Author: Abate Gobena Publisher: BoD - Books on Demand ISBN: 9188906221 Category : Religion Languages : en Pages : 232
Book Description
The original forests of the central and northern highlands of Ethiopia are almost entirely confined to the "sacred groves" surrounding the churches and monasteries of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahido Church. In Ethiopian tradition sanctity starts from the Tabot on the altar of the church and extends to the outer periphery of the compound. Church forests serve as shade and shelter for the sacred, and are seen as integral parts of the churchyard. The Act of Gebre Menfes Qiddus (GGMQ) is an original Ethiopic hagiographic text. It depicts the life and struggle of the saint in the wilderness of forests and mountains. Hagiographic texts like GGMQ are in Ethiopia not mere historical records, but texts linked to the daily liturgical services that shape and mould the perceptions and actions of their readers and listeners. The aim of the thesis is to analyse how GGMQ presents the relation between the saint and the natural environment in order to see if there is a correlation with how the Ethiopian tradition has preserved the church forests and has considered these to be sacred spaces representing the wilderness. The aim is achieved through a close reading of the text and its intertexts using four selected themes as analytical instruments: ascetic estrangement, coexistence with non-human creation, identification with the angels and reconciliation of opposites. The analysis, and the fact that the GGMQ is one of the most venerated texts, read and heard with great liturgical solemnity, show that there are good reasons to believe that the constant reading of GGMQ has made and makes a significant impact upon the readers' views on the mutual co-habitation of human and non-human creation and the development of an awareness of the need to preserve the wilderness and non-human creation.
Author: Gebrehiwot Gebreslassie Zesu Publisher: Anchor Academic Publishing (aap_verlag) ISBN: 3954895811 Category : Education Languages : en Pages : 108
Book Description
The Orthodox Tewahedo Christian doctrine in Ethiopian practice has different possibilities: (a) within church compounds the protection of nature (respect of creation), (b) outside the submission of nature, as the Bible demands – both are Christian behaviors! Church is not pro-nature. The Church itself has set up a partition into sacred and profane, with different rule for both spheres; both systems of rules exist parallel. The followers respect the plants and animals in the church compound as end by themselves than a means to their economic objectives; they respect them not for their economic value rather for their perceived duty; respect to God as Church is the house of God. The people do not consider the plants and animals in the Church as simply normal animals rather they are believed to have a metaphysical divine power. Hence, it is impossible to put the follower's ethical perspective in exclusive manner rather it is both anthropocentristic and deep ecological which can be determined by the nature of the space occupied by the recourses.
Author: Björn Asserhed Publisher: BoD - Books on Demand ISBN: 9188906248 Category : Religion Languages : en Pages : 291
Book Description
Gardens in the Wasteland is an ethnographic study of Christian formation within three Swedish church plants working against a backdrop of advanced secularisation. The thesis analyses the formative practices employed by these church plants with the intention of forming persons towards a lived Christian identity. Employing a situated learning theory framework, it traces the formative trajectories and negotiations that emerge from these shared practices, and also examines the articulations of callings and intentions within these church plants. The findings reveal that the establishment of a church plant of-ten stems from a sense of place-oriented calling that encompasses a vision of vibrant Christian life and community. These church plants cultivate formative practices -- aimed at certain teloi -- that guide individuals on their journeys towards a lived Christian identity. Through participation in these practices, individuals align themselves with the church plant's vision of Christian life. This identity formation process is not static but rather involves ongoing negotiations, both on a personal and community level, as individuals grapple with the meaning of Christian identity and faith amidst an increasingly secularised society.
Author: Gebrehiwot Gebreslassie Zesu Publisher: GRIN Verlag ISBN: 3656319758 Category : Social Science Languages : en Pages : 114
Book Description
Master's Thesis from the year 2012 in the subject Cultural Studies - North African Studies, grade: Very good, , course: Social Anthropology with Concentration on Environmental Anthropology, language: English, abstract: The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church, which is believed to be the largest of the five non-Chalcedonian Eastern Churches and is believed as playing an important role in Ethiopian life is a unique church deeply based upon Ethiopian history, social life and ethics. In addition to its religious services, i has a long tradition of conserving biodiversity. Hence, if a traveler sees a patch of indigenous big trees in the northern highlands of Ethiopia, most probably there is an Orthodox Tewahedo Church in the center. Having the main objective of investigating the role of the Orthodox Tewahedo Church in biodiversity conservation, the paper deals with the religious values (principles and actions) of the EOTC that are in favor of biodiversity conservation. In line with, it tries to explore the church values in relation to biodiversity conservation in terms of the sacred and profane (space wise dichotomy). Moreover,identify the cultural bases on what plants and animals are conserved in the Church compounds. For this purpose, four churches were purposely selected from Ìnderta wereda. To encounter informants in their everyday life, the researcher lived for five months in the churches especially, in churches of Mika‘el Tsellamo and Mika‘el Romanat and use ‘Participant observation’. Moreover, the researcher used semi-structured and informal interviews. To this end, semi-structured interview was conducted with 40 purposely selected respondents. Accordingly, 30 respondents from Mika‘el Romanat and Mika‘el Tsellamo (15 from each) and 10 respondents from Khokholo Yowhannis and Mika‘el Dagya churches (5 from each) were interviewed. Moreover, in-depth interview was hold with key informants from the churches. Besides, different secondary sources were employed. The Church is playing a prominent role in conserving the biological diversity. Results indicated that it is due to the sacredness of the Church area that the plants and animals are well-conserved in the churches. It was found that the community respect and conserve natural Church plants and animals with no discrimination regardless of their benefits to the Church and the communities. In general, from the results, it was concluded that the sacredness of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church area have a prominent role for sustainable biodiversity conservation. Thus, the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo believers are Anthropocentrists outside the church compounds and Deep ecologists within the church compound.
Author: Girma Kebbede Publisher: Routledge ISBN: 9781138324572 Category : Environmental policy Languages : en Pages : 230
Book Description
Ethiopia is facing environmental and poverty challenges, and urgently needs effective management of its environmental resources. Much of the Ethiopian landscape has been significantly altered and reshaped by centuries of human activities, and three-quarters of the rural population is living on degraded land. Over the past two decades the country has seen rapid economic and population growth and unparalleled land use change. This book explores the challenges of sustaining the resource base while fuelling the economy and providing for a growing population that is greatly dependent on natural resources for income and livelihoods. Adopting a political ecology perspective, this book comprehensively examines human impacts on the environment in Ethiopia, defining the environment both in terms of the quantity and quality of renewable and non-renewable natural resources. With high levels of economic production and consumption also come unintended side effects: waste discharges, emissions of pollutants, and industrial effluents. These pollutants can degrade the quality of water, air, land, and forests as well as harm the health of people, animals, and other living organisms if untreated or disposed of improperly. This book demonstrates how the relationship between society and environment is inherently and delicately interwoven, providing an account of Ethiopia's current environment and natural resource base and future considerations for environmentally sustainable development.
Author: Samantha Kelly Publisher: Harvard University Press ISBN: 0674294173 Category : Christian pilgrims and pilgrimages Languages : en Pages : 513
Book Description
Samantha Kelly tells the story of Ethiopian Orthodox pilgrims in sixteenth-century Rome. The only African community in premodern Europe to leave extensive documentation in their own language, they negotiated religious pluralism amid rising Catholic conformity and collaborated with Latin Christians on scholarly projects of enduring interest.
Author: Erin Kathleen Rowe Publisher: Cambridge University Press ISBN: 1108421210 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 317
Book Description
This is the untold story of how black saints - and the slaves who venerated them - transformed the early modern church. It speaks to race, the Atlantic slave trade, and global Christianity, and provides new ways of thinking about blackness, holiness, and cultural authority.
Author: Mengistie Kindu Publisher: Springer Nature ISBN: 3030866262 Category : Science Languages : en Pages : 349
Book Description
This book, with contributions from leading academics - and including reviews and case studies from Ethiopian Church forests - provides a valuable reference for advanced students and researchers interested in forest and other natural resource management, ecology and ecosystem services as well as restoration options. The book addresses various aspects including a general overview of Ethiopian church forests, the present role and future challenges of church forests. It also discusses their structure and diversity in the context of sustainability and discusses restoration options for surrounding landscapes, under consideration of the circumstances of the land and the needs of surrounding communities. The intended readership includes natural resource professionals in general as well as forestry professionals in particular (practitioners, policymakers, educators and researchers). The book will provide the reader with a good foundation for understanding Ethiopian forest resources and restoration options of degraded landscape.
Author: Jason Bruner Publisher: ISBN: 9783039430345 Category : Languages : en Pages : 126
Book Description
This collection brings together a diverse range of scholars, including historians of pre-colonial, colonial, and contemporary Africa, along with anthropologists, who develop fresh arguments and reassessments of religious, cultural, and social change pertaining to Africa. The result is a fascinating array of research that offers critical, creative, and constructive analyses of religious change on the African continent, from the medieval period to the present.
Author: Taddesse Tamrat Publisher: Tsehai Publishers ISBN: 9781599070391 Category : Church and state Languages : en Pages : 378
Book Description
The book by Dr. Taddesse Tamrat is an important contribution. ... In fact, the author shows his full and precise knowledge of past literature on Ethiopia, and his critical analysis of historical events is well founded on the results of recent work; but also-and this is an important novelty-he had access to hagiographical and historical documents, kept in Ethiopian monasteries, which had not previously been known to scholars. ... - Professor Enrico Cerulli, in BSOAS, Vol. 37, 1972. Once in a long while, books are written that set the standard in their discipline. Taddesse Tamrat's Church and State has been just such a book, a classic in Ethiopian historiography, unsurpassed in its painstaking reconstruction of the medieval history of Ethiopia. Few historians have used the rich historical data of the gadl literature as exhaustively and as meticulously as Taddesse has done, teasing out crucial information as only an Ethiopian versed in church traditions could do. Equally significant for the value of the book has been the blending of these Ethiopian traditional sources with the rich contemporary Arabic sources and the commentaries and analyses of such authorities as Carlo Conti Rossini. In short, what Taddesse has done through this masterly reconstruction is to blaze the trail that other Ethiopian historians have followed, a process that culminated in the growth and ripening of professional Ethiopian historiography. - Professor Bahru Zewde is the author of A History of Modern Ethiopia Professor Taddesse Tamrat's magisterial historical work Church and State in Ethiopia, 1270-1527, documents the rise and expansion of a new dynasty in highland Christian Ethiopia and the simultaneous growth of Ethiopian monasticism as an intellectual and cultural force. Based upon a broad range of primary sources previously either unknown or not utilized, this book remains the essential text for the history of the highland Christian state of Ethiopia during the period of its development as the dominant state in the Horn of Africa. This seminal work established the historical foundation for subsequent studies in the history of highland Ethiopia, including specialized cultural and historical analyses of theology, music and religious art. - Professor Marilyn E. Heldman is the author of African Zion: The Sacred Art of Ethiopia
Author: Abate Gobena
Author: Gebrehiwot Gebreslassie Zesu
Author: Björn Asserhed
Author: Gebrehiwot Gebreslassie Zesu
Author: Girma Kebbede
Author: Samantha Kelly
Author: Erin Kathleen Rowe
Author: Mengistie Kindu
Author: Jason Bruner
Author: Taddesse Tamrat