Christmas in Lalibela Ethiopia
The shabby prop-plane hit the tarmac at the airport for the high-plateau town of Lalibela - a rural outpost an hour’s flight north of Addis Ababa that holds buried treasures.
Hewn into the rock, more sculpture than architecture, are 11 hand-carved churches built nearly 1,000 years ago as a Jerusalem in Africa. A place of pilgrimage where the devoted look down instead of to the heavens, like most houses of God. Even today it remains a place of living worship and is a UNESCO world heritage site - among the first 12 designated in 1978.
St. George’s Church, Lalibela at sunset
Pilgrims looking down into St. George’s
We filed off the plane. Most of our fellow passengers were draped in white cotton shawls and dresses and were here for the same reason we’d come - to celebrate Christmas day in the Coptic Church, January 7th.
A million pilgrims, many of whom had travelled on foot for a month to be there, lit candles and sought redemption in the rock as songs of devotion, drums and prayers swirled around us and the faithful flowed through the recesses, engaged in rituals that hadn’t changed since before the churches were built. There was an extra sense of joy as this was the first time in 2 years that the celebration had taken place, halted by a brutal civil war.
The scenes we encountered were biblical in scale, like something from a Renaissance painting. Priests and bishops sermonised amongst the rocks and gulleys while the smoke from cooking fires drifted across an ocean of people as we navigated a path through the endless cardboard beds - the devout sleeping wherever they could find space.
Priests giving sermons in the rock canyons - Christmas 2023, Lalibela, Ethiopia
Pilgrims attending Christmas day ceremonies, Lalibela
Jerusalem in Africa
Mount of Olives, Lalibela
The complex was created as an African alternative to making the pilgrimage to Jerusalem, Muslim conquests in the surrounding territories having halted journeys to the Holy Land towards the end of the 12th century. The hills cradling the churches have names like Mount of Olives and Golgotha and the drainage canals created between them come together to create a new River Jordan.
The legend goes that Emperor Lalibela, whose name means “one the bees obey”, received divine instructions from an angel during a dream. 40,000 labourers - with help from a team of angels who worked while they slept - completed the extraordinary compound in just 24 years. In reality, it’s more likely that Lalibela came together over many centuries and that the Emperor brought the complex together during his reign.
The main event for Christmas is actually a marathon of televised sermons that run through the night of the 6th of January and into Christmas Day on the 7th. It’s important to leave the church complex early on the evening of the 6th as they close the gates and anyone stuck behind them is locked in for the night.
Early evening light at St. George’s Church, Lalibela
We chose instead to go back to our hotel and watch the sunset over the plateau before heading for dinner at the unique Ben Abeba restaurant - an architectural anomaly on the landscape and owned and run by the equally unexpected Susan, a Scottish pensioner who opened the restaurant in 2012 with her Ethiopian partner.
Sunset over the mountains and plateaus of Lalibela
Christmas Day
The crush of people in the early morning of Christmas Day waiting to enter the churches was like the temples in India for Holi. The congregation swelled and lurched forward, cheek to jowl, and open candle flames next to cotton headdresses hinted that one false move might send us to meet our maker ahead of schedule.
We pushed hard through the crowds into the core of the Bete Maryam church. High above us, priests representing the angles lined the edges of the pit, while in the belly of the church, men with staffs serving as shepherds responded to their songs in a rhythmic call and response - interjected every now and again with a piercing tribal wail that rippled through the faithful.
Worshippers at Bete Maryam Church, Christmas Day, Lalibela
Priests representing the angels line the edge of the hole the church is built in
Worshippers representing shepherds in the belly of Bete Maryam Church, Christmas Day, Lalibela
Pilgrim looking to the angels
Inside the churches, inscriptions are written in Ge’ez, the ancient language of Ethiopia, and the walls depict scenes from the Bible, but with African features instead of white or middle eastern. Priests dished out blessings to barefoot pilgrims.
Waiting to receive blessings inside the church
Christmas day prayers
Industrious photographers had set up makeshift stalls at the edge of the most famous of the Churches - St. Georges. For a small fee they would take your photo and quickly print out the images from tiny printers to take away with you and food was given out by volunteers from pots that had been cooking all day.
Exodus
By mid-morning it was all over. Pilgrims piled onto trucks and lorries or started their long journeys home on foot. Breakfast in a local restaurant was raw meat and offal for our guide and tour operator, while I opted for the more traditional cooked meat and injera and of course hot, strong Ethiopian coffee.
My 48 hours in Lalibela experiencing the customs, traditions and passions of the people over such an important festival is one of the most memorable events I’ve had the privilege to attend. Had I had more time on my trip, I would have liked to have seen the Epiphany celebrations two weeks later and while we were there to experience the people and the churches, I think there are plenty of unexplored opportunities for landscape photography too.
The trip to Lalibela, though, was just a warm-up for the main purpose of my trip: a 2,700km adventure around Southern Ethiopia to stay with and photograph the Tribes of the Omo Valley.
If you would like to go to Ethiopia on a photography tour that includes Lalibela, get in touch with Jayne Mclean at her website below. I have no commercial tie to her, but she’s who I went to Ethiopia with and I highly recommend her.