Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed (PhD) and Ethiopian Catholic Church Archbishop Cardinal Berhana Eyesus has recently visited St. Stephen of the Abyssinians (also called Santo Stefano degli Abissiniby Italians), an Ethiopian Catholic church located in Vatican City during the PM’s tour to Europe to participate in the Davos World Economic Forum. The St Stephen, dedicated to Stephen the Protomartyr is the national church of Ethiopia in the City of Vatican.
The liturgy is celebrated according to the Alexandrian rite of the Ethiopian Catholic Church. It is one of the only standing structures in the Vatican (besides the clementine chapel, niche of the pallia, the apostolic palacecomplex) to survive the destruction of old St. Peter’s basilica, and thus it is the oldest surviving church (in terms of architectural history) in Vatican City.
This Church is one of the two national churches of Ethiopia in Rome, the other being San Tommaso in Parione (which is junior but is now the main pastoral outlet). The liturgy is celebrated according to the Ethiopian rite which, together with the Coptic rite, derives from the ancient Alexandrian rite or «Liturgy of St Mark». This was used by the Christians in Egypt under the Roman Empire.
The Ethiopian rite is sometimes called the Ge’ez rite, after the language used which is an ancestor of Amharicas spoken in Ethiopia. The church is in the charge of the Ethiopian Catholic Church. This is one of the Eastern Catholic Churches in full communion with the Roman Catholic Church, and recognizing the Pope as head.
It includes Ethiopian-rite Catholics in both Ethiopia and Eritrea, while the Orthodox (not in communion with Rome) have separate independent Churches in these two countries. These are the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church and the Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church, the former having a congregation in Rome worshiping at Santi Gioacchino e Anna ai Monti and the latter at San Salvatore in Campo.
History of the Church The church was, by tradition, built by Pope Leo I (ca. 400–461), and named Santo Stefano Maggiore.It was rebuilt in 1159 under Pope Alexander III, who also built a monastery for Ethiopian monks next to it. Santo Stefano degli Abissini is an 18th century national church, incorporating 12th century fabric, at Largo Santo Stefano degli Abissini in Vatican City.
In 1479, Pope Sixtus IV restored the church and assigned it to the Coptic monks in the City. It was at this time that the name was changed to reflect that it was served by Ethiopians (Abyssinian). It was altered under Pope Gregory XI (1700–1721), and again in 1928.
The surname Abissini is cognate to the English “Abyssinian”, and is an old word for “Ethiopian”. It is now regarded as pejorative, and should not be used in reference to the country and its people. There is a serious confusion in modern publications between this church and Santa Maria del Sole, an ancient circular temple which was originally called San Stefano when it became a church.
This church was originally founded as a monastery, according to tradition by Pope St Leo the Great in the mid 5th century. However, this is undocumented and almost certainly too early. Rather, it probably began as a foundation by expatriate Eastern monks in the late 7th to early 8th centuries, as Rome received many such refugees from Muslim conquest and Imperial iconoclasm in the Byzantine Empire at the time.
It is thought that the basilica of St Peter’s stood alone before this, but that the influx led to several monasteries of Greek, Syrian and Armenian monks being founded on the Vatican by the 8th century. Their presence was maliciously airbrushed from Rome’s historical awareness in the early Middle Ages as a result of the Great Schism , and unfortunately this still perverts the modern historical awareness.
The first documentary reference derives from a synod held by Pope Gregory III in 732. Pope Stephen III (sometimes given as II) (752-7) founded another monastery nearby dedicated to his patron, which became known as Sancti Stephani Minor -later the lost church of Santo Stefano degli Ungheresi. So, the monastery here became known as Sancti Stephani Major. Pope Paschal I (817-24) was abbot of the monastery under Leo III, and made it a diaconia when pope. A diaconia was a centre of the Church’s charitable activities in the first millennium AD, and here would have catered for needy pilgrims. Pope Leo IV (847-55) is credited with laying out the ancestor of the present building, and its earliest extant fabric is thought to be his.
This would have been after the Arab raid on Rome laid waste the area of the Vatican. Arrival of Ethiopians In 1479, Pope Sixtus IV restored the complex and then assigned it to a small group of expatriate Ethiopian monks in the city in 1481.
These were the first in the city, and had arrived in November of that year with Fra Giovanni Battista Brocchi, a Franciscan of the Holy Land originally from Imola. Back then, and until recently, the Abuna or head of the Ethiopian church was appointed by the Coptic patriarch of Alexandria in Egypt, and an Ethiopian embassy had travelled there to ask for this to take place. There they met some Franciscans, and six of the embassy went to Rome with Fra Giovanni Battista. They did not remain in Rome for long, because they then accompanied a Franciscan expedition to Ethiopia in 1482, led by Fra Giovanni da Baffa.
This was the first formal contact between the Roman Catholic Church and the Ethiopian kingdom, although regular interactions only began in the following century with the arrival of the Portuguese in the region. The church was then known asSanto Stefano degli Indiani,orSanto Stefano dei Mori.
The appellations “Indians” or “Moors” reflected the ignorance of almost everybody in Rome concerning Ethiopia at the time. Ethiopian mission The major contact between Ethiopia and the Roman Catholic Church began with the EthiopiaAdal War, 1529-43. It turned out that Ethiopia was in serious danger of being overrun by Muslims instead of being in any way useful against them in Europe, and so the Portuguese helped out in the war. The Ethiopians were impressed by the power of firearms. Jesuit missionaries arrived with the Portuguese, first visiting Ethiopia in 1557.
Their efforts, initially fruitless, led to a temporary success under the Negus (Emperor) Susenyos, who became a Catholic in 1622. This would have been the high point of the Ethiopian presence at San Stefano. Pope Gregory XV appointed the Portuguese Jesuit Alfonso Mendes as Abuna of the Ethiopian church, but unfortunately his policy was to convert the worship of the church to the Roman rite in Latin.
This was idiotic, and despite the support of the Negus only caused massive unrest. When the Negus died in 1632, the project was doomed and Mendes was expelled in 1636 together with all foreign clergy. That was the end of any official Ethiopian connection with Rome until the 19th century. The status of Ethiopian Catholics in Rome changed radically in 1919, with the arrival of the first seminarians from Ethiopia. This was the beginning of the present Pontifical Ethiopian College, which had its first home in the old hospice. This was restored for the purpose on the orders of Pope Benedict XV.
Nowadays The church has no pastoral functions, and its status as an Ethiopian national church is rather a dead-letter. The expatriate Ethiopian Catholic community worships at San Tommaso in Parione. In fact there are no regular litugical celebrations of any kind, although marriages are celebrated here (presumably for those working in the Vatican, especially the Fabbrica). However there was a restoration in 2008 and the façade, which was scruffy, now looks neat and clean. St Thomas in Parione St Thomas in Parioneis one of the two national churches of Ethiopia in Rome.
The dedication is to St Thomas the Apostle. The liturgy is celebrated according to the Ethiopian rite which, together with the Coptic rite, derives from the ancient Alexandrian rite or «Liturgy of St Mark». The church is in the charge of theCistercian Order(which has several monasteries in Ethiopia and Eritrea), and is used by the Ethiopian Catholic Church. This is one of the Eastern Catholic Churches in full communion with the Roman Catholic Church, and recognizing the Pope as head. It includes Ethiopian-rite Catholics in both Ethiopia and Eritrea, while the Orthodox (not in communion with Rome) have separate independent Churches in these two countries. These are the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church and the Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church, which both have worshipping communities in Rome.
The former are at Santi Gioacchino e Anna ai Monti, and the latter at San Salvatore in Campo. History The church is first documented in an extant epigraph of 1139, recording its consecration by Pope Innocent II. It is thought that this was a reconsecration after a rebuilding or enlargement of the edifice, and that the original foundation was in the 10th or early 11th century. This was the period when the many small parish churches, like this one, in the buit-up area of the mediaeval city were established. In 1449, Pope Nicholas V granted a charter to the Università degli Scrittori e Copisti, the “Company of Writers and Copyists”, who were based at this church.
Most of the membership worked in the Curia. Scrittori could write from dictation, and Copisti could copy texts (not everybody could do both). St Philip Neri was ordained to the priesthood in this church in 1551. The present edifice is the result of a rebuilding in 1582 to a design by Francesco Capriani da Volterra.
He did much better things than this in Rome. The cost was defrayed by Mario and Camillo Cerrini, two ordinary parishioners who (unusually for church patrons at the time) were not prelates. It was in this church that, in 1639, Gian Lorenzo Bernini married Caterina Tezio. The church is served by Ethiopian and Eritrean priests of the Cistercian Order. The present priest in charge is an Eritrean Cistercian monk, Fr Mehari Habtai Ghebremedhin. (Source: This article is predominantly compiled from Roman Churches. wikia and Wikipedia)
Herald January 24/2019
COMPILED BY HAFTU GEBREZGABIHER
