During the time, the focus of most missionaries was on adherents of local religions–but still with only small success. In the 1960s, there were about 900 foreign missionaries in Ethiopia, however many were layperson.

One obstruction to the missions’ achievement in the rural areas may have been the imperial government’s insistence that Amharic be used as the medium of religious instruction except in the earliest stages of missionary activity.

There was also some proof that Ethiopian Orthodox priests residing outside the Amhara and Tigray heartland, as well as local administrators, were hostile to the missionaries.

In 1960, there were around 350,000 to 400,000 Protestants and Catholics in Ethiopia, out of which 36 percent were Catholics, divided among those adhering to the Ethiopian rite (about 60 percent) and those following the Latin rite.

Protestants were divided among a number of denominations. The largest, nearly equaling in number the size of the Catholic congregation, consisted of adherents to the Fellowship of:

• Evangelical Believers, the Ethiopian branch of the Sudan Interior Mission.
• The next largest group, about half as large, was the Ethiopian Evangelical Church Mekane Yesus, an entity that was promoted in cooperation by Scandinavian, German, and American Lutheran groups. This group claimed 400,000 members in 1970 and had an Ethiopian head.
• Numerous other groups, including the Bethel Evangelical Church and the Seventh-Day Adventists, had between 5,000 and 15,000 members each.

Many missionaries and other spectators claimed that the Marxist regime opposed missions and harassed the clergy and communicants. But the regime didn’t accept these accusations, its approach to those accused of not accepting its authority suggests that the mission churches and the regime had not reached a modus vivendi.

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The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church is the only pre-colonial Christian church of Sub-Saharan Africa, it has a membership of about 40 million people (45 million asserted by the Patriarch), mainly in Ethiopia, and is therefore the largest of all Oriental Orthodox churches. (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity_in_Ethiopia).

About 58 percent of the people of Ethiopia are Christians, and Christianity is predominant in the highlands.

According to the latest 1994 national census, Islam is the second most widely practiced religion in Ethiopia after Christianity. Islam, which covers 32.8% of Ethiopian population, arrived in 615 in Ethiopia. (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity_in_Ethiopia).

The south also encloses significant numbers of animists. Most of the Christian, member of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, whose 4th Century beginnings came long before Europe accepted Christianity.

A small percentage of the people remain to traditional and other beliefs, including Judaism. A sect known as Beta Israel or Falashas, who practice a type of Judaism that most likely dates back to  contact with early Arabian Jews, were airlifted to Israel in 1991 during  Ethiopia’s civil war.

The Aksum Empire formally adopted Christianity in the 4th century. But it wasn’t before the 12th century that Christianity spread, along with the Christian state, to the highlands of central Ethiopia.

Amazing collection of rock-hewn churches dates from this era. They were linked with monks, who were considered on a level with saints and whose lives were often documented in writing. These monuments and manuscripts are still imperative today as the living memory of Ethiopia’s Christians.

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