Charles Kong Soo

Mem­bers of the Ethiopi­an Or­tho­dox Tewa­he­do Church are ob­serv­ing Holy Week along with the Chris­t­ian Ro­man Catholic and An­gli­can com­mu­ni­ty, while ad­her­ing to their own an­cient Ethiopi­an cus­toms, be­liefs and tra­di­tions. "It is the same Christ we wor­ship," His Grace Abuna Thad­daeus Gidey, Arch­bish­op of the Caribbean and Latin Amer­i­ca, said."We be­lieve in His death and His Res­ur­rec­tion but we have a dif­fer­ent or­der, dif­fer­ent rules and dif­fer­ent cel­e­bra­tions,"he added. Gidey said the Ethiopi­an Church al­so used a dif­fer­ent cal­en­dar than the west­ern world's Gre­go­ri­an cal­en­dar.

He ex­plained: "We fol­low our own cal­en­dar. Some peo­ple say it is the Ju­lian cal­en­dar we fol­low but it is not. Our Ethiopi­an cal­en­dar goes back 4,000 years be­fore Christ. "The Ju­lian cal­en­dar is adapt­ed from the an­cient Egypt­ian cal­en­dar. Ours date from af­ter the flood, in the time of Noah." Gidey said his church's ob­ser­vance of Holy Week was de­ter­mined up­on the Ethiopi­an cal­en­dar cal­cu­la­tions. He added: "Some­times it falls on dif­fer­ent cal­en­dar cal­cu­la­tions but this time it falls to­geth­er and co­in­cides with the west­ern cal­en­dar. Some­times it is ob­served a week af­ter the west­ern cal­en­dar. "Our Lent is al­so a lit­tle longer than the west­ern Lent and lasts for 55 days." The Ethiopi­an Or­tho­dox Tewa­he­do Church has been in ex­is­tence for over 2,000 years and has eight church­es in Trinidad and one in To­ba­go.

The church has been in the Caribbean for over 58 years with dio­ce­ses in Bar­ba­dos, Ja­maica, Guyana, Guade­loupe, Mar­tinique and Bermu­da. The ti­tle "Abuna" means Our Fa­ther, equiv­a­lent to ei­ther His Grace, His Em­i­nence in the an­cient Ge'ez lan­guage of Ethiopia. "When I was con­se­crat­ed as arch­bish­op by the Holy Syn­od, the name of the apos­tle Thad­daeus was cho­sen for me," Gidey said. "Gabriel is my first name and Gidey is the fam­i­ly name which means 'My Por­tion' in the Tigrinya di­alect," he added. Gidey was con­se­crat­ed as arch­bish­op in 1993 by Pa­tri­arch Abuna Pau­los at the Ethiopi­an Or­tho­dox Tewa­he­do Church head­quar­ters in Ad­dis Aba­ba. The Ethiopi­an Church's Pa­tri­arch is the equiv­a­lent of the Ro­man Catholic Pope. When asked if there were any di­etary prac­tices in the Ethiopi­an Church, he replied:

"We can eat some kinds of fish, meat and veg­eta­bles.

Since Ethiopia was a fol­low­er of Ju­daism, we fol­low the Old Tes­ta­ment re­gard­ing food. We don't eat pork and what is con­sid­ered un­clean things as men­tioned in Leviti­cus." The Res­ur­rec­tion Ser­vice (Tin­sea) will be held on Sat­ur­day from 10 pm un­til 4 am in­to Glo­ri­ous Sun­day at Med­hane Alem head­quar­ters, Old Gold­en Road, Arou­ca. Al­so in­clud­ed in the ob­ser­vances are singing, a can­dle­light pro­ces­sion around the church three times, the break­ing of the fast and the cel­e­bra­tion of mass at mid­night. Gidey con­clud­ed by wish­ing the coun­try a joy­ful Holy Week. "I wish the na­tion all the best and a Hap­py Res­ur­rec­tion and East­er. We have to work to­geth­er as a new­ly-risen (sic) peo­ple and live like risen peo­ple."