This was one of the six obelisks dating over 3,000 years and which had been erected at Axum when Ethiopia adopted Christianity under emperor
Ezana in the fourth century.
Rebecca showed the video after the students had discussed how
Ezana, the king of Aksum, converted to Christianity.
Christianity entered very early on as well, becoming the state religion under King
Ezana of Axum around the same time in the 4th century that the Roman empire similarly adopted it.
The resettlement of tribes not an exclusively Roman invention: it was also practiced by the rulers of Aksum as recorded in
Ezana's Greek inscription from the mid-fourth century AD.
Two young Syrian boys, Frumentius * and his brother Aedesius, * who had arrived on a ship from Tyre, became servants in the royal court of King
Ezana. * Frumentius rose to prominence within the government and constructed churches for the Roman merchants traveling through the country.
Before the Ethiopian king
Ezana (whose kingdom was then called Aksum) embraced Christianity for himself and decreed it for his kingdom (c.
The original church of Saint Mary of Zion was built in the fourth century during the reign of King
Ezana, who converted the Aksumite kingdom to Christianity after he himself was converted by two Syrian Christian priests who told him about the life of Jesus Christ.
The gods remained, but the superstructure of the Meroitic state was rejected, and with some violence, as the text of
Ezana attests.
In fact, the adoption of the faith by the young king
Ezana and the Patriarch of Alexandria's confirmation of a Syrian as the first bishop of Aksum can probably be dated to 337/8, making Ethiopia the second country after Armenia to become a Christian nation.