 "a Catholic priest at one of the churches")
When it adopted Christianity in the earlier part of the fourth century, Ethiopia was among the earliest of nations to do so. Some centuries later, Zagwe King Gebre Mesqel Lalibela (circa 1181-1221) made the arduous pilgrimage to Jerusalem. The saint-king returned to Ethiopia with a piece of the Holy Covenant, a casket of oil, and a vision. He would build a New Jerusalem, as Muslim conquest of the Holy Land halted pilgrimage in 1187.
The 11 rock-hewn churches of Lalibela still stand as imposing monolithic rock structures, majestic in their simplicity and sheer power of line and form. Saint George is
