Harlem pilgrimage to nurture roots in Ethiopia
http://www.gbmnews.com/articles/1651/1/Harlem-pilgrimage-to-nurture-roots-in-Ethiopia/Page1.html
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Published on 10/10/2007
By Les Payne
At the doorway of what some call the eighth Wonder of the World, the Rev. Calvin Butts choked up speaking to church members accompanying him to the carved rock churches of Lalibela, in Ethiopia.
"These magnificent structures were built in the 12th century," he said, "when Europe was in the Dark Ages. We are realizing what Africa has given to the world. And the last ones to know about it are African-Americans."
The pastor of Harlem's Abyssinian Baptist Church is shepherding a 165-member delegation on a two-week fact-finding pilgrimage to this east African country he calls the "holy land" for black Christians.
At the doorway of what some call the eighth Wonder of the World, the Rev. Calvin Butts choked up speaking to church members accompanying him to the carved rock churches of Lalibela, in Ethiopia. "These magnificent structures were built in the 12th century," he said, "when Europe was in the Dark Ages. We are realizing what Africa has given to the world. And the last ones to know about it are African-Americans."
The pastor of Harlem's Abyssinian Baptist Church is shepherding a 165-member delegation on a two-week fact-finding pilgrimage to this east African country he calls the "holy land" for black Christians.
Harlem pilgrimage to nurture roots in Ethiopia
By Les Payne
At the doorway of what some call the eighth Wonder of the World, the Rev. Calvin Butts choked up speaking to church members accompanying him to the carved rock churches of Lalibela, in Ethiopia.
"These magnificent structures were built in the 12th century," he said, "when Europe was in the Dark Ages. We are realizing what Africa has given to the world. And the last ones to know about it are African-Americans."
The pastor of Harlem's Abyssinian Baptist Church is shepherding a 165-member delegation on a two-week fact-finding pilgrimage to this east African country he calls the "holy land" for black Christians.
The Lalibela churches, some completely underground and reachable only through a labyrinth of dark tunnels, were chiseled 900 years ago in what used to be the capital of Ethiopia. The walls, ceilings and doorways of the towering edifices cradled in rock - still used for weekly services and festivals - are etched with carvings and frescoes of Christian icons, biblical dramas and saints of mystical visage. Were the Lalibela churches anywhere other than remote Ethiopia, one guidebook states, they "would be celebrated as one of the Wonders of the World ... like the pyramids."
Butts says the visit, which began Sept. 15, seeks to educate African-Americans about a biblically significant country in their "motherland," and to explore ways to assist the economic development of one of the world's poorest countries.
As a member of the delegation, I observed everywhere the dignity of a remarkably proud and beautiful people beset by extraordinary challenges.
Plagued by periodic droughts and publicized famines, Ethiopia remains primarily an agrarian society. Some 80 percent of its workforce is devoted to small-scale agriculture, keyed to manual labor and carried on the backs of donkeys. Health, educational and economic backwardness also plague the country struggling out of a feudal society in a technological age. The nation of some 77 million, the second most populous in Africa, has only some 200,000 Internet users.
The stimulus for the trip, which Butts started planning two years ago, grew out of the direct role Ethiopia played in the founding of the Abyssinian Church in 1808. Several blacks bolted from the Baptist Church of New York when its nonwhite members were required to sit apart upstairs. In addition to nonslave blacks, or freedmen, there were three Ethiopians, so the breakaway church was christened after the biblical name for their homeland, Abyssinia.
As part of its upcoming bicentennial, the church joined Ethiopia in its yearlong celebration of the end of the country's Second Millennium. Ethiopia is the last country honoring the Julian calendar that, unlike the Gregorian, consists of 12 equal months, plus a 13th month of five days, with a sixth day thrown in on leap year.
With a continuous history dating to the pre-Christian era, Ethiopia is one of the oldest countries, and one of the earliest to allow organized Christianity. At an outdoor service for Butts and his delegation, a top-ranking Lalibela priest spoke of the "sister" relationship between the Abyssinian Church and his Ethiopian Orthodox Baptist Church, established in the fourth century.
As devout as it is unbowed, Ethiopia is alone among African countries - and most other so-called Third World nations - in having escaped colonization. It reversed a five-year occupation by Italy during World War II and continued as a monarchy until Emperor Haile Selassie was deposed in 1974 by a military junta.
With Ethiopia's increasing reputation as a potential hot spot in the Horn of Africa, it is considered a friend of the United States and the West, and draws stepped-up attention from China, as well as from regional Muslim countries.
The pressing need for economic development has not gone unnoticed by Ethiopian leaders. In a celebratory speech, Prime Minister Meles Zenawi was quoted as saying, "A thousand years from now, when Ethiopians gather to welcome the Fourth Millennium, they shall say that the eve of the Third Millennium was the beginning of the end of the dark ages in Ethiopia."
http://www.newsday.com/news/columnists/ny-oppay235385937sep23,0,7302162.column
At the doorway of what some call the eighth Wonder of the World, the Rev. Calvin Butts choked up speaking to church members accompanying him to the carved rock churches of Lalibela, in Ethiopia.
"These magnificent structures were built in the 12th century," he said, "when Europe was in the Dark Ages. We are realizing what Africa has given to the world. And the last ones to know about it are African-Americans."
The pastor of Harlem's Abyssinian Baptist Church is shepherding a 165-member delegation on a two-week fact-finding pilgrimage to this east African country he calls the "holy land" for black Christians.
The Lalibela churches, some completely underground and reachable only through a labyrinth of dark tunnels, were chiseled 900 years ago in what used to be the capital of Ethiopia. The walls, ceilings and doorways of the towering edifices cradled in rock - still used for weekly services and festivals - are etched with carvings and frescoes of Christian icons, biblical dramas and saints of mystical visage. Were the Lalibela churches anywhere other than remote Ethiopia, one guidebook states, they "would be celebrated as one of the Wonders of the World ... like the pyramids."
Butts says the visit, which began Sept. 15, seeks to educate African-Americans about a biblically significant country in their "motherland," and to explore ways to assist the economic development of one of the world's poorest countries.
As a member of the delegation, I observed everywhere the dignity of a remarkably proud and beautiful people beset by extraordinary challenges.
Plagued by periodic droughts and publicized famines, Ethiopia remains primarily an agrarian society. Some 80 percent of its workforce is devoted to small-scale agriculture, keyed to manual labor and carried on the backs of donkeys. Health, educational and economic backwardness also plague the country struggling out of a feudal society in a technological age. The nation of some 77 million, the second most populous in Africa, has only some 200,000 Internet users.
The stimulus for the trip, which Butts started planning two years ago, grew out of the direct role Ethiopia played in the founding of the Abyssinian Church in 1808. Several blacks bolted from the Baptist Church of New York when its nonwhite members were required to sit apart upstairs. In addition to nonslave blacks, or freedmen, there were three Ethiopians, so the breakaway church was christened after the biblical name for their homeland, Abyssinia.
As part of its upcoming bicentennial, the church joined Ethiopia in its yearlong celebration of the end of the country's Second Millennium. Ethiopia is the last country honoring the Julian calendar that, unlike the Gregorian, consists of 12 equal months, plus a 13th month of five days, with a sixth day thrown in on leap year.
With a continuous history dating to the pre-Christian era, Ethiopia is one of the oldest countries, and one of the earliest to allow organized Christianity. At an outdoor service for Butts and his delegation, a top-ranking Lalibela priest spoke of the "sister" relationship between the Abyssinian Church and his Ethiopian Orthodox Baptist Church, established in the fourth century.
As devout as it is unbowed, Ethiopia is alone among African countries - and most other so-called Third World nations - in having escaped colonization. It reversed a five-year occupation by Italy during World War II and continued as a monarchy until Emperor Haile Selassie was deposed in 1974 by a military junta.
With Ethiopia's increasing reputation as a potential hot spot in the Horn of Africa, it is considered a friend of the United States and the West, and draws stepped-up attention from China, as well as from regional Muslim countries.
The pressing need for economic development has not gone unnoticed by Ethiopian leaders. In a celebratory speech, Prime Minister Meles Zenawi was quoted as saying, "A thousand years from now, when Ethiopians gather to welcome the Fourth Millennium, they shall say that the eve of the Third Millennium was the beginning of the end of the dark ages in Ethiopia."
http://www.newsday.com/news/columnists/ny-oppay235385937sep23,0,7302162.column