On first weekend of February this year, there were violent clashes in the town of Shashamene in Ethiopia. It was due to a division in the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. But how could a doctrinal argument in one of the oldest Christian churches in the world lead to bloodshed? The answers lie somewhere in the long history of church and state relations in Ethiopia, and in the rise of ethnic nationalism. And this is a story as much about the current state of Ethiopian society, as it is about the theological differences within an ancient religion.

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