A Journey, But Not Alone: Yup, we're church dorks! . . . Ethiopia Round 3, Day 26

Another day on the town. As we drove around we had a good view of the construction on the new train tracks!

We were headed to see and tour two of the large Ethiopian Orthodox Cathedrals in Addis Ababa. The first stop was St. George Cathedral.

St George Cathedral is dedicated to the Patron Saint of Ethiopia. The octagonal shape building was built in 1896. It was commissioned by Emperor Menelik to commemorate his victory over Adwa against the Italians.

There is a large space all around the cathedral. We learned that worship is broadcast through speakers and many people worship out in this plaza area. The building itself is designed in 3 concentric octagons. The largest outer octagon is a place for singing. They use a prayer stick, drums and small handheld chime/cymbal type instruments. Each item had a symbolic meaning. The prayer stick represented the staff of Moses from the Old Testament and the cross from the New Testament. The drum had a larger end that represented the New Testament and a smaller end that represented the Old Testament. The lacing that held the drum together signified the whips that Jesus was scourged with. Men and women enter and sit in different sides of the building and remain separate during all parts of worship. We were required to take our shoes off to enter. This is reminiscent of Moses being asked to remove his sandals when approaching the burning bush.

The entrance to the middle octagon.

People enter the middle center octogon to receive Holy Communion. Worship is held everyday and communion is served daily as well. Below is the area where communion is served. They used finely decorated parasols during worship to cover the communion elements out of respect.

All around the center portion are beautiful paintings and mosaics. They depict various portions of scripture. However, to my surprise they also picture battle scenes that would be indicative of the reason behind the cathedral's commissioning. Many of the paintings had cloth draped over them out of respect.

The crucifixion.

Mary, mother of Jesus.

A mosaic above the door. Beside the door is a painting of judgment day.

The worship services are held in Ge'ez. It is the precursor language to modern Amharic. It is considered a religious language. The Ethiopians that were with us did not understand it. However, it does use the same characters as modern Amharic.

In the very center of the building was the Holy of Holies. It contains a symbolic representation of the Ark of the Covenant from scripture. Only the priests are allowed to enter the area. It is from there that they lead worship. There is a door on 3 sides of the Holy of Holies and during worship those doors are open.

After we toured the the cathedral we took another tour of the museum. Pictures with statues of saints are always awesome! Brothers from different mothers! Kevin and our awesome taxi driver Buggadu!

We started climbing the stairs to the bell tower. Yup, stairs that are a little sketchy and will get more sketchy!!!

Nati decided we needed pictures!

Yeah, sketchy stairs! Cool bell tower though!

The grounds around the cathedral were beautiful! The trees there were huge. It was amazing to take in the view, but even more amazing to see all the faithful worshiping. Their prayers and devotion were inspiring. We were blessed to visit there!

After St. George's we headed over to Holy Trinity Cathedral. It was built to commemorate Ethiopia's liberation from Italian occupation. It was finished in 1943.

In the front of the building there are 4 large statues to represent the 4 gospel writers. Here's St. Luke sitting on an ox.

There are statues all over the building. It was beautiful!

There was a cemetery around most of the cathedral. Many famous people were buried there. There were also the graves of emperors and the president of Ethiopia that passed away just two years ago. These were the graves of the late archbishops.