Royal Gondar

THE CITY OF KINGS

France has Lourdes, whereas India has the Ganges. Ethiopia, meanwhile has Gondar. Often called the Camelot of Africa, Gonder is an ancient capital studded with royal places and castles bathed in blood and painted in gold. In 1636, Fasiladas centralized its power in the northwest of Ethiopia, Gondar which became a royal city for more than two hundred years, the capital of the Christian kingdom. Gondar is perched high at 2,133m above sea surrounded by precious natural resources. The creation of the Gondarian kingdom, named after its capital Gondar was preceded by intense religious conflicts within the Christian kingdom. Under the influence of the Portuguese Jesuits present at his court, King Susneyos converted to Catholicism in 1607 and tried to impose his new faith on his subjects. His attempt was bitterly opposed by the population and by the powerful Ethiopian Orthodox Church. He ends up abdicating in favor of his son, Fasiladas.

Fasiladas expelled the Jesuits in 1632 and restored Ethiopian Orthodox Christianity as the state religion. Western pilgrims are no longer welcome in Ethiopia, even if contacts continue in the Holy Land and in the Vatican with the Ethiopian convent of Santo Stefano dei Mori. The Lake Tana region, which for a long time remained in the kingdom’s, had become its heart since the installation of the Ethiopian sovereigns in the 16th century. Without breaking with the tradition of his ancestors, Fasiladas chose to set up his Court on a site located at the crossroads of the main trade routes, at an altitude that allowed him to be protected from malaria, and protected by the surrounding mountains, near fertile land and a permanent supply of water.

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