Travel information on Security & Safety for visitors in Ethiopia

Category Archives: lent

The Great Lenten Fast in Ethiopia

Fried Fish - Telapia

Fried Fish – Telapia

As many will know the big fasting season in Ethiopia started this week on Monday. Fasting is appears in many religions around the world. But in the west its has lost its rigour for most people. However in the Ethiopian Orthodox church there are many fasting days through the year. In fact a strict observer of all fasts would be vegan for half the year. The longest of the fasts is Hudadi or the Abiy Tsom, as the lenten fast leading up to Easter is variously known, and the majority of followers of the Orthodox church fast these 55 days every year.

Why is it 55 days when in the western church it is 40 days?  There are specific reasons for the addition of 2 weeks to the 40 day fast that many of which people are not aware.

Medieval painting of King Eraclia

The first week of Hudadi is known as the fast of Eraclius, a Byzantine Emperor who lived in 614 A.D. During his reign the Persians invaded Jerusalem and took the Cross of the Lord. Eraclius made an expedition to Persia and having defeated the Persians he took the Cross back to Jerusalem. The Christians in Jerusalem who were very happy because of Eraclius’s victory and the return of the Cross, dedicated the first week before Lent to be the fast of Eraclius and included it in their canons. The last week of Lent is Passion Week which remembers the Apostles who fasted in commemoration of Christ’s Passion.

To the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, Hudadi is a period of fasting when the faithful undergo a rigorous schedule of prayers and penitence. This fast is observed with greater rigour than any other fast and it is a test of one’s spiritual strength and resolve. Properly observed it is believed to nullify sins committed during the rest of the year.

The fast if strictly followed, is applicable to all persons older than 13 years of age
involves abstinence from:

  • meat, dairy products and eggs (and many will abstain from fish too);
  • instead, cereals and vegetables will be consumed;
  • only one meal (vegan) a day is eaten, taken in the evening or after 3:00pm (when church services end). Before that no food, drink nor even water is to be consumed;
  • starting on Good Friday to Easter Sunday (i.e. late on Saturday night), there is total abstinence nothing taken maybe eaten nor drunk.
  • on other Saturdays and Sundays during Lent, eating breakfast is allowed;
  • Daily Services are conducted in all churches from morning to 2:45pm;
  • Priests regularly attend night services starting at midnight up to 7am.

(More details can be seen here)

Fasting selection  ‘ye tsom bayenetu’ 

 

For the visitor to Ethiopia a wonderful array of fasting foods is served up on enjara – just ask for: – ‘ye tsom bayenetu’. You may also get a wonderful fried fish (probably Tilapia) ‘asseh‘.  Enjoy!

Tesfa Tours will happily recommend good fasting restaurants in Addis, and take you there as part of a city tour.

This is also a great time to travel around the country if you are vegetarian, as there will always be a veggie option. Out of the big cities vegetables maybe a bit limited, but the staples of shiro (a ground chickpea sauce) and lentil (misser). But immediately following Easter even Wednesday and Friday fasting is put to the side as many people eat meat whenever they can.

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Fasting, Prayer sticks and the Battle of Adwa:- March in Ethiopia

Fasting selection with Ethiopian beer

For Orthodox Christians, March is the middle of the Lentan Fast. The Hudadi or the Abiy Tsom as it is known, started on Mon 24th February (Yekatit 16) and runs for 55 days through to 19th April – Ethiopian Easter (in fact across the Orthodox world) known in Ethiopia as Fasika.

The fast means followers observe a strict vegan diet. There is debate as to whether fish is allowed during fasting, and you will see it on many fasting menus. However all meat, dairy produce and eggs is avoided during the fasting time. Many people will also not eat or drink from when they get up until some time later in the day, maybe mid morning, but for the strict observers until mass has been said in the church in the afternoon which would be around 3pm or 4pm. The fast for many also means abstaining from drinking and dancing. In the church itself during fasting time the kebero drums are not played, but there is a slow beat taped out with prayer sticks and to the rattle of the sistrum, as out set by St Yared in the 6th century.

Abuna Gebre Menfes Kiddus

The most important saint’s day in March is for Abo – Abuna Gebre Menfes Kiddus – on 14th of March (Megabit 5). Abo is a saint that lived with wild animals and his churches often have really wild looking forests. On this day in Abo churches you will here the liturgical music created by St Yared without the Kebero.

There is a big public holiday on 2nd of March (Yekatit 23). This is Adwa Day, the day that Ethiopia commemorates the victory of the Ethiopian troops over the Italians at the battle of Adwa in 1896. This battle ended Italian colonial ambitions in Ethiopia, until Mussolini gave renewed energy to colonial aspirations in the 1930s.

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Painting depicting the Battle of Adwa

The story goes that the Italian commander General Oreste Baratieri, knew that the massive Ethiopian force was living off the land and was running critically low of supplies, but that political pressure from Rome and on the urgent advise of his commanders, in the early hours of the morning of 1st March he ordered his army forward in three divisions to engage the superior Ethiopian forces in battle. Anyone who has been to Adwa will know it is a mountainous area with many steep peaks. The Ethiopians had occupied the high ground and the Italian divisions got confused in the dark and separated. Each division was roundly beaten and by noon the remains of the Italian army was in retreat. 7,000 of the Italian army were killed, with others wounded and taken prisoner. Two brigadiers were killed and a third captured, and many rifles and all their artillery was captured. As such their fighting force was decimated. From the Ethiopian side some 4-5,000 were killed, but the fighting force remained intact.

However Menelik decided not to advance into Eritrea and totally annihilate the remains of the Italian army. Despite the Ethiopian army being intact, many solders had been on campaign for a long time, and the country was just recovering from a severe famine. Some believe that Menelik believed, perhaps rightly, that such a move would drive the Italian public to push for another campaign against Ethiopia. In point of fact the battle lead directly to the signing in October 1896 of the Treaty of Addis Ababa which ended the war between Italy and Ethiopia and in which the Italian’s recognised Ethiopia as an independent country.

The whole war came about because of the preceding treaty of Wuchale signed in 1899. Article 17 of the treaty in the Italian version stated that Ethiopia must conduct its dealings with foreign powers though Italy thus to be in effect a protectorate of Italy, but the Amharic version stated that Ethiopia could use the good offices of Italy in its foreign dealings. Now Menelik had achieved the goal of maintaining Ethiopian independence in an age in which colonial powers over-ran every other country in Africa (only Liberia was independently ruled). This left Ethiopia as the emblem and point of pride for other Africans dreaming of self governance. It is not a coincidence the the AU, formerly the Organisation of African Unity, has its home in Addis Ababa today.

The battle will be commemorated at Adwa Dildi, a bridge below the Feresenya Condominiums (Signal). It is a public holiday across the country (and our office is closed!)

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The great Lenten fast draws to a close and Easter approaches

Fasika in Lalibela

Enkwanaderasachu

Best wishes to everyone celebrating Easter on either the 1st or the 8th of April. Easter in Ethiopia, known as Fasika is celebrated according to the Orthodox or Eastern church calendar this year on 8th April. Some years it falls on the same day as in the western church, some years it can be far apart, but this year it is one week after western Easter.

Fasika is a Ge’ez (the ancient liturgical language of Ethiopia) word and also the word in Amharinya and Tigrinya for Easter. Easter is also sometimes called Tensae a Ge’ez word meaning to rise). It is one

Sheep are bought into Addis for sale for holidays

of the most important holidays in Ethiopia, marking the end of a long 55 day Lenten fast. On Easter Sunday chickens, sheep, goats and cattle are dispatched for the pot as the fasting comes to an end in no uncertain terms. Sunday sees piles of sheep skins on street corners, to be picked up by small dealers in trucks. In the days leading up to Easter flocks of sheep and goats as well as herds of oxen are driven by herders into the city, chickens are driven in trucks and pick ups. They are sold at impromptu markets all over the city to be slaughtered in back yards. Prices of livestock more than double for Easter. Sheep come to the capital with drovers bringing them across countryside from several hundred miles away, from Shoa and even as far as Wollo.

Local shepherd boys in Wollo


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After Easter there is no fasting not even on Wednesdays and Fridays until after Pentecost on 27th May (Parakilitos). In the countryside the end of the fasting is celebrated in different ways. In Tigray priests are feted with parties held by different households from their parish. In Wollo I have seen the girls making swings from rope to hang from trees and sing songs while swinging, while the boys have javelin contests. Its also a second wedding season as people like to get married before the rainy season and after the fasting. These are enjoyable times in the countryside, and if you have the chance to spend a week or so up in the countryside on a Tesfa Trek in Wollo, Tigray or the Simiens you will be a very welcome guest and

Hosanna palm rings

participant at the celebrations. Its still not too late to book your trek in early April!

The lead up to Fasika starts now with Palm Sunday or Hosanna this Sunday (1 week before Easter, 1st April this year).  It is a very special day in the Orthodox church commemorating Jesus’s march into Jerusalem on a donkey with Palm fonds laid before him. It is marked with palms (worn by many worshippers on hands or head), processions and special services in the church.

Following Hosanna is the last week of the Great Lenten fast or Hudadi.  This final week of Hudadi is commonly known as Holy Week, or the “Week of Pains” or in Ethiopia Himamat and it is the strictest part of Lent. During Himamat no absolution is given, and during this week the fast becomes yet more rigorous. For some strict worshippers, having broken the fast after mass on Thursday they will not eat any food nor drink even a drop of water until Easter morning. So they totally abstain for all of Good Friday (or Sekelet) and Saturday, breaking this fast after the church service that goes through the night on Saturday, finishing at around 3am on Sunday morning. These three days are known as “Qanona”. The priests neither eat nor drink but remain in the churches singing and praying incessantly.

As far as I am aware no other major religion has such penitential fasting. For the strict observers of the fast, the 55 days of Lent are very tough on the body. Fasting in Ethiopia not only means a vegan diet but also means many hours of no food or drink. Each fasting day the observer will not eat of drink anything from the time they wake up until after the mass in the middle of the day is finished in church for many that means 3-4pm. Two simple meals may then follow, a late ‘lunch’ or more properly ‘break-fast’, and a light supper in the evening. What is staggering is that there is no drinking – not water, not coffee, nothing – during those fasting hours.

For vegetarians the end of Lent means no fasting food, even on Wednesdays and Fridays – so make the most of the last week of fasting.

 

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The last week of Lent in Ethiopia is the most rigorous fasting of all

Priest holding traditional taper

Priest holding traditional taper

Yesterday (9th April) was Palm Sunday or Hosanna – the Sunday before Easter.  It is a very special day in the Orthodox church commemorating Jesus’s march into Jerusalem on a donkey with Palm fonds laid before him. It is marked with palms (worn by many worshippers on hands or head), processions and special services in the church.

Ethiopia is now in the last week of Great Lenten fast or Hudadi, this last week of Hudadi is commonly known as Holy Week, or the “Week of Pains” or the Himamat and is the strictest part of Lent. During Himamat no absolution is given, and during this week the fast becomes yet more rigorous. For some strict worshippers, having broken the fast after mass on Thursday they will not eat any food nor drink even a drop of water until Easter morning. So they totally abstain for all of Good Friday (or Sekelet) and Saturday, breaking this fast after the church service that goes through the night on Saturday, finishing at around 3am on Sunday morning. These three days are known as “Qanona”. The priests neither eat nor drink but remain in the churches singing and praying incessantly.

No other major religion has such penitential fasting. For the strict observers of the fast, the 55 days of Lent are very tough on the body. Fasting in Ethiopia not only means a vegan diet but also means many hours of no food or drink. Each fasting day the observer will not eat of drink anything from the time they wake up until after the mass in the middle of the day is finished in church for many that means 3-4pm. Two simple meals may then follow, a late ‘lunch’ or more properly ‘break-fast’, and a light supper in the evening. What is staggering is that there is no drinking – not water, not coffee, nothing – during those fasting hours.
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On Easter Sunday chicken, cheep, goats and cattle are dispatched for the pot as the fasting comes to an end in no uncertain terms. Sunday sees piles of sheep skins on street corners, to be picked up by small dealers in trucks. For the days leading up to Easter flocks of sheep and goats as well as herds of oxen were driven by herders into the city, chickens were driven in trucks and pick ups. They are sold at impromptu markets all over the city to be slaughtered in back yards. Prices of livestock more than double for Easter. Sheep come to Addis with drovers bringing them across countryside from several hundred miles away, across Shoa and even as far as Wollo.

After Easter there is no fasting not even on Wednesdays and Fridays until after Pentecost on 4 June (Parakilitos). In the countryside the end of the fasting is celebrated in different ways. In Tigray priests are feted with parties held by different households from their parish. In Wollo I have seen the girls making swings from rope to hand off trees and play on them singing songs, while the boys have javelin contests. Its also a second wedding season as people like to get married before the rainy season and after the fasting. These are enjoyable times in the countryside, and if you have the chance to spend a week or so up in the countryside on a Tesfa Trek in Wollo, Tigray or the Simiens you will be a very welcome guest and participant at the celebrations.

 

Leave a comment

Fifty five days of fasting underway in Ethiopia

Fasting-JokeAs many will know the big fasting season in Ethiopia started this week on Monday. Fasting is appears in many religions around the world. But in the west its has lost its rigour for most people. However in the Ethiopian Orthodox church there are many fasting days through the year. In fact a strict observer of all fasts would be vegan for half the year. The longest of the fasts is Hudadi or the Abiy Tsom, as the lenten fast leading up to Easter is variously known, and the majority of followers of the Orthodox church fast these 55 days every year.

Why is it 55 days when in the western church it is 40 days?  There are specific reasons for the addition of 2 weeks to the 40 day fast that many people are not aware of.

Eraclias

Medieval painting of King Eraclias

The first week of Hudadi is known as the fast of Eraclius, a Byzantine Emperor who lived in 614 A.D. During his reign the Persians invaded Jerusalem and took the Cross of the Lord. Eraclius made an expedition to Persia and having defeated the Persians he took the Cross back to Jerusalem. The Christians in Jerusalem who were very happy because of Eraclius’s victory and the return of the Cross, dedicated the first week before Lent to be the fast of Eraclius and included it in their canons. The last week of Lent: Passion Week during remembers the Apostles who fasted in commemoration of Christ’s Passion.

To the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, Hudadi is a period of fasting when the faithful undergo a rigorous schedule of prayers and penitence. This fast is observed with greater rigour than any other fast and it is a test of one’s spiritual strength and resolve. Properly observed it is believed to nullify sins committed during the rest of the year. 

The fast if strictly followed :

  • is applicable to all persons older than 13 years of age
  • involves abstinence from: meat, dairy products and eggs (and many will abstain from fish too)
  • instead, cereals and vegetables will be consumed
  • only one meal (vegan) a day is eaten, taken in the evening or after 3:00pm (when church services end). Before that no food, drink  nor even water is to be consumed
  • starting on Good Friday to Easter Sunday (i.e. late on Saturday night), there is total abstinence nothing taken maybe eaten nor drunk.
  • on other Saturdays and Sundays during Lent, eating breakfast is allowed.
  • Daily Services are conducted in all churches from morning to 2:45pm.
  • Priests regularly attend night services starting at midnight up to 7am.

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Fasting selection with Ethiopian beer

Fasting selection with Ethiopian beer

For the visitor to Ethiopia a wonderful array of fasting foods is served up on enjara – just ask for: – ‘ye tsom bayenetu’. You may also get a wonderful fired fish (probably Tilapia) ‘asseh‘.  Enjoy!

Tesfa Tours will happily recommend good fasting restaurants in Addis, and take you there as part of a city tour.

Leave a comment

Easter is over for this year; fasting is over for now ….

Fasika – Easter, is over for another year. Sunday saw the piles of sheep skins on street corners, to be picked up by small dealers in trucks. For the days leading up to Easter flocks of sheep and goats as well as herds of oxen were driven by herders into the city, chickens were driven in trucks and pick ups. They are sold at impromptu markets all over the city to be slaughtered in back yards. Prices of livestock easily double for Easter, with sheep were costing over $100 USD, chickens over $10 USD. Sheep come to Addis with drovers bringing them across country from several hundred miles away, across Shoa and even as far as Wollo.

So the fasting is done, in fact there is no fasting now, even on Wednesdays and Fridays until after Pentecost (this year that means until June). In the countryside the end of the fasting is celebrated in different ways. In Tigray priests are feted with parties held by different households from their parish. In Wollo I have seen the girls making swings from rope to hand off trees and play on them singing songs, while the boys have javelin contests. Its also a second wedding season as people like to get married before the rainy season and after the fasting.
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As you know this year there were two Christian Easters with the Orthodox Easter (Fasika) falling one week after the western Easter. The dates for both the Orthodox and Western Easters move around March and April and can even appear in May, but quite often they also coincide. Next year however, in 2016, the two Easters will be far apart with western Easter falling on 27th March and the Orthodox celebration will be on 1st May. Yet in 2017 both will be on the same day.

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