Making the Tasteless World Sweet: An Ethnography of Image Practices in the Ethiopian Orthodox Church as Lived Theology

Abstract

Abstract Through an ethnographic approach, this article takes a contemporary look at Orthodox image production and, in particular, at how the terms “traditional” and “modern” are employed by Ethiopian image producers. The unrelenting insistence on what makes an image “correct” and “traditional” signals a deeper need for legitimacy. The discourse presented in this article attributes to past tradition a value which is just as much a critique of the present as it is an idealization of the past. The panorama of Ethiopian Orthodox image practices is not only riddled with tensions surrounding titles, hierarchy and purity, but colored by nostalgia, showing growing concern about the decline of Orthodoxy.