Ethiopian Orthodox congregation thrives in Commerce Twp.

Photos by SUSAN TUSA/Detroit Free Press
Deacon Solomon Bogale Yifru plays a drum while the choir sings during a service July 20 at the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahdo Church. He came from Ethiopia to join the church at the request of the congregation.

Noah Assefa, 15, of Holt carries Yabsiera Fikra, 1, of Pontiac to communion. The church now serves about 110 adults and about 50 children.

A visiting priest does a reading during theservice July 20 at the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahdo Church in Commerce Township. The priest preached in Amharic, a Semitic language that is the official language of Ethiopia.

BY ALEX P. KELLOGG • FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER • August 6, 2008

If it seems like you're traveling to a world thousands of miles away -- and millennia old -- in a way, you are.

But when you enter the Debre Guenet Abune Teklehaimanot Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahdo Church, you happen to be in Commerce Township.

And not only are you in Commerce Township -- one of the most homogeneous communities in metro Detroit -- you're on a quaint little road within view of the township's offices at 2840 Fisher Ave. The church is at 2800 Fisher.

If, as neighbors, they sound like strange bedfellows, they are. Even members of the church admit it.

"When we opened, we had a few neighbors come," said Begashaw Deneke, chairman of the church's governing board.

The Bloomfield Hills resident, who brings his wife and two kids with him every Sunday, says members knocked on every door in the neighborhood when they opened.

"We wanted to make sure they didn't freak out," he said.

The modest Ethiopian Orthodox church and its adjoining rectory will celebrate two years in their current home in August. Their Commerce locale is their first permanent home.

"The testament of its growth is the fact that we were able to purchase this church," Haimanot Tsegaye said. "That's what's inspiring, that we gathered around from all over and made this happen."

The married mother of two young children lives in Southfield. She makes the 25-minute drive with her husband and children every weekend.

She has been with the church since a handful of families brought it into being nearly seven years ago. The church that the congregation inhabits was vacated by a Baptist one looking for a bigger home.

"When you have your own building, you can open it whenever you want, and hold your service whenever you want," said Deneke, who owns a foster care for older adults in Pontiac.

One of only two Ethiopian churches in all of Michigan -- and there's one that's struggled to stay alive in Windsor, members say -- its services are hardly intelligible to anyone who is not Ethiopian, as they are delivered in an ancient Semitic tongue called Ge'ez.

Its services began in a back hall of the Spiritual Israel Church and Its Army, an African-American church in Pontiac whose building was rented.

Slowly, it raised money for this endeavor, even benefiting from the housing crisis. When the founders first looked at the property, the asking price was more than double the $300,000 they paid for it a year later in 2006.

Founded by a handful of families, the church now serves about 110 Ethiopian adults and about 50 children. All live in southeast Michigan and nearby parts of Ohio and Ontario, though some come from farther locales, including the lengthy drives from Grand Rapids, Lansing and Kalamazoo.

Abby Tesfaye and Wyne Sebsibie traveled from Toronto for a recent Sunday service. A friend, Aida Endrias of Canton, was having a birthday party for her 7-year-old daughter, Helina Wondwossen.

"We like the services here," said Tesfaye, who comes here two or three times a year and attends a similar church in Toronto. "It's a very close community, and it's small; ours is big. We get lost over there."

The entire service at Teklehaimanot, as at all Ethiopian Orthodox services, is in the Ge'ez language. Used only in religious services, it has a role similar to that of Latin in the Roman Catholic Church.

Ancient rituals

Some of the church's rituals have not changed since several centuries after the birth of Christ.

The church follows a 13-month lunar calendar. On Aug. 30, the memorial festival of St. Teklehaimanot is celebrated. In September, all Eritrean and Ethiopian Orthodox churches celebrate Meskel, Ge'ez for "cross." It includes a large bonfire to commemorate St. Helena's discovery of the cross on which Jesus Christ was killed.

The orthodox churches of Ethiopia and Eritrea, Ethiopia's small neighbor to the north, were connected until the countries fought a bloody border war. Still, here in Commerce at Teklehaimanot, a handful of Eritreans attend.

"We try to bring in the faithful and not so much the division," said member Tsegaye
In its sanctuary, as in all Ethiopian churches, a consecrated replica of the Ark of the Covenant is housed. Members never get to see it. Ethiopians believe the original pre-Christian relic is housed in a legendary Ethiopian church in their homeland.

Spiritual history

On a recent Sunday, a visiting priest preached in Amharic, the predominant language among Ethiopia's elite, about how to love Jesus and how to love one another. Dressed in white and gold silk, Abba Gebrekidan Shiferaw spoke passionately about how that could eliminate crime, evil and pain from the world.

He has been in the United States for about three years and still speaks limited English. His job doesn't really require it.

"I know Ethiopian spirituality," said Shiferaw, "the culture and their heritage. ... I want to explain to them what they have, so they recognize their history."

Guests like Shiferaw -- and an interim priest -- have filled in for Abba Berhane Selassie Haile Meskel. The church priest has been stuck back home for months waiting for a work permit.

Men sat on the left as Shiferaw spoke, as they always do, mostly in Western clothes. Women sat on the right, many covering their heads in the traditional handwoven white cotton and silk shawls common to their attire.

The modesty in dress is not required as in Islam, but it is often expected. A PowerPoint presentation will often translate the Ge'ez portions of the program, and for those who don't speak Amharic as well.

"There's no real difference" between services here and back home, Deacon Solomon Bogale Yifru said.

He moved from Ethiopia to Michigan to join the church around the time it got going, at the request of the congregation. While living in the church rectory, even the surroundings don't strike him as odd.

"The only real difference is color, and that's not much of a difference, because I live a spiritual life."

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