A British Journey to Ethiopian Orthodoxy

Dr Ralph Lee

George Alexander – 6/11/2013

Orthodox Christian Resource Center – Exclusive

 The amazing journey of Dr Ralph and his family to the indigenous Church of Africa

Dr Ralph Lee was born in Cambridge, England and raised as an Anglican.  After his schooling he joined Cambridge University for bachelors in engineering and graduated in the year 1987. He later obtained Masters in Engineering and started his job in BP. He visited Ethiopia on long leave from his job and taught in Addis Ababa University for two years at the faculty of Technology.

His life in Addis Ababa brought him close to Orthodox Christianity. He understood that Orthodoxy is the heartbeat of Ethiopia. The outlook and general worldview of the Ethiopians is in connection to the Orthodox tradition. He wanted to learn more on Orthodox Christianity. Dr Ralph and his family moved to Bahar Dhar a sea side in Ethiopia and applied for a teaching post in one of the universities. The place was a prominent centre of Ethiopian Orthodox Church which helped him to access a lot of Ethiopian Orthodox Monasteries. He began to learn Amharic to know more about Ethiopian Church and tradition. He also involved with a lot of youngsters and made spiritual discussions with them. One of his students once commented that if Dr Ralph was formally Orthodox it would be more helpful and this question made Dr Ralph think to be join the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. He got introduced to an Ethiopian Monk Abbayibbabe who is prominent figure and authority on Ethiopian spirituality. The Monk asked Ralf why he was there and what he was doing with the Ethiopian Church.  Dr Ralph replied that he is there to help the Ethiopian children and the monk immediately replied that, it is God’s will that brought Dr Ralph and his family to Ethiopia.

After some more years Dr Ralph and his wife formally joined the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. They were baptized at the Abbo Church at Bahar Dhar in the year 2001 by the names Abraham and Sarah. They remained in Bahar Dhar till 2005 and returned back to England for another eight years. He decided to learn more deep on Orthodox Christianity. He joined SOAS for Masters in Eastern Christianity and also completed his doctorate under the supervision of Dr Erica hunter in 2007 on Comparison of Ethiopian and Syriac Early Christian Writing. After his studies at SOAS, he began to contact the Holy Trinity Theological College in Addis Ababa and applied for the post of faculty which was accepted by the authorities. Presently Dr Ralph teaches textual history of Ethiopian Old Testament, Ethiopian Christian Thought and he is also involved in a number of projects.

Joining Orthodoxy is not a rejection of his Anglican past, believes Dr Ralph. He has always struggled with how the Roman Catholic Church is run. The Roman Church is still bounded by structure and hierarchy. The roots of Orthodoxy are persuasive and the outlook is constructive. Theological values are clearly explained in Orthodoxy. Dr Ralph is of the opinion that the world Christian movement must learn a lot from Oriental Orthodox Christianity.

Source:
OCRC – Orthodox Christian Resource Centre
Department of Church Research and Studies
Orthodoxy Cognate PAGE Society