ethiopian Church has assumed an active role in serving those in need. It has sponsored relief efforts on behalf of refugees and victims of drought, and a number of church-sponsored orphanages have been set up.

The Ethiopian Orthodox Church was the state religion of the country until the 1974 Marxist revolution, which overthrew the Emperor and placed Colonel Mengistu Haile Mariam at the head of government. Soon after the revolution, church and state were officially separated and most church land was nationalized. This signaled the beginning of a campaign against all the religious groups in the country.

Following the collapse of the communist government in May 1991, Patriarch Merkorios (elected in 1988) was accused of collaboration with the Mengistu regime. In September, under pressure, he resigned his duties as Patriarch. On July 5, 1992, the Holy Synod elected Abune Paulos as fifth Patriarch of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. He had been imprisoned for seven years by the Marxist authorities after Patriarch Theophilos (deposed in 1976 and murdered in prison in 1979) ordained him a bishop without government approval in 1975. Paulos was released in 1983 and had spent the intervening years in the United States. Meanwhile, Patriarch Merkorios, who initially took refuge in Kenya and later moved to the United States, refused to recognize the election of Paulos.

In October 1994 Patriarch Paulos presided over the reopening of Trinity Theological College in the Ethiopian capital. The college began functioning again with 50 students in its degree program and 100 studying for diplomas in theology.

Out of a total population of 74 million, between 40 and 45 percent now belongs to the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, concentrated in the northern regions of Tigray and Amhara. Approximately 45 percent is Sunni Muslim, centered in the eastern Somali and Afar regions, as well as Oromia. Another 10 percent of the population is Christian Evangelical and Pentecostal, the fastest growing religious group in the country. Catholics number around 750,000.

In Australia there are Ethiopian Orthodox communities in each of the state capitals. Contact Fr. Mangsha Dessie at PO Box 176, Ascot Vale, Victoria 3032. Three parishes in Great Britain are supervised by Archbishop Yohannes of Europe (9 Philip House, Mortimer Place, London NW6 5PB).

In the United States, Ethiopian Archbishop Yesehaq did not recognize the election of Patriarch Paulos and broke communion with the Patriarchate in 1992. The Archbishop, who died in 2005, took a large part of the Ethiopian Orthodox faithful in the western hemisphere with him as he allied himself to former Patriarch Merkorios and a few other Ethiopian exile bishops in the United States. The Ethiopian Holy Synod subsequently suspended Archbishop Yesehaq, and divided the existing Archdiocese of the Western Hemisphere into three jurisdictions (USA and Canada, Latin America and the Caribbean, and Western Europe). Canada was later established as a separate diocese under the supervision of Bishop Matthias who resides in London, Ontario. In 2007 the Ethiopian Holy Synod divided the United States into three dioceses, each headed by an archbishop. Abune Kewustos was appointed Archbishop of Washington, DC, with a mandate to promote reconciliation within the divided Ethiopian community. The other two bishops are based in New York City and Berkeley, California. Altogether there are perhaps 100,000 Ethiopian Orthodox in the western hemisphere, including a significant number of converts in the West Indies.