The Spirit of a Pure Christianity: Exploring Ethiopia's Stunning Subterranean Churches

The Independent (UK) | 4/20/14 | Evgeny Lebedev

[marshmallow]

Posting from The Independent prohibited so click HERE for the full article.

[cloudmountain]

I have long known about the faith of the Ethiopians.

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From the Internet:

The Ark, the Bible tells us, held the Ten Commandments given to Moses on Mount Sinai. For the rest of Christianity, it has been lost – most likely stolen or destroyed in the sixth century by the Babylonians when they sacked Solomon's temple. Not, however, for the Ethiopians. They believe they know exactly where it is; indeed, that it has been in their homeland for thousands of years.
Since the 1960s, in fact, it has been housed in a special chapel near an Ethiopian town called Aksum, where it is guarded by a succession of virgin monks who are never allowed to leave the chapel's grounds.

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I don't believe that they have the Ten Commandments. Those are gone with the wind.

The past people of Babylon, present day Iraqis, sacked and destroyed the Temple. End of story. I hear they did a THOROUGH job of it.

Even if they gave up the tablets for "inspection" by the most renowned scholars and researchers to test the stone, the writing, the syntax and such, the Ethopians wouldn't believe anything else than what they have believed for all these millenia.

So, in the end, it doesn't matter, does it?

[Guyin4Os]

I have no evidence, but I believe the priests secreted the Ark away from the temple prior to the Babylonians sacking Jerusalem. The Babylonians preserved the sacred vessels of the Jews, they would have preserved the Ark, since it was considered even more valuable.

[BeadCounter]

I’d heard about that Church of St. George before, that must be the most famous one.

Mural: https://02varvara.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/00-0f-lalibela-ethiopia-church-of-st-george.jpg

Church: https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-c0ft89aHb_A/UFx2UlKPaFI/AAAAAAAABu0/DP5zzFFRgf0/s1600/20070111-Amhara-Lalibela-092+%25281%2529.jpg

Thanks for posting.

[Cronos]

Well, present days Iraqis have some Jewish blood as well. Iraq was a center of judaism right from the Babylonian captivity until fairlyrecently. So quite a lot of mixing as also Jews converted to islam

[cloudmountain]

Well, present days Iraqis have some Jewish blood as well. Iraq was a center of judaism right from the Babylonian captivity until fairlyrecently. So quite a lot of mixing as also Jews converted to islam

After my husband and I cam back from Saudi Arabia I learned to read and write some Arabic. Those classes were not allowed in the Kingdom. We could learn to speak, but not read and write.

My Arabic instructor here was an Iraqi Jewess. She was a delight.
She had married a German, moved to the USA and began teaching Arabic. They had a son here in the USA. She was a wonderful instructor and had a JOY and ZEST for life that made her classes fun.

[Cronos]

You were not allowed to learn? Why?

[cloudmountain]

You were not allowed to learn? Why?

The Saudi government didn't want us foreigners, especially Christians, to get too comfortable living there. We could NEVER stay there unless we married a Saudi.

Only Saudi men MIGHT marry non-Saudis, and it would be with the permission of his family. His Christian wife would NOT have to convert but she would have to rear their children in Islam. Most of those women did convert, but not all. It was a rarity as most of those rare marriages did not prosper.

The wife and her family had "charge" of all children until they were nine years old, then the children belonged to the father's family--Saudi tradition.

Saudi women never, ever, ever, ever married outside their faith and family.

The language rule was odd. Most of the signs were in both Arabic and English. I never did understand their logic.
My husband said it all: The Saudi logic is different than ours
Was HE ever right! I miss him still. He passed four years ago.

[Gamecock]

Sorry about your husband.

Thanks for sharing your insight. Very interesting.

[cloudmountain]

Thanks.

Our five years in Saudi Arabia were the adventure of a lifetime, at least for our lives. I learned SO much about myself, more than I learned about anything else.

[Yardstick]

What was it about your experience in Saudi that taught you so much about yourself (if I may be so nosy as to ask)?

[cloudmountain]

What was it about your experience in Saudi that taught you so much about yourself (if I may be so nosy as to ask)?

Lol. That's a no-brainer. I had to learn to DEAL with the following. We made MORE MONEY THAN GOD and so I had to figure out how to be happy, content, cheerful, active, productive in a country that made SO many American women absolutely, positively MISERABLE!!

I was 100% away from EVERYTHING and EVERYONE I knew and loved. We were there WAY back in the early 1980's with no Internet. Mail was my only connection with the rest if the planet. I used to sign my letters: "From the dark side of the moon."

1. Our phone calls to and from home (California) were all made through male Saudi phone operators. Yes, they could listen in if they wanted to. I doubt they did. Most human conversation is deadly dull.

2. Our mail, books, magazines, everything was censored, as in pages ripped out or blacked out.

3. Our books were held by the Saudis for A YEAR so they could make sure we didn't bring in any pornography. They didn't bother with our Bibles. I believed that they didn't because they probably couldn't read English.

4. We needed permission to LEAVE the country and that took days. The exceptions were those who were being THROWN out. Their visas were processed in HOURS.

5. Women were not allowed to drive. My husband worked away from the Camp for 4 days of the week so most of us had the luxury of chauffeurs. THAT was a GOOD thing. I had never had one before. They are sure a wonderful luxury.

6. We had an AA and OA (over-eaters anonymous) on camp because there was NOTHING to do.

7. Alcohol was SO VERY ILLEGAL but most of us had stills. The Americans were mostly engineers so stills had been made and handed down/sold to the incoming engineers. We drank what was called "sidiqqi" which means, "my friend." VILE stuff. NO hangovers whatsoever, no matter how much one drank...no hangover.
The Brits said it left you "legless." I didn't know what that meant until I tried it. The next day my THIGHS ached! Lol. What a strange feeling. After that I never drank it again.

8. Flights home were major league pains to get. Getting from Ras Tanura to Dhahran was a major league pain.

9. The police? Never mind. Just one thing. One of our police guards at the main gate was picking his feet (the bare foot) with his bayonet. 'Nuff said.

10. Gas was 25 cents a gallon and bottled water was 65 cents a QUART. The Saudi water is BARELY potable: it's brackish, warm and just plain nasty. Our drinking water was from the "treated" water...nasty, so we BOUGHT Evian water. I never thought that I would LOVE French water.

11. The water for bathing left my skin itchy and the water for laundry beat the clothes up so badly that we had to replace our clothes after a few months.

12. There was NO place to buy American clothes for women. We had to GO HOME to buy clothes, shoes, etc.

13. We DID have "special teachers," a.k.a. men of the cloth: a priest for us Catholics, a Lutheran minister for all the Protestants and a once-a-week vicar for the six Anglicans.

I started going to DAILY MASS. I have to thank my SAUDI boss for that. My Indian, Catholic co-worker "told on me" when I went to Sunday morning Mass. Our weekday was Saturday through Wednesday. Thursday and Friday were our weekend. I REFUSED to go to Mass on Friday.

My Saudi boss responded to my co-worker: "Harry, God is number one. There is always time for God. CloudMountain (not my name, of course) can go to pray whenever she wants." God bless him. He, a Saudi, got me started on daily Mass in Saudi Arabia. Does God work in mysterious ways or what?

14. No federal income tax and no state income tax on our salaries. My husband had been making $800/month as an engineer in 1980. His first paycheck was $5,000.00/month. Naturally his salary increased through the years. Not bad for 1980 dollars.

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Saudi ARAMCO is a private company, a consortium of three American oil companies and Shell oil, a Dutch company, and was founded in 1926 or so by the Texas/Oklahoma "awl bidnesses." It has morphed into one of the biggest oil companies on this planet.

I did get to see the once-famous RED ADAIR when there were oil rig fires. We only saw him from a distance of course. Our home was about 100 yards from the Persian (They say ARABIAN.) Gulf so we got to see a lot of stuff.

There HAD been dolphins and a THRIVING shellfish industry there before the petroleum business ruined their environment. We did see ONE dophin when we had our little 16' catamaran. ARAMCO shut us boaters down because we could get too close to their ENORMOUS refinery--white flames (sulfuric acid) and orange flames. Ruined my sinuses for good.
There is NO more dangerous job on the planet than putting out fires on off-shore oil rigs. NONE.

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Have you had enough? There is more.
Lol. Boy, you got me started!!!!
Sorry.

[Yardstick]

Haha — no, keep going! This is fascinating. What else ya got?

BTW, I had a friend in school named Faruk Sadiqqi. Now I know what his name meant.

[cloudmountain]

Haha — no, keep going! This is fascinating. What else ya got?
BTW, I had a friend in school named Faruk Sadiqqi. Now I know what his name meant.

Thanks, glad you like it. Memory lane for me.

YES, Faruk MyFriend. "Sadiqq" is fiend. The "i" at the end makes it possessive. Umm is mother. No one ever says that. They all say "Ummi"--my mother.

[Yardstick]

So who ran the stills — the men or the wives, and what did you distill? I’m guessing probably fruit wines rather than grain or corn? What did the Saudis think about this?

Did you hire your own chauffeur or were they provided by the company? Was it a pool of drivers or did you have a particular driver who tended to drive you around?

What did the locals think of you Americans? What did the Saudis think of Reagan?

[cloudmountain]

So who ran the stills — the men or the wives, and what did you distill? I’m guessing probably fruit wines rather than grain or corn? What did the Saudis think about this?
My husband ran the still. He used 50 gallons of water, 50 pounds of sugar and a big fat can of yeast. It sat for three weeks in the huge covered (as I recall) container. Then he poured it through a still three times and came out with 10 gallons of 190 proof alcohol. He cut it in half with water.
What was so weird is that the locals in the local town KNEW our "need" and DID sell sugar in 50 pound sacks, sold these HUGE cans of yeast and sold the huge vats.
Mind you, here in the states, yeast is always sold in TINY packets about the size of 1/2 a dollar bill, so the BIG yeast cans were just for the illegal hooch makers.

Some folks were idiots and sold too much, sold to the the other folks on camp and/or sold to Saudis.
The husbands were put in prison and the wives were sent home, for good. What a price for the stupidity and greed. They ALL knew better. GREED.

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One could put the sidiqqi into almost anything. I tried it with coffee and cream and got a sort of "kahlua" drink. I added sugar and whipped cream. Not bad but who cares? I've never been much of a drinker.

This was terribly illegal but the Saudi left the small time cookers alone as long as we made it for ourselves, didn't sell it to anyone else and DID NOT, on pain of prison, sell it to the Saudis. THAT was the "ultimate" crime which would sent one to Saudi prison. :o(

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Did you hire your own chauffeur or were they provided by the company? Was it a pool of drivers or did you have a particular driver who tended to drive you around?
The company offered them and we paid for them. None of us would have known how or where to procure them.
We didn't have them very often so I don't know if there was a pool or not. I don't recall ever having the same driver twice.

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1. What did the locals think of you Americans?
1. Who knows. I only met the men. I never, ever met a single Saudi woman. But, I imagine that we Americans were as likable or NOT as likeable as any Saudi would be.
It wasn't a question I asked--mostly because I knew what the answer would be. "Oh Americans are okay. Some nice, some not so nice." Or something to that effect.

2. What did the Saudis think of Reagan?
I was there five years starting in 1980, way before Reagan.
When we were in China around then, one Chinese man caught up with me once...and put his hand out and said: "Nixon, friend." Lol. I think he was testing out his English and I appeared to be nice enough for him to try out his few English words. Who knows.
I didn't care for Nixon but I still shook hands with the guy. Why wouldn't I?

[Yardstick]

All very interesting. But hang on a second — ‘80 to ‘85 was the first five years of Reagan, right?