Marks of Devotion/ Pilgrimage

Orthodox Christianity in Ethiopia. As featured in 2020 in the Australian Photo Review Magazine, Head On Photo Festival and Prix de la Photographie Paris. For more, see news/ publications.

Priest Aregawi Wolde Mariam looks down at a dry river valley below an ancient church in Tigray, the heartland of Orthodox Christianity in Ethiopia. A perilous, vertical ascent with a sheer drop of hundreds of meters takes visitors to the entrance after several hours climbing. Local people however, both young and old, ascend with ease, instinctively reaching the foot- holds molded by steps of pilgrims for thousands of years. Tigray’s rocky cliffs are dotted with hundreds of cave churches like this, hand carved in around the 6th century AD.