EthioChrisProcess

The EthioChrisProcess project aims to study the Christianization process in Ethiopia, focusing on the period after the conversion of the Aksumite kings (in the 4th century), proposing to analyze the "second Christianization" as a phase that spans centurie from the introduction of monasticism (from the 6th century) to the reign of a dynasty of saints-kings, the Zagwe (11th-13th centuries). The choice of this chronological boundary is explained by the fact that these sovereigns established a real Christian government in Ethiopia, directing the royal largesses and the riches of the kingdom towards pious donations.This project has the ambition to better understand the transition from a state religion, which involved only a minority in the Aksumite kingdom, to a shared religion by a growing number of people, with a focus on the social and political transformations that this process has created. The three inputs to grasp this process are: taking into account the relationships between Pagans, Christians and Muslims; The study of monastic development, as the motor of Christianization, and of the adopted monastic model as a factor of societal choice; The analysis of the economic and social transformations induced by the introduction of monasticism. To provide the tools for reflection and comparison, this project on the Christianization of Ethiopia and religious interactions must take into account the work carried out on neighboring areas in Egypt and Nubia (present-day Sudan) The economic and social impact of the development of monasticism, changes in practices such as funerary practices, and interactions with pagans and Muslims, including analysis of transformations of places of worship. The chronological scale and the articulation between Christianity, religious interactions and comparison with Egypt and Nubia are necessary, justified and controlled. Necessary due to scarcity and disparity of sources; Justified because the Egyptian-Nubian-Ethiopian space is a mediaeval circulation space; Controlled because we open specific windows related to the availability of documentation and our topic. By looking on markers of Christianity, trying to understand how land concentration in the hands of religious institutions changed the Ethiopian society and pondering how Christianity took place in the neighboring regions of Ethiopia, Nubia and Egypt, it is the question of Christian penetration in Ethiopia, its relationship to Muslim penetration, its cultural, social and territorial impact that EthioChrisProcess wants to question.