It may surprise you to learn that the United Nations has been funding the Ethiopian Orthodox Church to expand their churches. Why on earth would they do that? The United Nations is not an evangelistic organisation, and it usually goes out of its way to ensure religious neutrality. What’s going on?
The reason is that churches in the Tewahedo Orthodox community are, in fact, forests. The perimeter of the forest is the boundary of the church, and at the centre of the forest a structure is built in which worship is offered. So bigger churches mean bigger forests, and in a part of the world where the pressures of agriculture and rising temperatures are leading to rampant deforestation, this is an important means of building Ethiopia’s defences against the effects of climate change. The United Nations Environment Programme has realised that in this deeply religious culture, the sacredness of the forest churches is the greatest protection possible against environmental exploitation.
The Tewahedo Orthodox Church is a very distinctive strand of Christianity which draws on fundamental symbolism from the Old Testament. Its mythology claims that it was founded by the Ethiopian eunuch who is baptised after his encounter with St Philip in the eighth chapter of the Book of Acts. This Ethiopian courtier was returning home after worshipping at the Temple in Jerusalem, which suggest he was what was known as a “god-fearer”, a gentile follower of some of the precepts of Judaism. This reflects a longstanding link between Ethiopia and Jerusalem, and in particular, the tradition that the Ark of the Covenant which once rested in the holy of holies at the centre of the Temple, was brought to Ethiopia during the reign of King Solomon.
So there are links between Ethiopia and Jerusalem, and perhaps for this reason, the wooden structures at the heart of the forest churches are designed to be small representations of the temple that Solomon built and dedicates in our first reading. And when the bishop comes to conduct the dedication of these churches, he presents the congregation with the tabot, a replica of the ark of the covenant which serves as the altar.
Within this Judaic symbolism, the forest is seen as a recreation of the Garden of Eden. Some traditions hold that Mount Moriah, on which the temple in Jerusalem was built, is the original sight of the Garden of Eden. We may wish to see it more figuratively. But in any case, this question that King Solomon poses as he dedicates the Temple in Jerusalem: “Will God indeed dwell on earth?” is an allusion to Genesis 3 and the Garden of Eden in which, we are told, God walked in the cool of the day.
So this is a rich symbolic chain of representation that enables the Ethiopians to see their worship, through the imagery of the temple, as renewing the garden of creation that God sustains and in which God walks.
But why am I telling you all this? What has Ethiopia to do with the dedication in 1747 of the new Church of St John-at-Hampstead at which the Bishop of Llandaff (for reasons unknown to me) played the role of King Solomon in dedicating this building to the worship of almighty God? Well, the readings set for Dedication Sunday seem to be quite insistently suggesting that we too should understand our history and dedication as related in some way to the temple in Jerusalem, and I believe the Ethiopians help us to do that.
The name of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, “Tewahedo”, means “being made one”. This is a reference to the distinctive theological position that set the
Oriental Orthodox Churches apart from most of the rest of Christendom. In the year 451, bishops from all around the world gathered in the city of Chalcedon in modern day Turkey to thrash out some of the controversies surrounding the nature of Jesus. How could he be both human and divine? The Council concluded that Christ has two natures, fully human and fully divine, that are held in union. As we say in the Athanasian Creed: “our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is God and Man; God, of the Substance of the Father; begotten before the worlds; and Man, of the Substance of his Mother, born in the world.” But the Oriental Orthodox felt this was too dualist, creating too much of a split in the identity of Jesus. They believe Christ has one fully integrated nature. The divine and the human being made one: “Tewahedo”.
I, of course, am a Chalcedonian Christian (I think I would have to resign my orders if I said I wasn’t!). But I suspect we have a lot to learn from Christians who take this more integrated approach. In overturning the tables of the money changers, Jesus seems to have been rejecting the temple as a transactional mechanism for reconciling the dualism of a sinful humanity and a demanding transcendent God. He speaks to the Samaritan woman in John Chapter Four of a time when believers will worship in Spirit and in truth through the means of a new temple, his resurrected and ascended body. When he dies on the cross, the curtain of the temple, which separated the dwelling place of God from the assembled worshippers was torn in two. This moment speaks of an integration, of human and divine, of sacred and profane, made possible through the death of Christ and made available to all through his resurrection. This integration is how, as Milton put it, paradise is regained.
So a Christian church is not really an echo of the old temple of Solomon. It does not contain God; it is not a place where God is placated or persuaded or flattered. It is a new temple of Christ, a place dedicated to integration. The
integration of people across social divides. The integration of the different aspects of our lives. The integration of the material and the spiritual. The integration of the human with the rest of creation, and the integration of the whole of creation with God.
Lack of integration – in the lives of the clergy as much as anyone else – is the cause of sin. Reintegration is the path of redemption, the means by which we are healed. I know, and have remembered in my prayers, that this community has been on a path of healing over the last few months, a reintegrating of trust and fellowship after an unexpected moment of disintegration. So I hope this dedication festival can be sign of that. Not just a recalling of a moment of dedication in the past, but a rededication today to the work of integration that God is doing among you.
And as we receive and participate in that divine work of integration in our community and in our own lives, so we are equipped, like the Christians in Ethiopia, to dedicate ourselves to healing the disintegration of our world. The challenges may feel overwhelming: the disintegration of politics, the disintegration of ecology, the disintegration of humanity itself. But Christians are always people of hope, because we are dedicated to the one who is tewahedo, “being made one”, the God-man, Jesus Christ.