Lalibela Rock Hewn Churches Part 1

The first church, Bete Medhane Alem. 

 Hamming it up.

 Inside Bete Medhane Alem.

A lot of Ethiopian churches have paintings like this in frames.

 The second church, Bete Mariam.

 The special mass going on outside Bete Mariam.

 Inside Bete Mariam.

 Some churches had carvings on the ceiling, others did not.

 The passage way from one to another.

 One church had three stone carvings on the wall, but the others did not.

Typical local houses.

Monday, January 29^th.

This was another amazing day! A day of exploring the rock churches of Lalibela. This is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and was actually one of the first sixteen sites so declared, in 1978. There are two areas of them, with a total of 10 churches. A couple are directly connected to each other. The Christian Orthodox Chronicles state that King Lalibela created all these churches himself. Religious historians believe these churches were all commissioned by King Lalibela in the late 12^th to early 13^th centuries. They were carved over twenty-four years and the largest one took 40000-man hours to complete. We drove to the first set where Kaleb gave us some detailed history. I confess that I did not retain much of it as the names are not familiar and I am not familiar with religious or Ethiopian history. I do know that there were conflicts between Muslims, Jews and Christians and this area became a Christian stronghold.

The churches are all cut out of solid rock. They dug down into the rock removing huge quantities of rock and revealing the basic shape of the church. Then they carved into the block of rock that was left to create the church, creating and climbing in the windows and going in from the top down. Then they would dig the outside hole deeper and then back into the actual church, and so on, until they completed the structure. It boggles the mind to think how they did this. The insides of the church are comparatively small compared to cathedrals, but the ceilings are vaulted and geometrically precise. The floors are rough and covered with rugs. There were no paintings on the walls, but a couple had carvings in the ceiling or on the walls. Each church had some paintings in frames that were more recent, depicting Jesus, Mary or other significant figures, for the faithful to pray to. We explored four or five churches, walking from one to the next through narrow channels cut out of the rock.

The first church, Bete Medhane Alem , was the largest (33m x 22m x11m) and is the largest rock church in the world. A huge tent-like cover has been built over this church by UNESCO to protect it from the weather, as the rock is soft, and rain has damaged some of it already. For example, most of the external pillars have collapsed over the years and have been replaced by brick pillars. The problem now is the protective tent needs repair and some people want it removed entirely, but UNESCO is demanding an exorbitant amount of money to remove it, $60 million. Remember UNESCO’s funding has been drastically reduced because Trump pulled the US funding contributions. 

At the second church of the first group, Bete Mariam, there was a special mass going on because it was the 21st day of the month in the Ethiopian calendar, which is dedicated to St. Mary and there were church officials and faithful chanting and singing. We all watched in fascination at the proceedings. Continued next post...