A Hidden Spiritual Sanctuary

The message on the boulder was clear:  ‘No Permission For Women To Go Up.’   Cameraman Richard Atkinson and I would have to leave our correspondent, Belinda Hawkins, behind.

We were at the start of the steep rocky path that leads up to Debre Bizen.  The monastry lies high in the mountains just off the winding, treacherous road that runs from the capital Asmera to the Red Sea port of Massawa.  The road drops 2500 terrifying metres in only 115 kilometres in a series of hairpin bends.

This spectacular countryside was the farthest border of the Ethiopian realm in the Middle Ages.  In 1361 Abuna Filipos, who was in dispute with the mother church over the sacredness of the Sabbath, exiled himself here to found his own monastry.  The legend is that he came here because he preferred the roaring of lions to the temptations of women, and since then no woman has been allowed near the monastry – which now lay a backbreaking two and a half hour climb above us

‘See you this evening,’ Belinda said, perhaps a tad too cheerfully, and wandered off down the slope to sit in the car and read her book.

The camel we had negotiated in the village had still not materialized after an hour.  It was already well after noon by the time Richard and I set off up the mountain with our camera and sound gear over our shoulders, accompanied by Tuwolde Fessaha who was our driver and interpreter.

The sun beat down on us as we climbed up the steep path, each step raising a tiny puff of white dust, our feet often stumbling on the treacherous loose rocks that covered the path.  There was no shade, no grass and only a few tiny scrublike bushes for cover.   After thirty minutes of climbing like this we were exhausted, and we still had another two hours to go.  We came to a large rock that cast a small shadow on the edge of the path.  Panting and sweating, we took our first break.

Tuwolde who was smaller and of slighter build than us was also dripping sweat, but he was puffing considerably less spoke to us between breaths: ‘You can see how hard we fought for our independence,’ he said. ‘Thirty years, living like this!’  The rock face above us was peppered with shallow bullet scars; there were a few corroded AK-47 shells lying in the dust at the edge of the path.  ‘All over Eritrea you will find such cartridges,’ Tuwolde said.  ‘All of us were fighters in the struggle.’

We pressed on up the mountain in the full heat of the day, none of us saying much, knowing that we still had to come down before nightfall.  Higher and higher we climbed, struggling for breath in the thin mountain air.  Here, a cactus was filled with old bullet holes; there, a tiny lizard scurried out of our way.  We came to a large red cross mounted on a bleak cairn of stones, baking in the sun.  ‘The beginning of the monastry.’ Tuwolde said to us.  ‘From this point, believers must remove their shoes.’

I looked at him quizzically, thinking of the sharp rocks and cactii that lined the path.  He smiled, reading my mind.

‘We are not believers.  For us it is not necessary to remove our shoes.’

The path led away from the cross around the side of the mountain.  Exhausted, we stumbled forward and, suddenly, in front of us, lay what mediaeval Christians must have imagined to be the view that God had of the world.   The earth was spread out for miles below, impossibly steep mountains and valleys tumbling down onto a vast plateau.  From there – far, far below us – an enormous bank of white cloud stretched out filling the horizon all the way to the Red Sea.  The cloud billowed and swirled in vast formations at the perilous rocky edges of the mountain range.

All three of us stood, without speaking, and stared in awe out across the vastness at this natural spectacle.  Above us, only a few hundred metres away, were the ancient buildings of Debre Bizen.  Made by hand of rock hewn from this very mountain, they hung above the cloud in silent contemplation.  A more spiritual place I could not imagine.

Here at the edges of the monastry, we came across the first people we had seen on the mountain.  Camel drivers sitting in a circle playing cards, their beasts tethered to the bushes behind them; an old monk wandered past and grumbled that people like us would  no doubt bring women with them.

But no such ambivalence was in evidence in our greeting by the head of the monastery, Aba Weldegbriel Grmai.  A small boy ushered us up a rickety wooden staircase into his cell.  It was larger than those of the ordinary monks, but stepping into its cool darkness was like entering another age.  Aba Weldegbriel was wearing a grey cassock and a brimless green cap.  He motioned for us to sit on the worn, low-slung Ethiopian-style chairs carved of dark wood and strung with goatskin leather thongs.  The stone walls were hung with cast iron implements and hand-painted Coptic icons.

Before it was polite to discuss our business, we were offered tea.  We sat in silence mostly, grateful for the rest from our climb that the ancient courtesies offered us.  The room filled with aromatic smoke from the fire as the young boy who was the Aba’s helper boiled the water in a battered iron kettle.  Outside, a camel snorted, a bell rang calling the monks for their afternoon meal, sun streamed in through the hand carved wooden door.

After tea, we were free to move around the monastery.  Barefoot monks and boys were gathering with their cotton sacks to collect their portion of injera – the local bread, baked in large flat discs – and tea.  Simple fare for a life of poverty and spirituality, a life that is under increasing threat from the influences of the modern world.  Before the war, there were over 500 monks and boys at Debre Bizen, now there are only 140 monks and 40 boys studying under them.  The monastery was also self-sufficient, growing its own food and slaughtering its own herds, now the monks depend largely on handouts and a little money from the Coptic church.

‘During the war we faced a lot of problems. Many people sacrificed their lives,’ Aba Gebrehewit Azbu told us.  He is 93 years old and has lived at Debre Bizen for almost all his life.  ‘The monastery used to have a lot of trees and farmlands, but the Ethiopians stopped us from selling our crops and firewood.  We are poor now.  What’s going to happen to this monastery?’

Still, he is cautiously optimistic about the future.  ‘Certainly, we are better off now since independence.’  He said before slowly standing up with the aid of his cane and hobbling off to his cell to eat his meal alone.

It is a hard life.  The day begins at 3:00A.M. with ringing of the bell calling the monks to prayer.   They pray for about half an hour and then sleep until 6:00 when the bell rings again for the morning service.  After breakfast, the monks are assigned their tasks for the day: chopping wood, drawing water, making fires, repairing the stone walls until midday when they pray again.  They rest until their meal at 3:00, and they pray again at 6:00.  The day ends at 9:00 when they sleep.

A demanding routine that has changed little for 600 years, it provides both a link with the past and the opportunity for the men who choose this life to come closer to their God.

A man can only be accepted as a full monk at Debre Bizen after the age of 30.  The boys at the monastery are there to be educated.  Many of them are children who have lost their parents or been  abandoned by them.  ‘We look after the boys here, and any boy who wants to can become a monk,’ Aba Grmai told us.  ‘They can choose to leave or stay with us if they wish.  But, of course, they must be well-behaved.’

Education and the preservation of Coptic beliefs are two of Debre Bizen’s most important functions.  By our standards the library at Debre Bizen is tiny.  It is run down and has only about 100 books, and many of them are decaying, but they are all made of vellum and every page is covered in Amharic, the ancient Ethopian script, each letter painstakingly hand-written in ink.  Some of the manuscripts are illuminated with coloured inks, but the remoteness of the monastery and its poverty means that most of them are only done in black ink.  The oldest book is 500 years old, and the craft of calligraphy has not died at the monastery.  There are still a number of monks who keep it alive, but these days there is very little money to maintain the books or to even buy ink.

The ancient Coptic church is at the heart of Debre Bizen.   From outside it is an uninspiring building with the original roof covered in rusting corrugated iron.  Inside, it is a treasure house of Coptic art.  The walls of the round church are covered from floor to ceiling in brightly-coloured, highly-detailed paintings.  On one wall is Jesus’ ascent into heaven, on another is St. George slaying the dragon, next to that is a magnificent rendering of the Magi visiting Mary and the baby Jesus.  In between the main paintings, running up and down the architraves around the doors, are tiny illuminated icons of saints and angels.

It is a breathtaking display of art.  One that traces its roots in an unbroken line from once-mighty Byzantium through Alexandria in Egypt, picking up African, Arabic and even Indian influences along the way.   I  am not a Christian, but I felt I could spend hours here appreciating this unexpected splendour . . .

A young monk, the caretaker of the church, hissed impatiently.   It is a privilege to see inside the church and already it was late in the day.  It was time for us to go.  He ushered us out and locked the wooden door behind us with a large rusty iron key.  Aba Weldegbriel was waiting for us outside.  We thanked him profusely through Tuwolde and made a small donation to the monastery.  The Aba walked slowly with us back through the stone pathways of the monastery, so many of them crumbling with neglect.  We shook hands and said goodbye to him under the simple stone archway that is the main entrance.  He was still watching us as we started back down the mountainside; the late afternoon air cool around us and the long shadows of the setting sun filling the valleys below.