Ethiopian Orthodox Theology and Philosophical Reasoning

The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church takes its very name — tewahedo means "made one" or "unified" in Ge'ez — from its Christological position, known technically as miaphysitism: the doctrine that in Christ the divine and human natures are united into a single unified nature without separation, division, or confusion. This position placed the Ethiopian Church, along with the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria (to which it remained ecclesiastically subordinate for the appointment of its head bishop, the Abuna, until 1959), the Syriac Orthodox Church, and the Armenian Apostolic Church, in the theological camp that rejected the "two natures" Christological formula adopted by the Council of Chalcedon in 451 CE, a rejection that has structured Ethiopian doctrinal and philosophical reasoning about the person of Christ ever since.