Celebrating epiphany the Orthodox way in Ethiopia
ADDIS ABABA, Jan 20 (AFP) — It’s barely sunrise but 23-year-old Tsadeye has been up for hours, anxiously waiting to join her Sunday school class for the big day, Ethiopia’s unique commemoration of the baptism of Jesus Christ.
“Yes, I’m tired, but I’m also happy because we’ve been waiting for this ceremony for a year or so,” says an obviously excited Tsadeye, who with her classmates has spent the entire night preparing.
Known as “Timkat” in the ancient languague of Amharic, the colorful, raucous and ultimately water-drenched Epiphany festival ranks second in importance only to Christmas for the country’s 40 million Orthodox Church followers.
Timkat annually draws hundreds of thousands of believers and curious tourists to Addis Ababa and northern Ethiopia for two days of festivities.
This year, as in the past, Tsadeye, her friends and thousands of other believers, have spent Timkat eve with beggars and street urchins in the dusty streets of Addis Ababa, singing and dancing to the relentless beat of drums.
As Wednesday’s dawn breaks, the crowds build and revellers enveloped in white shawls stream to the vast Jan Meda (Emperor’s Park) following elaborately dressed priests covered in jewel-encrusted velvet and satin robes.
Replicas of the Ark of the Covenant — the vessel in which the Biblical Ten Commandments are believed to have been held and which the Orthodox church here maintains is located in Ethiopia — are held aloft as the chanting and swaying processions wend their way to the park.
“The unique thing about the Ethiopian Orthodox church and what makes the celebration so popular in Ethiopia, is that we possess the original Ark of the Covenant,” says Beyane Costantinos, a church representative.
Every year at Timkat each of the country’s 35,000 Orthodox churches floats a replica of the ark on its nearest river to celebrate the baptism of Christ while others are carried overhead in processions.
This makes Ethiopia during Timkat home to the largest collection of “Arks of the Covenant” on the planet, Costantinos says proudly.
On this foggy, humid morning, families gather on the grounds, praying and singing hymns and psalms and Jan Meda, constructed by Ethiopia’s late emperor Haile Selassie, is transformed into a noisy, but reverent, open-air cathedral.
“Today we celebrate epiphany, the time for baptism, it is a great religious moment and a great holiday in Ethiopia,” a voice says over loudspeakers in English for the apparent benefit of the many foreign tourists in attendance.
At the park’s edges, enterprising women have set up small stands and are busily selling religious wares: incense, candles, sunshades and bundles of fresh grass to be thrown on the ground as a gesture of happiness.
By mid-morning, spray pipes are turned on to shower the swollen crowd of believers, the most faithful of whom will remain fully dressed for the dowsing, a symbolic baptism with holy water blessed by Church leader Abuna Paulos.
“Shower the faithful with holy water,” orders Tekalijin, a Sunday school teacher eager for his flock to share in the experience. “This is a sign to commemorate the baptism of Christ.”
Some “will come here the whole day for the holy water,” he says, pointing to the gymnastic antics of some in the crowd who try with mixed success to capture the liquid in small-necked bottles.
There are no official attendance figures, but Church officials estimate that as many as 100,000 people have turned up for the ceremony, which will end hours later only when the priests decide to return to their churches.