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Ethiopia celebrates Meskel 'true cross'

Meskel festival lights up Ethiopia


CBC News

Thousands of Ethiopians and visitors crammed the main square in Addis Ababa, the capital, on Thursday to celebrate Meskel, the country's most colourful Christian festival.

Priests, nuns and parishioners from each Orthodox church sang, clapped, beat drums and danced as they put on their unique show for the crowd.

Meskel commemorates the recovery 17 centuries ago of the cross on which Jesus was crucified.

According to the story, St. Helena, mother of the Roman Emperor Constantine I, went to Jerusalem to look for the true cross. There, she was advised to light a fire, and the smoke pointed to the place where the cross was buried.

St. Helena then gave pieces of the cross to all the Orthodox churches. The Ethiopian Church still claims to have its own piece, but it is hidden from public view at the remote monastery of Gishan Mariam.

Even for non-believers, Meskel offers an excuse to celebrate with bonfires and parties. It also coincides with celebrations of the Ethiopian calendar's new year, the end of the long, dark rainy season and the return of sunshine and light.

The fields are full of flowers — especially the bright yellow Meskel daisies — and the crops are starting to grow.

"This is a chance for Ethiopian people to show they love each other. This is an exceptional show for Ethiopian people," spectator Salamon Decadu told the CBC's Stephen Puddicombe.

Another celebrant said Meskel offers an opportunity to show the world a different side of Ethiopia that is not often portrayed in the media.

"That's why I always tell my friends and the people I know that they should come here when they get the chance to see it, … because all they know is about the starving, the famine, the AIDS," Niki Zaoday said.

The head of the Ethiopian Church also took advantage of this year's festival to invite church leaders from all over the world to join in the celebrations and take part in a conference on world problems, ranging from terrorism to AIDS to finding new church converts.

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Ethiopia celebrates 'true cross'

By Elizabeth Blunt

BBC News, Addis Ababa

This week Addis Ababa is playing host to a gathering of church leaders from all over the world.

Ethiopia - which follows its own ancient Coptic calendar - has just celebrated the start of the new millennium.

And the head of the Ethiopian Church has invited his colleagues to take part in a conference on the problems of the world today, and to join him in celebrating Meskel, the first big festival of the Ethiopian religious year.

For the church, Meskel commemorates the finding of the true cross - Meskel in Amharic - by St Helena in the fourth century AD.

Hidden away

St Helena was the mother of the Emperor Constantine and she went to Jerusalem to look for the cross on which Christ was crucified.

There, the story goes, she was advised to light a fire which would show her where to look.

The smoke from the fire pointed to the place where the cross was buried.

St Helena then gave pieces of the cross to all the churches.

The Ethiopian Church still claims to have its own piece, hidden away at the remote monastery of Gishan Mariam, and celebrates the finding of the cross every year.

But the religious event has clearly got mixed up with older, traditional celebrations.

People are also celebrating the new year, the end of the long, dark rainy season and the return of sunshine and light.

The fields are full of flowers - especially the bright yellow Meskel daisies - and the crops are starting to grow.

Meskel is always a colourful occasion, an excuse for bonfires and parties.

Children make the most of it, knowing that it will be the last festival before they have to go back to school for the new academic year.

The biggest public celebration (and the biggest bonfire) is always in the huge open space in the centre of the capital, Meskel Square.

The Derg, the former communist military dictatorship, disapproved both of religion, and of its citizens having fun, and renamed it Revolution Square, but it has now got its old name back.

The patriarch of the Ethiopian Church always attends, and this year he is joined by other religious figures.

The Oriental Orthodox churches - Egypt, Ethiopia, Syria, Armenia and South India - are the inheritors of a very ancient Christian tradition and have stood out against various attempts at change over the centuries.

But although they are sister churches, they have been quite isolated from each other.

Their patriarchs have only once all met together - in Addis Ababa in the time of Emperor Haile Selassie.

All the Oriental churches have sent senior church leaders to Addis Ababa this week.

Major issues

Alongside them is the ecumenical patriarch of Constantinople, and many other senior figures from the eastern group of Orthodox churches - like those in Russia, Serbia and Greece.

And the Ethiopian patriarch, who is currently one of the presidents of the World Council of Churches, has invited the WCC churches as well.

But an invitation was not extended to church leaders in neighbouring Eritrea, with whom Ethiopia has a troubled relationship.

The Ethiopian patriarch said he very much wished he could have invited them but it was just not possible.

As well as enjoying the Meskel celebrations, the church leaders attended a conference to discuss some of the big issues currently facing the world and their church members.

The problems of conflict and terrorism were on the agenda, as well as Aids, climate change, poverty and the need for social justice.

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