The Church in the Forest & the Forest in the Church

Earlier this year a good friend headed to Ethiopia with a group of intrepid pals to explore some of the cave churches of the country. They did plenty of hiking and climbing, the latter to access these fascinating places of worship carved into cliffs. Thanks, but no thanks.

I mentioned something I'd seen about church forests, the oases of green sustained around ancient church structures, and they did visit one. Over the centuries deforestation for grazing land and other forms of agriculture has left these as unique examples of biodiversity in the midst of arid landscapes.

Recently I sent my friend a link to a short film about these church forests which I found quite inspiring. It is about a forest ecologist, Alemayehu Wassie Eshete, who has been working with the priests of these church forests for more than a quarter century to study the interconnection of church and forest. He maintains that “a church, to be a church, must be enveloped by a forest.”

One of the priests says that when a person plants a tree, the tree prays for the person to live longer.and that the forest represents a garden of Eden. The churches are situated at the centre of each forest, but the forest is in the church as well. They are built of wood, and the paintings are coloured with natural dyes from plants. 

Back in August Ethiopia planted hundreds of millions of trees in a single day as part of a green initiative for the country. Much was made of this record-breaking project but of course it will be many decades before it comes to fruition. In the meantime, these gems of old growth biodiversity prevail.

The author of the New York Times article which introduces us to the film concludes with these thoughts:

For me, these little blips of green forest rising out of vast swaths of deforested brown earth represent hope. They are a powerful intersection of faith and science doing some good in the world. 

E.O. Wilson, in his book “Half-Earth,” declared the church forests of Ethiopia “one of the best places in the biosphere.” They are proof that when faith and science make common cause on ecological issues, it results in a model that bears repeating. We have the blueprint of life held in these tiny circles of faith, and that’s something to rejoice over and protect and expand with every resource we can muster.

Amen!

I hope you can watch the film here:

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/03/opinion/church-forests-ethiopia.html