Abstract:
The notion of Ethiopia as the land of Prester John inspired the head of the Roman Catholic Church. The Ethiopian orthodox church theologian initial contacts with the Jesuits led to the critical period for the 17th century practice and development of alien religious dissemination and conversion in Ethiopia in the 16th to the mid-17th centuries under the pretext of difficult military support relationship between Roman Catholic and Ethiopian Orthodox Christianity. The Jesuits were entrusted with the anticipated conversion of the Ethiopian Orthodox within the realm of Prester John from the Monophysite spiritual sphere. In 1520 the first Portuguese delegation reached Ethiopia which became sympathy to a most fascinating encounter between incomprable religions and cultures. The Ethiopian monarchial authority, this time, was under pressure to hamper state disintegration against the wat of Ahmed Gragn. In fact, the Portuguese armed co-operation with the Ethiopian monarchy paved the way for the Portuguese deliberate interests in their regional competition with the Ottoman Turks for control of the trade routes in the Red Sea and the North-Western quarter of the Indian Ocean. However, the Portuguese in collaboration with the Pope in Rome and the Jesuits had an additional intention of establishing an extensive mission in Ethiopia to encourage the people to change from their Orthodox faith to Catholicism. Initially, a Jesuit undertaking led by Father Andrés D. Oviedo first entered the country in 1557 to have started the conversion process. This research aims to assess the challenges and risks posed on the state and the Ethiopian Orthodox Church of Ethiopia by the Catholic Jesuit missionaries in the 17th century. As a result to understand the impacts of the missionaries the study used qualitative research methodology. As for the techniques of data collection methods, the researcher used open ended questioner, depth interview at the Debre Libanos Azezo Teklahaymanot Monastery. In addition to these techniques of data collection methods, the research employed various religious Books and other related secondary sources such as archives in the aforementioned Monastery where the then Ethiopian theologians made a series of doctrinal debates with the Jesuits. The findings of the research revealed that the Jesuit ambition to implant Cathilicism remained in vain with a bloody war that claim thousands of human lives.Ultimately, the Jesuit missionaries expelled from the country. However, they left behind a theological controversy that gave it to local theme to Catholicism in Ethiopia that finally resulted in the doctrinal debate particularly centered on the teaching of the two natures of Christ. The intense doctrinal debate which was held during the 17thcentury Ethiopia hasten to the absence of strong centralized monarchial authority that eventually led to the era of the princes.
