The Protestant Reformation Started in Ethiopia
I attended Catholic school growing up. Catholic school involved religious lessons, school uniforms and attending Mass… I attended a lot of Mass. Recently, I attended my younger cousin’s 8th grade graduation from Catholic grade school and I was pleasantly surprised that my call and response game was still strong after all of these years.
The Lord be with you…and also with you.
One thing about Mass was that as a youth, I notice the differences between the way Catholics did church and the way I did church. However, I wasn’t only intrigued by the cultural differences. I was also intrigued by the doctrinal differences between the Catholic church and the Baptist church, where I was rooted. That led me to study church history. I thoroughly enjoyed discovering the major divisions of Christian churches; Eastern Orthodoxy, Roman Catholicism and Protestantism. So I dug some more.
I researched Protestantism heavy. It made sense to do so; I was a protestant. I learned of the Reformation and cats like Luther, Calvin, Knox and Zwingli. I learned some of the history of the Baptist church; I learned the Black tradition of protestant churches — which is how I came into the knowledge of A.M.E., the National Baptist Convention and the C.O.G.I.C. The popular belief is that we (Black people) got our Christianity from White people. Many argue that Black Protestant churches were birthed out of slavery and White Protestant Christianity. But that begs the question, at least for me, where was White Protestant Christianity birthed out of?
Conventional wisdom says folks Martin Luther were tired of Catholic Church abuses. However, Protestants did not have to leave Catholicism necessarily. As easily as they started something new outside Catholicism, they could have started something new within a Catholic theological framework. Nevertheless, they started something new. What was the blueprint for that something new: Protestantism?
The Ethiopian church traces its beginnings back to the Eunuch commissioned by the Candace to meet with Philip, who later baptized him.[1]
However, due to a confusion in territorial boundaries, I’ll speak of Ethiopia proper — starting with the kingdom of Axum. The church was founded in 4th century C.E. (around the same time as in Rome)[2] when the Axumite emperor Ezana converted to the faith — a decision influenced by a desire to strengthen ties with Rome. Also, Christianity provided the opportunity for unity amongst the Axumite kingdom.[3]
Ezana was the first in the world to put the cross on coins; removing the crescent-and-disk of South Arabian polytheism. The church’s first bishop, Frumentius, was raised in the palace of Axum — first as a slave and then he was later released. Upon being led to convert Ethiopia, Frumentius visited Alexandria and was consecrated by Athanasius. Historians disagree on the exact date, but agree that it happened during the second quarter of the 4th Century.[4] Athanasius — an African — was a bad boy. He helped lay the theological foundations of the church. But I digress (more on him in another post).
Originally, Christian practice was limited to the royal elite. However, many Christians had long lived in Axum before that the faith became the state religion[5] and by the 5th century, Christianity was spread to the population by missionaries fleeing the Byzantine Empire. Also, monasticism spread into Ethiopia with the arrival of the nine saints; originally Syrian monks that founded monasteries and translated sacred books into native language.[6]
Due to the outcome of the Council of Chalcedon in 451 C.E., and the invasion of Muslims in the 7th and 8th centuries, the church in Egypt and Ethiopia became isolated. As Islamic power grew in the Nile Valley Region, Ethiopia became the primary defender of oppressed Christian minorities in Muslim lands. One such instance shows what Ethiopia meant to Egyptian (Coptic) Christendom:
“An appeal… was also dispatched to Egypt by the Ethiopian king Amda Tseyon, warning the sultan that unless the repressive measures being imposed on the Egyptian Christians were revoked, he would institute a similar program of proscriptions against Muslims in Ethiopia. In addition, the Ethiopian king threatened to divert the course of the Nile, which would have had the effect of transforming much of Egypt into a desert.”[7]
The Ethiopian Church and the Egyptian Church share a history and centuries old kinship that last to this very day.
Martin Luther greatly regarded the Ethiopian church. According to Luther, the Ethiopian church served as an older, wiser, Black sibling to White Christian kingdoms in Europe. For Luther, who said that the Christian Church “is symbolized and called by the name Ethiopia,” the Ethiopian church possessed apostolic practices which were absent in Roman Catholicism.
At the time of Luther’s rebellion, Roman Catholicism engaged in the practice of selling indulgences, following the authority of one leader — the Pope (the bishop of Rome), and creating the doctrine of purgatory. Protestants dismissed these practices while adopting elements of faith practiced by the Ethiopian church. These elements included communion in both kind,[8] use of vernacular scriptures and married clergy.
Luther’s regard of the Ethiopian church was solidify upon the visit of the Ethiopian Deacon, Michael. Of this visit, Luther remarked “Three [sic] years ago there was an Ethiopian monk with us here, with whom we had discussions through an interpreter, and, having finished with all our articles, he said: ‘This is a good creed, that is, faith.’” Although the language barrier made communication difficult, Luther was confident in Michael’s declaration of faith:
“There has been with us in Germany, the Reverend Michael the Ethiopian, a Deacon. Conversing privately with him concerning Christian doctrine, we have heard that he properly agrees with the Symbol which the Western Church holds, and that he does not think differently about the Trinity than what the Western Church thinks. Therefore we commend him to good people as much as we surely can. For, although the Eastern Church has several dissimilar ceremonies, he judges that their dissimilarity does not nullify the unity of the church and does not militate against the faith, since the kingdom of Christ is the spiritual righteousness of the heart, the fear of God, and confidence through Christ. We also think this opinion is right. We have also learned from him, that the rite which we observe in the use of administration of the Lord’s Supper and the Mass, agrees with the Eastern Church.”[9]
Going back to the earlier reference of the Council of Chalcedon, there was a theological split between the Western church and the East African Church (both Egypt and Ethiopia). Also, Luther speaks of the ceremonial differences he saw. However, as stated earlier, there were some similarities in practice that Luther latched onto. David Jay Webber explained however, that there was another reason why there was theological chemistry between Luther and Michael, the Deacon:
“Deacon Michael’s agreement with Evangelical Lutheran teaching, insofar as he understood it, might be explained in part by the continuing influence of the fifteenth-century “Stephanite” movement within Ethiopian Orthodoxy… The Stephanites were “against the mixing of state and the church,” and “the cults of the cross and Mary” were also “very distasteful” to the Stephanites, who “chose to confine their theology with the worship of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, rejecting anything beyond this.” The Stephanites were persecuted and suppressed, and by the time of Deacon Michael’s visit to Wittenberg they had ceased to exist as a quantifiable movement. We cannot help but think, however, that Michael may very well have been under the lingering influence of at least some of their teachings and principles.”[10]
When referencing the Reformation, the names that commonly come up are Martin Luther followed by John Calvin and Ulrich Zwingli. Luther is commonly known as the father of the Protestant Reformation: Calvin and Zwingli were inspired by Luther’s writings. But Luther was inspired and legitimized by the Ethiopian church. It’s easy to simply give Luther the credit for deciding to challenge the doctrine and corruption of Roman Catholicism; it doesn’t require any further researching.
However a lack of research isn’t helpful if you’re trying to argue that Protestant Christianity is the White man’s religion. There is scholarship to counter that way of thinking. While there are differences among the three major branches of the faith, make no mistake that African Christianity had major impact on the church in the West. African churches and African church fathers help to lay a theological foundation that Western churches rest on today.
[1] The Old Testament makes numerous references is Ethiopia (Cushites & Nubians) including Moses’ wife (Numbers 12) and The Queen of Sheba meeting Solomon (1st Kings 10).
[2] Craig Keener & Glenn Usry, Defending Black Faith: Answers to Tough Questions About African-American Christianity (1997). P17.
[3] From Constantine to Ezana to King James to the Popes, Christianity offered monarchs political cover.
[4] Dale H. Moore, “Christianity in Ethiopia.” Church History (1936). P272.
[5] Craig Keener & Glenn Usry, Defending Black Faith: Answers to Tough Questions About African-American Christianity (1997). P17.
[6] Dale H. Moore, “Christianity in Ethiopia.” Church History (1936). P276.
[7] William L. Hansberry, Pillars in Ethiopian History Vol. I: William Leo Hansberry African History Notebook (1981). P131
[8] Both bread and wine
[9] David Jay Webber, “‘A Person’s Informal Confession of Faith Must Also Be Considered’: Reflections on the Use of Pastoral Discretion in the Administration of Holy Communion, with Special Reference to the Practice of the Evangelical Lutheran Synod.” Redeemer Lutheran Church. Accessed June 25, 2018. P14.
[10] Ibid. P15.
