- +251 96 857 4834
- Info@ethiopiantribalexpeditions.com
- Jinka, Ethiopia
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The Finding of the True Cross – is both a religious festival and a joyful celebration of the end of the long rainy season and the beginning of spring.
The Finding of the True Cross – is both a religious festival and a joyful celebration of the end of the long rainy season and the beginning of spring. On 26 September, people in cities and small villages across Ethiopia gather to build community daisy-topped bonfires (Demera) to commemorate St Helena finding the cross on which Christ was crucified. For many Ethiopians, this is their favorite festival of the year.
In Addis Ababa, the bonfire in Meskel Square towers above the crowd, and the lighting of it – by the Patriarch of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church – is a public spectacle. It’s preceded by colorful religious processions as large crowds light candles and sing.
St Helena is credited with having found the cross on which Christ was crucified in Jerusalem in 324 AD. In a dream, the mother of the Roman Emperor Constantine was told that if she lit a bonfire, the smoke would lead her to the cross. Meskel celebrates her success. It means ‘cross’ in Ge’ez, the ancient language of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church.
Addis is probably the most dramatic place in which to experience this Ethiopian Orthodox Christian- festival, but you can enjoy the rituals, singing, dancing, and feasting beneath red-yellow-and-green bunting in almost any town or village across the country.
Sunny yellow Meskel daisies crowd the fields and hillsides at this time of year, and in the days leading up to you see bunches of bright flowers and fresh grass in the markets and along the roadsides. These are used to decorate both bonfires and homes for this important festival, and children carry and exchange bunches of them on the day.
The following day – which is officially Meskel – the faithful return to the sites of the bonfires and use the ash to mark a cross on their foreheads. It’s a day of eating and drinking, and you enjoy the feasting and Tella (traditional Ethiopian beer) in a home that’s been specially decorated to mark the start of spring.
You may wish to include Meskel in your bespoke tour of Ethiopia, or you could choose to join our annual Meskel pilgrimage.
We seek the beauty of landscape and seascape, the heritage of cultural diversity, and the bustle of streets and marketplaces. Effectively, photography through geography.
Jinka,Ethiopia
+251 96 857 4834
info@ethiopiantribalexpeditions.com
