NEW ARK OF THE NEW COVENANT

Day 202: November 30

Our Lady Mary of Zion (New Ark of the New Covenant),

Axum, Tigray, Ethiopia



The old covenant with the Jewish people ended with the crucifixion of Jesus and the Jews' rejection of his image. Jesus established the New Covenant with all who believe that he is the true Messiah. Mary Most Holy, by giving birth to the Messiah, thus became the "New Ark," the "Living" Ark of the New Covenant.

Interestingly, in Axum, Ethiopia, according to Ethiopian tradition, the place dedicated to Our Lady Mary of Zion and the Ark of the Covenant coexist.

The Cathedral of Our Lady Mary of Zion, located in Axum in Tigray, is considered the most important and oldest place of worship in Ethiopia; next to the old church, dating back to the 17th century, stand the new cathedral completed in 1964 and the Tobot chapel, where, according to tradition, the Ark of the Covenant is kept.

The original place of worship dedicated to Saint Mary of Zion was built in the fourth century during the reign of Ezana of Axum, the first Christian monarch of Ethiopia converted by St Frumentius. According to tradition, it was the emperor himself who transported the Ark of the Covenant from the island of Tana Kirkos to the cathedral.

The importance of the church remained unchanged for many centuries, so much so that almost all the Ethiopian emperors were crowned inside; Monarchs proclaimed elsewhere received legitimacy only after their visit to the cathedral.

Around the middle of the tenth century, the pagan or Jewish queen Gudit (or Yodit) invaded the Kingdom of Axum and destroyed all Christian places of worship, including the ancient cathedral.

Later the building was rebuilt, albeit with more modest dimensions, but in 1535 it was destroyed again during the invasion of Abyssinia by Aḥmad Grāñ b. Ibrahim, who led the troops of the Sultan of Adal.

A few years later a new, even smaller church was built at the behest of the Ethiopian emperor Claudius and enlarged by his successor Menas. The cathedral was finally rebuilt by Emperor Fāsiladas in 1665.

In 1955, Emperor Haile Selassie decided to build a large church adjacent to the old one; construction of the new neo-Byzantine cathedral with Abyssinian influences, also open to women, was completed only nine years later, in 1964. Nearby, in the same years, the Tabot Chapel was also erected at the behest of Empress Menen, intended to house the alleged Ark of the Covenant. To attend the solemn inauguration ceremony, the emperor interrupted the state visit of Queen Elizabeth II of England.

During the years of the civil war in Ethiopia, the buildings fell into a state of profound decay; starting in 1974, the cathedral's title of Nebre-Id, which until then guaranteed the cleric invested with it also temporal powers over the city of Axum, assumed a purely ecclesiastical value, while the city began to be governed by a mayor. Since 1999, the church has become the seat of an important archdiocese, presided over directly by the patriarch of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, with an auxiliary bishop delegated for ordinary administration. The church also remained an important pilgrimage center, especially during the Festival of Zion Maryam, which takes place there every year on November 30 (Hidar 21 on the Ethiopian calendar).


St Justin Russolillo Writes...

"The primary aim of this devotion [Consecration to Jesus through Mary] is to establish in our heart the dominion of Mary Most Holy so that Jsus, Incarnate Wisdom, may rule there more perfectly."

(Ascension, trans. Louis Caputo, Vocationist Father, Newark, 1997, p. 420)

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