Aurora – The throng of worshippers spilled from the brand-new Ethiopian Orthodox Saint Mary Church on Sunday morning, crowded closely together, singing, dancing and beating on drums.
Most were dressed in white and draped in traditional gauzy prayer shawls. Leading the way were the church’s chief priests, each wearing on his head a brightly colored and ornate vestment that held a replica of the Ark of the Covenant, the biblical chest that contained the Ten Commandments.
The group made one lap around the building – on East Colfax Avenue near Chambers Road – as residents from a nearby apartment building watched. And in doing so, the congregants consecrated the largest Ethiopian Orthodox church ever built outside of Ethiopia – and gave the metro area’s estimated 10,000 Ethiopian immigrants a place to feel a little closer to home.
“The way we look at our religion, it’s not just to worship God but it’s also our way of life,” explained Yoseph Tafari, a deacon at the church. “We were lost for many years without having our institution here. And now that we have our church, we have found our way of life.”
Ethiopian Orthodox is a Christian religion that is 2,000 years old.
For the congregation, the new church is a dream that was years in the making. The group used to be housed in a building near downtown Denver, a space that once was a Catholic Church.
But that church was all wrong for the group. It didn’t have the golden dome that is traditional for Ethiopian Orthodox churches. The congregation, sitting in that church’s pews, did not face east, as is customary.
So, about five years ago, the congregation began to put together a plan to build a new church all its own. Church leaders enlisted architects and builders, who Tafari said showed the church generosity in keeping costs down.
Some of those who worked on the project said Sunday they came away from the experience of building the church profoundly changed.
Construction superintendent Mike Lewis said he decided to join the church, even though he doesn’t speak Amharic, the language in which the service is conducted.
“This project has just touched me, with the Ethiopian immigrants out here working so hard and so diligently to build their own place to worship,” Lewis said. “The whole community has embraced me.”
Sunday’s service drew about 1,000 people. Those who attended said the church provided a comforting reminder of their heritage, both in the architectural features such as the dome and in more subtle ways.
“We finally have a place to get together, to talk, to think of each other and to remember home,” said Telahun Yohannes, who came to the United States from Ethiopia in 1959.
Semay Nelson said she feels blessed to be able to preserve some of her Ethiopian culture in America: “It feels like a home away from home.”
Staff writer John Ingold can be reached at 720-929-0898 or jingold@denverpost.com.
About the church
History: The Ethiopian Orthodox church, an autonomous Christian church dating to the fourth century, is headed by a patriarch and closely related to the Coptic Church of Egypt. Its beginnings came long before Europe accepted Christianity, traced to a Bible verse, Acts 8, which tells of an Ethiopian eunuch who meets the apostle Philip in Israel and is baptized. The church believes the eunuch spread Christianity in Ethiopia.
Tradition: Church members believe the Ark of the Covenant, which housed the Ten Commandments, was brought to Ethiopia by the son of King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. It is kept in Axum, guarded by a select group of monks.
