Christianity in Ethiopia

Christianity in Ethiopia is the country's largest religion with members making up 59% of the population. Christianity in Ethiopia dates back to the ancient Kingdom of Aksum, when the King Ezana first adopted the faith in the 4th century AD. This makes Ethiopia one of the first regions in the world to officially adopt Christianity. Various Christian denominations are now followed in the country. Of these, the largest and oldest is the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church an Oriental Orthodox church centered in Ethiopia. The Orthodox Tewahedo Church was part of the Coptic Orthodox Church until 1959 when it was granted its own patriarch by Coptic Orthodox Pope of Alexandria and Patriarch of All Africa Cyril VI. Ethiopia was the only region of northern Africa to survive the expansion of Islam as a Christian state. The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church is one of the largest original and oldest Christian churches in Africa; only surpassed in age by The Church of the East, the Armenian Apostolic Church, the Syriac Orthodox Church, the Greek Orthodox Church, and the Coptic Church of Egypt. It has a membership of 32 to 36 million, the majority of whom live in Ethiopia, and is thus the largest of all Oriental Orthodox churches. Next in size are the various Protestant congregations, who include 13.7 million Ethiopians. The largest Protestant group is the Ethiopian Evangelical Church Mekane Yesus, with about 5 million members. Catholicism has been present in Ethiopia since the nineteenth century, and numbers 536,827 believers. In total, Christians make up about 63% of the total population of the country. Before the fourth century, a mixture of religions existed in Ethiopia, with parts of the population adhering to a religion that worshiped the serpent-king Arwe, and others adhering to what scholars call "a Judaized form of religion". Although Christianity existed in the region long before the rule of King Ezana of Aksum, the religion took a strong foothold when it was declared a state religion in 330 AD.