Accidental Environmentalists the Religiosity of Church Forests in Highlands Ethiopia

Worldviews 22 (2018) 113–142 WORLDVIEWS brill.com/wo Accidental Environmentalists The Religiosity of Church Forests in Highlands Ethiopia Eliza F. Kent Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, ny, usa [email protected] Izabela Orlowska Leibniz—Zentrum Moderner Orient, Berlin, Germany [email protected] Abstract In the highlands of Ethiopia, the only remaining stands of native forest are around churches of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahido Church. Though hailed as community- conserved areas by environmentalists, we argue that the conservation of such forest is not intentional, but rather an indirect result of the religious norms, beliefs and practices surrounding the sites. In actuality, the religiosity surrounding church forests maintains the purity of the most holy space in the center of the shrine, the tabot, a replica of the Ark of the Covenant, which ensures that the church is a legitimate and effective portal to the divine. An underlying cultural logic of purity and pollution structures the spatial organization of the site outward into a series of concentric circles of diminishing purity and shapes the social order into an elegant hierarchy. This article seeks to understand the norms, beliefs and practices of this sacred geography in its social and religious context, arguing that ignorance of or inattention to these can undermine the conservation goals that have brought these forests, along with so many other sacred natural sites, to the attention of environmentalists around the world. Keywords Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahido Church – Ethiopia – church forests – sacred natural sites – sacred groves – sacred geography – community-conservation area © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2018 | doi: 10.1163/15685357-02201101Downloaded from Brill.com10/07/2021 08:22:20AM via free access 114 kent and orlowska It was our second visit to an Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahido Church (etoc) dedicated to St. Michael, which was located just off the main highway that fun- neled rural traffic to the regional capital of Bahir Dar.1 The January day was bright and warm, as it so often is in the Amhara-speaking highlands of Ethiopia. The week before, our nine-person research team had arrived at the church unannounced, bearing a letter from the bishop that granted us permission to conduct ecological surveys in the diocese’s many church forests. Like most etoc churches, this one was round, organized in a series of concentric circles that emanate out from a pure and holy center within the church’s built struc- ture.The physical environs of the space considered “the church” extend as far as an outer boundary, which may be marked by a wall, a path, or simply the edge of a neighboring field. In the outermost ring of the church, one typically finds a forest used as a community burial ground, which has been conserved through the generations by a system of customary norms and prohibitions (Figure 1). In this part of Ethiopia, such church forests harbor the only stands of indigenous forest in a region otherwise denuded of trees, attracting the attention of conservation biologists, botanists and others concerned about forest loss, including ourselves (Bongers et al 2006, Aerts et al. 2016, Wassie et al. 2010). Though there is debate about whether or not the region was more densely forested in the past, we know that Ethiopian Orthodox church forests have endured on the landscape for decades, perhaps centuries, in spite of political turmoil, changes in land tenure, rising population and accompanying demand for timber, fodder and agricultural land (Klepeis et al 2016: 720–721; Scull et al 2016). Our interdisciplinary team, comprised of biologists, geographers, religious studies scholars and several student interns, was launching a multi-year research project to study these remarkable forests from diverse perspectives, hoping to understand better the socio-ecological dynamics that have led to their conservation. On our first visit, the church was deserted save for a few sleepy young priests-in-training sitting in the shade, whose lilting voices could be heard chanting the liturgical texts they commit to memory. We gathered leaf litter, identified and counted seedlings and established several experimen- 1 We gratefully acknowledge the funding provided by the Picker Interdisciplinary Science Institute at Colgate University. We also extend our thanks to the many priests, deacons, nuns, monks, and laypeople of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahido Church in South Gondar, who patiently answered our questions and helped us understand their churches better. Finally, we owe an enormous debt of gratitude to the interdisciplinary team with whom we launched this project: Catherine Cardelús (principal investigator), Peter Klepeis, Peter Scull, Alemaheyu Wassie Eshete and Carrie Woods. Their intellectual camaraderie and collaborative generosity has greatly enriched this research at every stage. WorldviewsDownloaded from 22 Brill.com10/07/2021 (2018) 113–142 08:22:20AM via free access accidental environmentalists 115 figure 1 Aerial view of church to St. Michael, near Bahir Dar tal plots to assess the present ecological health of the forest and track it over time. We were unable, however, to find anyone able to tell us about the religious norms and institutional structures that led to the conservation of this small patch of forest. So one week later, we returned to finish that work. It happened to be market day. Dozens of rural residents walked along the road staring at this strange assemblage of Western-born, mostly white foreign- ers and their vehicles. We began our interview outside the gates of the church forest with a priest and a local farmer who was also a member of the congre- gation. As we asked our prepared questions about the size of the congrega- tion, the church’s sources of income and the ways in which people were and were not permitted to use the forest produce, the priest nervously adjusted his turban and the farmer darted glances at the crowd growing around us. I sug- Worldviews 22 (2018) 113–142 Downloaded from Brill.com10/07/2021 08:22:20AM via free access 116 kent and orlowska gested we move inside the church gates, ostensibly to get a closer look at the new tree plantings at the forest perimeter, but really in hopes that we could escape the pressure of the crowd. But as we rose to shift location, the priest announced abruptly that he had to get home and melted into the crowd, leav- ing the farmer to lead us, reluctantly, on a tour of the saplings. Suddenly, we were confronted by a bold youth, a trio of companions behind him. “What are you doing here?” He demanded, “You don’t belong here!” We explained we were here with a well-known local scientist and lay leader within the etoc, who had a long relationship with this church. “He’s just inside the forest—let us get him. He’ll explain.” They refused, citing bad experiences with “Protes- tants” who had recently tried to force their way in. Breaking the tense standoff, the farmer suggested we move our interview, once again, outside the church wall. But as we left, the youth slammed the gate behind us, locking us out. The farmer soon disappeared as well, explaining to the surrounding crowd that his cooperation with us had been a mistake, and in any case he had to go home now. This was the first time we encountered a hostile reception at the boundaries of a church forest, but it would not be the last. There were the men felling trees along a rutted dirt road who halted us as we carried our heavy gear towards the church forest, still a mile away. Standing up tall, their faces gleaming with sweat and their axes resting on their shoulders, they told us sharply to go away. There was the stout caretaker, his face marked with ritual scars, who followed every move of the biological assessment team with a suspicious glare. And there were the innumerable priests and laypeople who stared at us pointedly, took their large wooden or metal crosses out of their shirts and held them up to us, wordlessly asking if we were Orthodox Christians too. As significant as the resistance was, we were always able to overcome it eventually by appealing to elders high up in the church hierarchy. At St. Michael’s church, once we were able to persuade the young people to take us to him, the head-priest dismissed their alarm with a gentle wave of his hand and gave us a tour of the new tree plantings and a new concrete bathing area surrounding the church’s healing spring. Usually, though, winning people’s trust took a conversation with our local contact, and an explanation of the letter he carried testifying to the permission he’d gained from the South Gondar etoc diocese authorizing this work. Though inconvenient to our team at the time, in retrospect the hostility we encountered at the boundaries of these church forests, and the way it dissipated when we were able to demonstrate the support we had from upper echelons of the church hierarchy, testified to the existence of a robust system of norms, beliefs, and practices that have long supported the conservation of these forests. This article seeks to understand those norms, beliefs and WorldviewsDownloaded from 22 Brill.com10/07/2021 (2018) 113–142 08:22:20AM via free access accidental environmentalists 117 practices in their social and religious context, arguing that ignorance of or inattention to these can undermine the conservation goals that have brought these forests, along with so many other sacred natural sites, to the attention of environmentalists around the world. Our ethnographic investigation indicates that the conservation of a forested ring around Orthodox churches in this region, though it motivates the interest of environmentalists, is not by any means the purpose of the practices, but a kind of indirect consequence.

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