Ethiopia has a special place in Catholic prophecies, which closely associate it with the end of the Islamic threat to the Church and the restoration of the Christian West. This outcome could only regard the future. It is also inferred by the message of Fatima.
by Vinicius
Ethiopia’s one hundred million Christians (two thirds of its population) occupy one of the most strategic areas in the world. Its strategic location at the mouth of the Red Sea and choking off the main axis of Islamic expansion into Africa has never fully come into play in the past because of its weakness as a state.
The Ethiopian Church is not in communion with Orthodox Churches like the Russian, Ukrainian or Greek Orthodox Churches, though (in 1964) it formed federation called the Oriental Orthodox Churches with the Coptic Church in Egypt and the Armenian Church. The Copts had a bitter break-up with the Byzantine Church (which was then Catholic) in late antiquity. Until recent centuries, the Ethiopians were isolated from such divisions and indeed, from the Christian world itself.
The Ethiopian delegation at the Council of Florence in 1441 could state that their Church had never intentionally separated from Rome; only distance and the dangers of travel had caused this – they had not had a word from Rome in 800 years.
Ethiopia is now one of the most dynamic countries in Africa and is at last starting to have a growing impact on its region and the world. Unlike sub-Saharan Africa, where conglomerations of ethnicities still struggle as viable nations, Ethiopia has had a continuous existence for two thousand years. Despite globalist efforts to undermine Ethiopia, and internal dissensions, this civilisation is now starting to take its place in the region, expanding towards the Red Sea.
Like another strategically positioned Christian nation, the Philippines, a strong Ethiopia cannot help but be vital to the restoration of the Christian West globally.
The Jesuit Mission in Ethiopia
Ethiopian unity with the Christian West almost came about in the early seventeenth century, with the Jesuit mission. Its basis was laid by Catholic support for Ethiopia in the previous century. Armed by the Ottoman Turks, the Adal (Somali) Sultanate had attacked Ethiopia and briefly overwhelmed it. This Christian people was on the verge of disappearing, just like its medieval sister kingdoms in the Sudan.
The Ethiopians appealed to King John III (The Pious) of Portugal, who sent 400 musketeers led by Vasco da Gama’s son. These reinforcements neutralised the Muslim technical advantage and saved Ethiopia. A Jesuit mission was soon established, initially to minister to the surviving musketeers and their descendants.
In 1589, Phillip II of Spain (Philip I of Portugal; the two crowns were united between 1580-1640) ordered a new Jesuit mission to Ethiopia to reinforce the priests remaining there, and promote the unity with the Catholic Church. A Spanish Jesuit, Fr. Pedro Páez Jaramillo, was sent. During his epic journey, among other things, Fr. Páez was imprisoned in Yemen for seven years, but was eventually ransomed, finally arriving in Ethiopia in 1603.
Páez was known for his gentle and intelligent approach. He had mastered several regional languages and attracted the attention of the Ethiopian Emperor Za Dengel, who asked him to say Mass. After hearing Fr Páez preach a number of times, the Emperor declared to him:
“I have formed a good opinion of what you teach… No one but the Roman Pontiff can be the universal pastor of the Church and vicar of Christ on earth”.
He asked for the Pope to send him a patriarch, and for King Phillip III in Madrid to send his daughter to marry his son (Paez informed him that she was a bit young for that) and offered the king military support against Islam. Za Dengel converted in 1604 but, against the advice of Fr Páez, he began to order changes to Ethiopian religious practice that were not essential to unity with Rome. This stirred up rebellions and the Emperor was killed in battle that year.
Emperor Susenyos I was Emperor of Ethiopia from 1607 to 1632 and made a much more determined attempt to unite Ethiopia with the Catholic Church. Paez described him as “very generous, affable and a man who had the word of a king because no fault can be ever be found in what he says or promises”.
Susenyos favoured the Jesuits and was eventually publicly received into Catholic unity by Fr. Paez in 1622, separating himself from all his wives except his first. Susenyos was also an effective ruler who defended his country’s frontiers against Muslim and pagan invaders and was respected; there were widespread conversions to Catholicism before he publicly endorsed the Church.
The Emperor sent a letter to Pope Paul V around 1611 which Fr. Paez had translated into Latin:
“Holy Roman Pope Paul V, the head and shepherd of the universal Church… we have received your letter… full of that paternal love with which the gentle father eagerly welcomed the prodigal son when he returned”.
In 1614, he wrote to King Phillip III, asking for military assistance. Phillip replies, “I am writing to my Viceroy of India commanding him… to help you so far as he is able”. This correspondence with both Pope V and Phillip III continued for several years.
The end of the mission
Fr Paez died later that year. In 1622, the Portuguese Jesuit, Alfonso Mendes, was appointed Patriarch of Ethiopia by Rome. Mendes was energetic, but mistaken in his approach, causing a backlash by insisting on various unnecessary changes to Ethiopian practices.
At a ceremony in 2026, he and Susenyos declared Catholicism the official religion. But the use of translated Roman rite liturgy, and suppression of many Ethiopian customs gave rebels ample excuse. Susenyos fought successfully against these rebellions for several years but, after one particularly gruesome battle in which several thousand of his opponents were killed, he relented, decreeing (1632) toleration for both Catholics and for the previous Ethiopian Church.
He abdicated and was succeeded by his son Facilides, who immediately restored the Ethiopian Church establishment to official status and expelled the Jesuits. This was an unfortunate end to a mission that had been very well-received by large and influential sectors of Ethiopian society. Susenyos had violently implemented the imprudent and unnecessary measures ordered by Alfonso Mendes, and the results were predictable.
Fr. Paez’s chronicle of his life in Ethiopia shows through many episodes the openness of Ethiopians to Catholicism. While they were attached to their ancient customs, the faith as expounded by the Jesuits was a revelation for them; they had never heard it expressed so clearly before. The difficulties were almost insurmountable though, with the mission being very small in numbers, and access to the landlocked kingdom extremely difficult through Muslim areas.
Today, the Ethiopian Church is under threat by being split three ways along ethnic lines (with Tigrean and Oromian schism from its Amharic core), and from Protestant evangelicals, who are now at least a third of the Christians in the country. As in the early seventeenth century however, the same threats that made union with Rome and military collaboration with Madrid so attractive still apply. In the same way, Ethiopia is even more vital to a revitalised Christian West than it was then.
by Vinicius. Vinicius is a Melbourne-based historian-researcher focussing on early modernity as the Christian Western alternative to ideological, Enlightenment modernity.
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