Celebrating Epiphany, also known as Timket, a religious celebration honouring Jesus’ baptism in the Jordan River, thousands of Ethiopian Orthodox Christian followers flocked to the country’s capital, Addis Ababa, on Friday and Saturday.
Timkat, an Ethiopian Orthodox Christian festival, is celebrated on January 19 and 20 each year. Drawing in tourists, Timkat is a true religious event with lots of colour, singing, drumming, and splashing.
The yearly celebration is acknowledged by UNESCO as a significant piece of intangible cultural heritage. Followers marched from churches to Jan Meda, an open space in the city, as priests carried tabots, sacred tents that resembled the Ark of the Covenant, one of the oldest churches in the world.
Priests splashed holy water and scattered incense as youths sprinted ahead of the tabots to drape a street in crimson carpets as a sign of respect. The students sang hymns during the ceremony. In front of the tabots, the devout dressed in white traditional garments chanted, sang, and bowed.
Abune Mathias, the patriarch of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church, emphasised the day’s significance and symbolism during the meeting on Saturday and urged forgiveness, harmony, and peace. Additionally, he exhorted Ethiopia’s authorities to work towards and promote peace.
“At the moment, our fellow citizens—children, elderly, mothers, and sisters—are waiting to die because of hunger. Our Christian faith will be in question if we keep quiet,” he said.
Although fighting between local militias and government forces started a few days before the celebration,. Violence in the Amhara region caused disruptions in some locations. The second-biggest city in the Amhara, Gondar, typically draws large crowds during the Timket festival.
Gondar is said to be the ideal location for Timkat celebrations, since the events climax in a bustling and vibrant afternoon recreation of the first baptism at the water-filled, 17th-century Fasil’s Pool.
Numerous colourful and intriguing festivals, most but not all of which have their roots in the Orthodox Christian Church, are part of the Ethiopian calendar. Others honour conflicts, warriors, and occasionally the overthrow of regimes.