Christianity was proclaimed the official religion of Abyssinia, with its capital at Axum, in the reign of King Ezana, about the middle of the fourth century, when the new church placed itself under the patronage of the Patriarchate of Alexandria, at that time the centre of the Christian world. When the Coptic Church in Egypt refused to accept the doctrines proposed by the Oecumenical Council of Chalcedon in the year 451, the Ethiopian Church followed the Copts, in company with the Armenians and the Jacobites of Syria, to form the monophysite branch of Christianity. Briefly, its doctrine maintains 'that Christ was one person with one nature which was made up of the indissoluble union of a divine and a human nature'.(1) This may be contrasted with the Chalcedonian definition, which declared 'that Christ was consubstantial with the Father as touching his Godhead and consubstantial with us as touching his manhood, and that the two natures concur in one person, without confusion, without change, without division, and without separation'. (2) A fine distinction, one might say, more suited to the expert than the layman. The Council of Chalcedon marked the end of the supremacy of Alexandria and its place was taken by Constantinople.

Although the Ethiopian Church continued until 1951 to look to the Coptic hierarchy of Alexandria to supply it with its Patriarch, or Abuna, after Chalcedon the ties with Egypt gradually weakened, and the Church became increasingly isolated from the outside world. It is a characteristic of Coptic Christianity that it incorporates a greater measure of Jewish practices, including circumcision, than other denominations, but the Ethiopians went even further than the Egyptians in this respect. It seems likely that the retention of many Mosaic ordinances was a consequence partly of the isolation of the country, which provided a relative immunity from European influences, and partly of the conviction that the people, having inherited the biblical responsibilities of the chosen people, were under an obligation to adhere strictly to Old Testament precepts. This conviction was no doubt reinforced by their position as subjects of a monarch who claimed direct descent from King Solomon and whose supposed emblem, the double triangle or Star of David, was until recently much in evidence on the uniforms of the Imperial Guard. Besides circumcision, which is performed, as with Jews, on the eighth day after birth, Ethiopian Christianity also observes the Mosaic dietary laws, with special

(1)Encyclopedia Britannica., eleventh edn, vol. 7.
(2) R. M. French, The Eastern Orthodox Church, p. 27.