Thirteenth century Ethiopia was a feudal society. Its structure can be compared to that of medieval European monarchy with autonomous provinces under a powerful emperor. The Orthodox Church was the heartbeat of the empire and held some degree of freedom for the primary function of religious guidance. It was one of those societies where the monarch derived his strength from the loyalty of feudal lords while the public retained some power to influence their leaders.

Around this time, most of Ethiopia’s neighboring territories fell to the conquering force of Islam. Among them was the Sultanate of Ifat, ruled by the Walashma dynasty. The Walashma sultans were known for propagating Islam throughout the Horn region while Ethiopia seemed an unconquerable entity. There were occasions when both got engaged in wars over territory, but the Ethiopians believed it was only a matter of time before their defensive policy would fail under constant threat of invasion so they became expansionist themselves. They defeated the Walashma sultans in 1332 and suppressed their political and military power.

In the late 14th century, the defeated sultanates reconstituted themselves as the Sultanate of Adal, which was far more powerful in part thanks to its deep commercial and political relations with the Ottoman Empire. The Ottomans were Muslims and this was at the peak of their military capacity. This was also a period when Christians and Muslims competed for supremacy across the old Byzantine Empire, and the Ottomans knew that if an important Christian kingdom like Ethiopia was captured, Islam would have easier entry to Africa through the Horn to advance their trading interests.

For 200 years, both Ethiopia and Adal were logged in constant conflict over religious and sometimes commercial control of the Red Sea. However, in 1533, Adal captured central Ethiopia and seized strategic cities. Interestingly, throughout this campaign, most Ethiopians refused to give up their faith even at the point of death. The Adal armies killed many Ethiopians, burned churches and monasteries, and forced conversions. But the young Ethiopian emperor, Dawit II, would not surrender to Adal; he retreated inward to put up the last fight.

Dawit sought help from fellow Christian monarch, King John III of Portugal. This was an easy call for the young emperor since bilateral relations between the two monarchies had strongly matured decades earlier, especially towards the end of the 15th century. There were reciprocal diplomatic moves and reciprocal trading interests. Ethiopia was interested in firearms and employing Portuguese artisans in its efforts towards modernization, while Portugal always wanted Ethiopia’s raw materials for its growing industries. It was a trade‐​centered relationship, but Dawit’s decision to take it further than that opened the way for imperial European meddling with Ethiopians’ primary source of identity: the Orthodox church.

Dawit had reason to believe Portugal’s help would be in good faith to defend Christianity. Of course, the Portuguese were interested in defending such a kingdom with great importance to the history and formation of the Christian faith. However, unknown to Dawit, King John II and his advisors had other, less pure motives. Portugal actually intended to liberate Ethiopia to serve a warning shot to fellow superpower, the Ottoman Empire, in the ongoing struggle for global dominance between Islam and Christianity. What’s more, they intended to impose Catholicism on Ethiopians in place of Orthodox Christianity, which the Catholics long considered heretical. If the Portuguese were part of a grand religious mission to spread Catholicism and smash heresy, then the Orthodox Ethiopians were a target just as much as the Ottomans.

The Portuguese did help Ethiopia defeat Adal in 1543, and this newfound relationship between the two monarchies opened Ethiopia to the wider Christian world. There were new arrivals of European Christian merchants, Catholic missionaries and significantly, a Jesuit mission in 1557, led by Andrés de Oviedo. The Catholic mission was direct in its strategy to overtake the Ethiopian ecclesiastical hierarchy. The initial plan was to penetrate the empire’s political structure by creating relationships with the royal court and nobles, then destroy the bond between the Ethiopian Orthodox Church and its inspiration, the Alexandrian Coptic Church in Egypt.4 The Portuguese believed this was a necessary diplomatic move because the Ethiopian church derived its legitimacy from the Egyptian Coptic Church dating back to the 4th century when Frumentius became Ethiopia’s first bishop, anointed by St. Athanasius the Apostolic, the 20th Pope (or bishop) of Alexandria. It was a fundamental bond between non‐​Catholic churches that the Jesuits must break before the Ethiopians would submit to Rome. As planned, Oviedo found an audience in the royal court and engaged the Ethiopian Orthodox Church on doctrinal issues. He failed to flip the church’s allegiances in large part because they simply would not have it—they would not change their identities simply because European Catholics were now here telling them they should. The Jesuit mission eventually had to abort and the Portuguese Ethiopia policy went with it—their Africa policy backfired and solidified Ethiopians’ image of themselves as members of an independent Christian Empire, firmly out of the reach from the Roman Church.

In my next column, we will apply this long pre‐​history of resistance to modern struggles against foreign imperialism in Ethiopia, the only African nation which retained its independence by twentieth century.

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