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From: Euphorian [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Tuesday, November 05, 2002 12:42 PM
Subject: [CTRL] Ark of Covenant
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http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20021029-11-6334r
Ark of Covenant reported to be in Ethiopia
By Beth Potter
From the Life Mind Desk
Published 10/29/2002 10:31 AM
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia, Oct. 29 (UPI) -- Remember Indiana Jones in Raiders
of the Lost
Ark? It turns out the
movie was probably wrong about where to search for the religious artifact.
The real Ark of
the Covenant is actually believed to be in Axum, a small town in
Ethiopia.
Actually believed to be. Is not the same as - exists in Axum.
This story is drivel if it suggests that this is the real Ark.
J2
Written texts have it that the ark, the repository of the Ten Commandments
tablets that God
gave to Moses, was taken to Ethiopia by Menelik, son of Solomon and the
Queen of Sheba
around 1000 B.C., says Richard Pankhurst, a British scholar who has lived
in Ethiopia more
than half of his 60-odd years. It's guarded by an ecclesiastic in a rude
wooden building in
little Axum, a 3-day drive from the capital on bad roads. But inside the
building are
sumptuous curtains and paintings depicting stories in the Old Testament.
Nobody sees it -- you have to take it on faith that it's the ark,
Pankhurst says. It's a
question of veneration.
Even asking the man who is second in command to the patriarch of the
conservative
Ethiopian Orthodox church brings a stern rebuke.
There is in our country the Ark of the Covenant, says Archbishop Gerima,
who sits in the
patriarchate in the capital city. You can ask his holiness about it, but
I am not going to
discuss it. It's impossible to see it.
The patriarch is out or in a meeting in subsequent queries.
In every town across the country, a replica of the ark is kept in an
Ethiopian Orthodox
church. Only ordained priests are allowed to see even the replicas,
Pankhurst says. Once a
year, for the festival of Timket, on Jan. 19, Epiphany on the Ethiopian
Orthodox Christian
calendar, the replicas are taken from behind curtains, draped with
beautiful material and
paraded around. The faithful renew their vows. Ethiopia, better known for
famines and
wars, is mostly Christian, though Muslims are estimated to make up between
one-third and
one-half of the country's population, estimated at 67 million.
Demelash Nega, who comes from the Axum region, laughs when asked if the
ark could
possibly be the real thing.
Of course it's real, just like Jesus Christ is real, Nega says. How
else could it survive for
so many years?
Menelik was said to have gone to Jerusalem to see his father. Legend has
it that his
followers said they would not return home without the ark. The followers
spirited it away
from Jerusalem in the middle of the night -- continuing their travels
until they reached
Ethiopia.
Menelik became the first of a new line of kings in the northern Africa
region.
It's intimately related to Christian history, Pankhurst says solemnly of
the religious object
said to be the ark. Everyone should know that it is here.
Copyright © 2002 United Press International
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