Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church

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The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church (EOTC) (Amharic: የኢትዮጵያ ኦርቶዶክስ ተዋሕዶ ቤተ ክርስቲያን, romanized: Yä-ityop'ya ortodoks täwaḥədo betä krəstiyan), is the largest of the Oriental Orthodox Churches. The EOTC is the first indigenous Christian church from sub-Saharan Africa and precedes the arrival of Western and European colonizers, who mostly followed Catholic and Protestant denominations, to the region by more than a millennium. It is also one of only three universally recognized Oriental Orthodox churches in Africa alongside the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria and Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church—and one of only two in sub-Saharan Africa—as the status of the Tigrayan Orthodox Tewahedo Church is still disputed by the broader Oriental Orthodox communion. Dating back to the Christianization of the Kingdom of Aksum by Coptic Orthodox missionaries in 330; it has between 38 million and 51 million adherents in Ethiopia, and 60 million members worldwide. It is a founding member of the World...

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