More Adventures in Africa: First Day at Tigrai Rock-Hewn Churches

We drove for a while and then stopped at a location where we could hike to three different rock-hewn churches. The nearest one was Petros and Paulos. It is not truly rock-hewn as only the chapel is cut into the rock. It is located halfway up a cliff with some very rickety looking stairs going up to it. We had read that it was mostly in ruins and it cost the equivalent of $7.50 each to get in so for all of these reasons, we skipped it. (These priests actually have quite a racket going as it costs the same to get in each of the churches which is a lot of money in Ethiopia.)

We then hiked on a steep uphill for more than an hour to get to Medhane Alem Adi Kasho Church. This church is considered to be one of the greatest churches in the Tigrai. The exterior is cut free from the rock behind. It has four columns in front and two doors. The interior is cathedral like with high ceilings. The ceiling is dense with patterned images of ibex, Axumite crosses, and other images. This is probably the oldest rock-hewn church and probably dates to the 10^th century. However, legend has it that Jesus himself excavated the church and the holes in the rock path leading to the church were made by Jesus’ horse.

We hiked to Mikael Melehayzenghi Church, probably excavated in the 8^th century.. This was a much smaller church and didn’t have the same cathedral like atmosphere as the first church but it did have some beautiful paintings which were first painted maybe in the 10^th or 11^th century but touched up recently. One memorable painting depicts Jesus saving Adam and Eve from (or possibly abandoning them to) ferocious dragons.

Most of these rock-hewn churches were not discovered by Europeans until about 1966 as they are very well hidden. No-one knows why these churches were carved into rock. It may have been for security or spiritual isolation. The churches were carved into a vertical cliff face or from a rock outcrop. It is absolutely amazing that these churches were cut out of the rock with some rudimentary tools but I have read nothing about how this was done. It is also interesting that most of these churches are still in active use.

At the end of the day, we walked around Wukro Chirkos, a monolithic style church believed by locals to date from the 4^th century. We didn’t go in but enjoyed the outside and the views of the countryside and then befriended a lot of children from a local school. The kids posed for many pictures and enjoyed seeing their photos.