African Roots PDF

# BLACK CATHOLICS IN THE UNITED STATES ## 6 Nubia was very large and extensive, with its cathedrals, military forces, and fortifications, which stood as a barrier against Islam. A great deal remains to be discovered about this unique African church. There are still sites that need to be excavated a...

# BLACK CATHOLICS IN THE UNITED STATES ## 6 Nubia was very large and extensive, with its cathedrals, military forces, and fortifications, which stood as a barrier against Islam. A great deal remains to be discovered about this unique African church. There are still sites that need to be excavated and many manuscripts to be deciphered. One thing is certain, however, recent evidence makes it clear that the Nubian church remained as an outpost of Christianity much later into the Middle Ages than was hitherto believed. In 1964, a corpse was discovered in the rubble of a crypt at the church at Q'asr Ibrim (or Kasr Ibrim), a fortified city in the northern part of Nubia. The body had seemingly been buried in haste. Attached to the thighs of the skeleton were two scrolls, one written in the Coptic dialect of the delta region of Egypt and the other in Arabic. They were ordination documents attached to the dead body of a bishop attesting to his episcopal ordination; they gave his name - Timotheos. The documents also attested that the ordination took place in the presence of other Nubian bishops in the city of Fustat (now called Old Cairo) by the patriarch of Alexandria, Gabriel IV, whose episcopacy lasted from 1372 to 1380. The remains of Timotheos, bishop of Faras and Ibrim, are a mute testimony to the survival of a Christian church almost to the end of the Middle Ages, a church that existed on the frontiers of Christianity for almost eight hundred years. It is the testimony of an African Christianity and an African Christian culture that is, despite its Monophysite orientation, part of the Catholic tradition in the same way that all of Eastern Christianity is. We do not know exactly when Christianity died out completely. There were rumors of Christian villages surviving in remote areas as late as the middle of the eighteenth century. What we do know is that the story of one of the world's oldest civilizations is also one of the forgotten dramas of church history. ## III Yet Nubia was not the most ancient Christian community in black Africa. Ethiopia was converted to Christianity some two centuries before the kingdoms of Nubia. A mountainous kingdom in the horn of Africa, across the Red Sea from the more ancient kingdoms of southern Arabia, this earlier civilization was apparently established by Semites from the south of Arabia. A great civilization of indigenous black peoples came into existence in the first century A.D. The major sources for our knowledge of this civilization are the massive archaeological remains at the site of what was the royal capital, Axum. Here a centralized monarchy evolved, and here the language of the people, Ge'ez, received an alphabet and a written form. Ethiopia had a written language with its own alphabet from the second century A.D., having used the South Arabian script in the previous period. By this time also the mountain kingdom had emerged as a commercial center, trading with countries from the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean, as well as with the interior of Africa. Merchants and travelers from all parts of the civilized world came to Adulis, the harbor, and Axum, the capital. The Ethiopian kings located at Axum gradually extended their dominion over parts of Nubia, northern Ethiopia (Eritrea), and parts of southern Arabia. By the fourth century, the king of Axum had the title "king of kings," for he had become the overlord of other kings in the area. In the first part of the fourth century, the king of kings was Ezana, an excellent and powerful military leader. Ethiopia became a Christian country in the first part of the fourth century through the activity of Frumentius and Edesius, two Syrians who had been slaves at the royal court of Axum during the reign of Ezana's father, whose name it seems was Ella Amida. At his death the queen became regent during the minority of Ezana. It seems very likely that the influence of both Frumentius and Edesius led to the conversion of Ezana and the royal court. Ezana freed them both at his accession, and they were able to return to Syria. Frumentius, who is honored as a saint in both the Catholic and Ethiopian churches, visited St. Athanasius, the patriarch of Alexandria, on his way to Syria in order to apprise the patriarch of the growth of Christianity in Ethiopia, especially at the royal court. He requested Athanasius to ordain a bishop and send him to Ethiopia. Athanasius made Frumentius a bishop and sent him back. Thus he is rightly considered the founder of the church in Ethiopia. Inscriptions on the monuments of Axum and elsewhere in the country as well as the symbols on the coins of the time (Ethiopia was one of the first black nations to have its own coinage) indicate the conversion of Ezana to Christianity. It is not at all clear how rapidly Christianity spread in the countryside among the ordinary people. It is certain, however, that by the last quarter of the fourth century, Ethiopian pilgrims were a frequent sight in Jerusalem. Their presence is attested in documents of the period. By the end of the fifth century, Christianity became firmly established in the country, and by the middle of the sixth century, Ethiopia