P'ent'ay - History

History

Modern Ethiopian Evangelicals have origins from the Azusa Street Revival in the United States led by Charles Fox Parham and the African American William J. Seymour. But the whole Pentecostal movement is passed down and based on Charismatic Evangelical interpretations concerning the Day of the Pentecost. Orthodox, Roman Cathoplic, and many other Protestant interpretations of these same events differ radically from the interpretations of this group. In light of their own interpretations, the Ethiopian Pentecostal church claims origins from Philip the Evangelist. (The mainstream Orthodox Church has claimed its earliest origins from the Ethiopian royal official said to have been baptised by Philip in Acts 9 .) However every branch of the Evangelical community, including Mekane Yesus & Qale Hiywet, has its own unique beginning both in Ethiopia (19th-20th centuries) and their counterparts in Europe (10th-17th centuries.)

For the most part, Evangelical Ethiopian Christians state that their form of Christianity is both the reformation of the current Orthodox Tewahido church as well as the restoration of it to the original Ethiopian Christianity. They believe Ethiopian Orthodox Christianity was paganized after the 960s, during the reign of queen Gudit, who destroyed & burned most of the church's possessions and scriptures. Thus they claim those events have led to the gradual paganization of the Orthodox church which they claim is now merely dominated by rituals, hearsay and fables. Evangelical Christians use the alleged "secularized teaching" of the current Orthodox Tewahido church, the alleged inability of most Orthodox followers to live according to the instructions of the Bible and the extra unbiblical booklets used by rural priests, as a proof to their belief that Orthodox Tewahido teaching is mainly paganized. Therefore most Ethiopian P'ent'ay Christians use the history of the Ethiopia Orthodox Christianity prior to the 960s as their own history.

As it organized in the 4th century, within the Ethiopian Aksumite Kingdom, the Christian church grew larger and more influential to the political power distribution. Thus according to Ethiopian historical texts, its association with the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Church strengthened. During this period, most Ethiopians followed the Septuagint bible including all of the 'Deuterocanonical books' for a total of 81. Meanwhile, the Councils of Bishops in the Roman Empire following Constantine followed the Old Testament canon that had been established by the Sanhedrin at Yavne in c. 80, paring the total down to only 66 books. These customs kept all devout Christians together and in sync for several decades. But later, a contradiction in interpretation led to a less-known clash between those Christians who accepted the canon of other Churches, rejecting the Deuterocanon of the Septuagint. According to historical literature from the Addis Ababa Mulu Wongel Church, Ethiopian devout Christians who didn’t approve of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church got exposed to the Evangelical movements occurring in Europe in the 16th and 17th century. With growing dispute on the additional texts of the Orthodox Church, the alleged changing of the original meanings of the Bible did little to decrease the attendance of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. However it was only during early 20th century that American and European missionaries spread Protestantism with Mennonite and Pentecostal Churches through the Sudan Interior Mission (SIM). When SIM continued its movement after a brief ban during Ethiopia's war with Italy, it is written that the missionaries were taken aback by the fruits of their initial mission. Protestant Christians still face persecution in rural regions, however there is a growing tolerance between the Ethiopian Orthodox, Muslims and the growing population of P'en'tay Christians in the urban areas of the country. According to www.adherents.com, the Pentecostal population is growing quickly with even faster rates in the third world countries. Yet, with the dominance of the Ethiopian Orthodox church and the growing Muslim population, The population of P'en'tay Christians estimated around 11.5 million, according to the information released by the US department of state (http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/irf/2005/51472.htm).