BY LAKACHEW ATINAFU
Some three years ago, the writer of this piece had a chance to visit the north most part of Ethiopia as part of a field trip organized by the Tigray State. Eventually, after passing by numerous towns of Amhara and Tigray States, just about some 40 kilometers from Mekelle, Capital City of Tigray, our team settled in Wukro.
Wukro is located along Genfel River, in the Eastern zone of the Tigray State on the Asmara-Addis Ababa highway. Wukro is surrounded by Kilte Awulaelo woreda. The rock-hewn churches around Wukro are the town’s most distinctive landmarks.
Like the other north and ancient cities and towns, there are a number of temples at the outskirt of the town which are architecturally designed and artistically decorated. As the team spotted the local advertisement of tourist attraction sites from a nearby billboard, we headed the fringes of the town. There appeared a very ancient church known as Wukro Chirkos.
The outer feature of the temple witnessed that it is well advanced in years while the interior is depicted with paintings began to fade as a result of ages and lacking the concern of the clergy and the local tourism and culture authorities.
According to monastics that reside in the very tranquil premises of the church, it was constructed during the reign of the two brothers, kings Abraha and Atsbha. The outer wall of the church show sign of fragmentation and seemed to have felt the damages of burning which the local people attributed it to the conquest of Ahmed Ibn Ibrahim Al Gazi of customary known as Ahmed Geragn (to mean Left Handed)
As various documents written on this same church stated, Wukro Chirkos is an Orthodox Tewahedo monolithic church located in northern Ethiopia, on the northern edge of the town of Wukro near the main highway. From the time members of the 1868 British Expedition to Abyssinia reported its existence until the early 20th century, it was the only Rock-Hewn Church known to the outside world.
Wukro Chirkos is dedicated to the child martyr Cyricus of Tarsus of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church. Due to its location, this Church remains the most accessible example of these structures.
The layout of the Church is generally described as cruciform or “cross-in-square”. As a result, it is frequently grouped with other churches with the same floor plan; namely Abreha we Atsbeha and Mikael Imba. Although the structure’s interior is divided into three or five aisles — “depending on how one describes the intermediary supports in the transverse section” according to Ruth Plant – its cruciform layout is emphasized by the barrel vault in line with the apse and the sanctuary containing the Tabot, the Ark of Covenant.
As Plant and David R. Buxton identified and wrote in an article titled “Rock-hewn churches of the Tigre province with additional churches” in the 1970s, Axumite detail acting as frieze above the columns in the three arms of the crossing. The column shafts are chamfered, rising from bases upon the floor, and the capitals of the smaller columns are squared with elliptical chamfered edges. Plant wrote that the bracket capitals of the columns at the crossing are not as refined as the corresponding columns of Abreha we Atsbeha.
Like the other Ethiopian cruciform churches mentioned above, the entrance porch of Wukro Chirkos is distinguished by a central pillar that forces the priests and congregants to enter on either side, rather than a direct line.
Though it is believed that Wukro began its construction during the reign of the two king brothers as mentioned above, some also attributed it to David Buxton who is believed to have started the construction to a period between the completion of Medhane Alem Adi Kasho yet a century before the construction of the churches of Lalibella. More recently, David Phillipson has dated the group of cross-in-square churches between AD 700 and 1000.
Around 1958, a cement floor was added and the roof to the porch was raised. As Stuart Munro-Hay, the known historical and cultural researcher and lived in Ethiopia for many years, noted a number of modern improvements which include a modern bell-tower and a new gatehouse to the compound around the church have been made in near pasts.
However, be it as it may, besides this ancient monolithic church Wukro is home for temples and tangible heritages that can be lucrative business in the tourism sector and served for image building of the country.
Hence, it might be of paramount importance to promote, preserve and discover knowledge which has enabled our forefathers to construct monolithic churches of sensuous beauty and mystic architecture.
To this end, it is again crucial to inspect the past wisdom of our predecessors particularly in erecting huge stale and constructing monolithic churches and temples in various parts of the country.
