Pilgrimage & Festivals Tours

Religion has an important role in the Ethiopian society, festivals and ceremonies provide many  high points in the calendar; only the Ethiopian Orthodox church celebrates not less than 150 major  and minor festivities per year. Religious pilgrimages in Ethiopia constitute an essentially  unrecorded mass movement of domestic tourists that attract the attentions of most visitors from abroad.

The most famous pilgrimages are; Timket in mid January, Genna in early January, Meskel in late  September and Easter in late April are colorful and remarkable mass ceremonies; celebrated at most corners of the country. Hidar Tsion in Axum at the end of November, and Kulubi Gabreil near Harar in December and July, also attracts more than 100,000 participants, most of who will come on foot..
 

Enquitatash: Ethiopia New Year 11 September)

This Festival celebrates both the New Year and the feast of John the Baptist. At the end  of the long rains the season is spring and the high lands become covered in wild flowers. Children dressed in new clothes dance through the villages, distributing garlands and tiny paintings. In the evening every house lights a bone fire and there is singing and dancing.

Meskal (Finding of the True Cross, 27 September)

It is celebrated in memory of the finding of the True Cross by Empress Eleni. Legend has is that  the cross up on which Christ was crucified was discovered in the year 326 by Empress Helen,  mother of Constantine the great. Unable to find the holy sepulture, she prayed for help and was  directed by the smoke of an increase burner to where the cross was buried. It is celebration by bonfire topped with an image of a cross to which flowers are tied. Priests in full ceremonial dress bless the bonfire before it is lit. This festival coincides with the mass blooming of the golden Yellow Maskal Daisies, called Adey Ababa in Amharic; symbolically heralding the advent  of a new year after the rainy season is over.

In the middle ages, the patriarch of Alexandria gave the Ethiopian emperor Dawit half of the  true cross in return for the protection afforded to the Coptic christens. A fragment of the true cross  is reputed to be held at the Gishen Mariam monastery, which is about 70km to the NW of Desie. Maskel means cross in Amharic. On the day of the festival bright yellow Meskel daisies are tied to pilled high in town Squares.

Genna (Ethiopian Christmas, 7th of January)

It is celebrated all parts of the country Priests and Clergymen sing with drums and Cestrum all night and it is also highly and colorfully celebrated in Lalibela where the Amazing rock-hewn churches are found and it gives unforgettable memory to tourists. Traditionally, young men play a game called Genna that is similar to the European hockey.

Fasika (Ethiopian Easter)

Fasika (Easter) is a festival that follows a fasting period of 55 days fasting period. During this time, no animal product is eaten and the faithful do not eat anything at all until the daily service is finished at around 3:00 p.m. The fasting period culminates on the last two and half days long fasting RITUALIA.