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Wednesday, July 30, 2025

Ethiopian Holy Week clashes with Christians'

by

20110421
?Karate instructor Brian Chin Leung performs 
some Russian kettlebell training.

?Karate instructor Brian Chin Leung performs some Russian kettlebell training.

Mem­bers of the Ethiopi­an Or­tho­dox Tewa­he­do Church are ob­serv­ing Holy Week along with the Chris­t­ian Ro­man Catholic and An­gli­can com­mu­ni­ty, while ad­her­ing to their own an­cient Ethiopi­an cus­toms, be­liefs and tra­di­tions. "It is the same Christ we wor­ship," His Grace Abuna Thad­daeus Gidey, Arch­bish­op of the Caribbean and Latin Amer­i­ca, said."We be­lieve in His death and His Res­ur­rec­tion but we have a dif­fer­ent or­der, dif­fer­ent rules and dif­fer­ent cel­e­bra­tions,"he added. Gidey said the Ethiopi­an Church al­so used a dif­fer­ent cal­en­dar than the west­ern world's Gre­go­ri­an cal­en­dar.

He ex­plained: "We fol­low our own cal­en­dar. Some peo­ple say it is the Ju­lian cal­en­dar we fol­low but it is not. Our Ethiopi­an cal­en­dar goes back 4,000 years be­fore Christ. "The Ju­lian cal­en­dar is adapt­ed from the an­cient Egypt­ian cal­en­dar. Ours date from af­ter the flood, in the time of Noah." Gidey said his church's ob­ser­vance of Holy Week was de­ter­mined up­on the Ethiopi­an cal­en­dar cal­cu­la­tions. He added: "Some­times it falls on dif­fer­ent cal­en­dar cal­cu­la­tions but this time it falls to­geth­er and co­in­cides with the west­ern cal­en­dar. Some­times it is ob­served a week af­ter the west­ern cal­en­dar. "Our Lent is al­so a lit­tle longer than the west­ern Lent and lasts for 55 days." The Ethiopi­an Or­tho­dox Tewa­he­do Church has been in ex­is­tence for over 2,000 years and has eight church­es in Trinidad and one in To­ba­go.

The church has been in the Caribbean for over 58 years with dio­ce­ses in Bar­ba­dos, Ja­maica, Guyana, Guade­loupe, Mar­tinique and Bermu­da. The ti­tle "Abuna" means Our Fa­ther, equiv­a­lent to ei­ther His Grace, His Em­i­nence in the an­cient Ge'ez lan­guage of Ethiopia. "When I was con­se­crat­ed as arch­bish­op by the Holy Syn­od, the name of the apos­tle Thad­daeus was cho­sen for me," Gidey said. "Gabriel is my first name and Gidey is the fam­i­ly name which means 'My Por­tion' in the Tigrinya di­alect," he added. Gidey was con­se­crat­ed as arch­bish­op in 1993 by Pa­tri­arch Abuna Pau­los at the Ethiopi­an Or­tho­dox Tewa­he­do Church head­quar­ters in Ad­dis Aba­ba. The Ethiopi­an Church's Pa­tri­arch is the equiv­a­lent of the Ro­man Catholic Pope. When asked if there were any di­etary prac­tices in the Ethiopi­an Church, he replied:

"We can eat some kinds of fish, meat and veg­eta­bles.

Since Ethiopia was a fol­low­er of Ju­daism, we fol­low the Old Tes­ta­ment re­gard­ing food. We don't eat pork and what is con­sid­ered un­clean things as men­tioned in Leviti­cus." The Res­ur­rec­tion Ser­vice (Tin­sea) will be held on Sat­ur­day from 10 pm un­til 4 am in­to Glo­ri­ous Sun­day at Med­hane Alem head­quar­ters, Old Gold­en Road, Arou­ca. Al­so in­clud­ed in the ob­ser­vances are singing, a can­dle­light pro­ces­sion around the church three times, the break­ing of the fast and the cel­e­bra­tion of mass at mid­night. Gidey con­clud­ed by wish­ing the coun­try a joy­ful Holy Week. "I wish the na­tion all the best and a Hap­py Res­ur­rec­tion and East­er. We have to work to­geth­er as a new­ly-risen (sic) peo­ple and live like risen peo­ple."


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