Holy Bible
St. Mary
EOTC
Saints
Miscellaneous
100
Our Old Testament follows a Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures made in Alexandria before Christ. Name it, and say why the Church kept it rather than the Hebrew
The Septuagint. The Apostles quoted it, so the Church received its Old Testament in the form the Apostles actually used.
100
Give the Ge'ez name of the fast we are keeping right now, its meaning
Filseta, "passing over."
100
The Ethiopian Church has more eucharistic prayers than any other. Give the number and name three.
14 Anaphoras
100
Name Mary's father and mother, and the one thing that made them unable to bring their offering.
Joachim and Hanna. They were childless, and both the father and the wife were unable to bear.
100
Our calendar's thirteenth month. Name it and give its length.
Pagume. Five days, six in a leap year.
200
Ge'ez Scripture in Ethiopia never travelled alone. It came with a layer of traditional commentary studied in the church schools and handed down with the text. What is it called?
The Andemta. It is the Ethiopian traditional commentary, taught alongside the text rather than as a separate discipline.
200
The Filseta fast was not handed down as a command from above. Who started it, and what were they actually asking for?
The Apostles started it. John alone had been shown the assumption, and the others had not. On Nehase 1 St. John told them to fast two weeks and ask to be shown, and on Nehase 16 they were.
200
One of the seven fasts lasts only three days and is named after a foreign city that repented. Name the fast and the city.
The Fast of Nineveh, three days, named for the Ninevites who repented at Jonah's preaching.
200
The intercession of the Anaphora of the Apostles names a child martyr together with his mother, right alongside Victor and Minas(warrior-martyrs). Name the pair.
Kirkos and his mother Iyalota. They are named by name in the liturgy heard every Sunday.
200
Before Gabriel came to Mary, he had already delivered a birth announcement to an old priest in the Temple, who was later martyred by Herod. Name the priest and the son.
Zacharias the priest, and the son was John the Baptist.
300
Name the last place in Scripture where St. Mary Theotokos appears, and say what the New Testament tells us about the rest of her life.
Acts 1:14, praying with the Apostles in the upper room. After that Scripture says nothing further about her. Everything the Church knows of her later life came down through tradition.
300
Two feasts hold what the Church remembers of Mary's childhood. Name both, and what each one is.
Ledeta on Ginbot 1, her birth. Ba'ata on Tahsas 3, her entrance into the Temple.
300
A Roman emperor once wrote directly to two Aksumite kings, demanding they hand over Ethiopia's first bishop for re-examination. Name the emperor, and the kings
Constantius, writing "to Ezana and Sazana," demanding Frumentius be sent to Alexandria because Athanasius had consecrated him. Ethiopia did not comply and Frumentius stayed.
300
In the account of Filseta, the Apostles are caught up to a liturgy in heaven where Christ Himself serves as priest. Who ministers as deacon?
St. Stephen the archdeacon. John says "Stand up in fear," which is the same command a deacon gives in our own Qiddase.
300
The word Filseta shares a Ge'ez root with the name once used for Ethiopia's Jewish community. Give the root and its meaning, and explain the connection.
The root is falasa, to migrate or pass over. Filseta is her passing over; Falasha carried the sense of migrant or exile.
400
The word "apocrypha" does two completely different jobs. Tobit, Sirach and Susanna sit in our Old Testament. The Protoevangelium of James never made anyone's list. Explain the difference in how the Church treats them.
The Old Testament deuterocanon was in use in the early Church and quoted by the Fathers, and it is canonical for us; our canon is broader still. The New Testament apocrypha were known to be late and false and never appeared on a canonical list.
400
The Holy Family fled to Egypt. Name the Ethiopian site where the Synaxarium says they settled, how long they stayed, and the relative who travelled with them.
Debre Kuskuam, for three years and six months. Salome, the daughter of Mary's sister, went with them.
400
The EOTC in the United States is split into multiple regional archdioceses, each overseen by its own Archbishop or-resident Bishop reporting to the Holy Synod in Addis Ababa. Name the current patriarch of our church and the archbishop who leads southeastern USA.
His eminence Abune Mathias I and Archbishop Yaekob.
400
This Alexandrian father spent his life defending that Christ's natures are united from conception, and one of our fourteen anaphoras has his name
St Cyril of Alexandria. His formula, one incarnate nature of God the Word
400
Scripture records the archangel Michael in a dispute with the devil over a dead body, and the striking thing is what Michael refused to do. Name the body they argued over and what Michael would not do.
It was the body of Moses. Michael would not bring a vulgar accusation against the devil, saying only "The Lord rebuke thee." Jude 1:9; Even after his best attempts at provoking him he would not trade insults.
500
Explain why the Orthodox Churches kept books the Reformers removed, in terms of who holds the authority to decide.
Those books were in use in the early Church and quoted by the Fathers. Our Orthodox position is that we do not decide for ourselves what to keep or discard. The canon is received, not chosen, and that is exactly what changed in the sixteenth century(chosen wrongfully so).
500
Rome and the Orthodox Churches both hold that Mary was taken up bodily. Name the two real differences in what we hold and how we came to hold it.
Rome defined it as dogma in 1950; we never defined it because it was never in question, and our account is far older. And our account is unambiguous that she truly died first, where the Roman definition deliberately leaves that open.
500
Our list of anaphoras includes a bishop of Alexandria whom the Chalcedonian churches condemned. Name him, and say what including him in a eucharistic prayer signals.
Pope Dioscorus I. We did not accept the judgment passed at Chalcedon(he was deposed for refusing to attend) and that we hold him as a father, not a heretic.
500
She is the reason we have Meskel at all. Name her, her son, and what she did at Golgotha.
The Empress Helena, mother of the Emperor Constantine. She cleared away the hill of Golgotha and revealed the Honourable Cross
500
One apostolic instruction about how to answer people who ask about your faith. Give the instruction and, just as importantly, the manner it commands.
Always be ready to give an answer to anyone who asks a reason for the hope that is in you, and to do it "with meekness and fear." 1 Peter 3:15; The manner is half the command.