Ethiopia celebrates Timkat

A man reads his Bible in the early hours of the morning before the Timkat celebrations begin. The festival takes place over three days. On the second day of Timkat in the city of Gondar, Mass begins before dawn on the grounds of one of Ethiopia's most sacred sites, the Fasilides Bath. Locals dress in white and cover their heads with scarves.

Like many festivities around the world, Timkat looks a little different this year. The mayor of Gondar announced that more than 400,000 masks would be distributed during the celebrations. But, with low numbers of official coronavirus cases, masks remain an uncommon sight in this region.

Gondar resident Tawobetch Alemayehu and her neighbor follow the procession of the tabot — models of the Ark of the Covenant — to the Fasilides Bath. After a difficult few months attending to Amhara soldiers injured during the Tigray crisis, she is happy to celebrate Timkat. "We are very sad about the people who died during the civil war, but we still celebrate the festival," she told DW.

Local priests carry the tabot on their heads. The word "tabot" also refers to replicas of the Tablets of Stone inscribed with the Ten Commandments, which Moses carried up Mount Sinai. The most senior priests from churches around the city lead the procession and keep vigil over the tabot during the night.

A large crowd waits for the tabot to arrive at the baths. This flag doesn't have the blue star in the center like the official Ethiopian flag: It represents the domination of the Amhara in the past and is often viewed as a symbol of Amhara nationalism.

Orthodox priests stand by the bath ready for to begin the Timkat ceremony. During the ceremony they read excepts from the Bible about the baptism of Jesus in the Jordan River. While the ceremony is very much a religious one, political leaders have also used the occasion to express their condolences for those killed during the ongoing conflict in Ethiopia's Tigray region.

Orthodox priests from churches all over Gondar are present at the blessing ceremony. The ceremony is always celebrated on January 19 (or January 20 in a leap year), corresponding to the 11th day of Terr in the Ge'ez calendar. In 2019, UNESCO added Timkat to the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.

Once the ceremony is over, men jump into the holy water, symbolically renewing their baptism vows. Significantly fewer tourists attended the festival this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which has taken its toll on Ethiopia's tourism sector.