In Egypt, one often hears about Ethiopia in relation to the crisis over Ethiopia’s Grand Renaissance Dam. Because ninety-percent of Egypt’s water comes from the Nile river, the government here has naturally been concerned about the construction of a massive upriver dam project on Ethiopia’s Blue Nile. Sometimes intense negotiations between the two countries about the scope and potential impact of this project have carried on for more than a decade.

What is not so well-known are the important links between the Coptic Orthodox and Ethiopian Orthodox churches. They are both considered to be members of the Oriental Orthodox churches, but the relationship between these communities is more interesting than that. For centuries, a Coptic Orthodox bishop travelled through Sudan down to Ethiopia to serve as a kind of patriarch over the Ethiopian church, usually knowing very little about the local languages and cultures. In a recent interview with Dr. Samuel Rubenson, professor emeritus of church history at Lund University in Sweden, I asked how such a unique arrangement emerged:

 

MA: Just to come back to the basic relationship, it is curious that for centuries they have been looking to the Coptic Orthodox Church to provide some kind of leadership. And what you told me is that there was one bishop that had to come from Egypt for basically most of the medieval period. Even if we imagine that he didn't have much authority, it is still interesting. Do you have an explanation for how they could feel so comfortable bringing in a foreigner and putting them in such a position?

SR: There is this very strong emphasis on apostolic succession that a bishop has to be consecrated by other bishops. And it was said already in the canons of the Council of Nicaea (325 CE) that there should be three bishops to consecrate a new bishop so that not one bishop could just get his successor and the one he preferred. In order to ordain their own bishops, Ethiopia would have needed to have three bishops who then would agree to ordain an Ethiopian. But the Copts also appear to have invented a pseudo-canon for Nicaea that said Ethiopia should only have one bishop who is to be ordained in Alexandria. So, this pseudo-canon was put into the canons of Nicaea, including the Ethiopian version, and the Ethiopians were bound by a council.

Professor Rubenson, who grew up in Ethiopia and has dedicated his academic career to the study of Eastern Christianity, with special attention to patristics, monasticism, and Ethiopian and Egyptian Christianity, provides a wealth of important information in our interview about what is certainly one of the most uniquely striking expressions of Christianity in the world. The interview touches on the origins and distinctives of the Ethiopian Orthodox tradition, Ethiopian monasticism, Coptic Orthodox and Ethiopian Orthodox relations, Christian-Muslim relations in Ethiopia, and modern separatist impulses in the Tigray and Oromo regions that threaten the unity of the Ethiopian church today.