We notice already the dependence of Abyssinian Christianity on Egypt. This is natural. Egypt, with its Patriarch (the second in Christendom), was the nearest Christian country. Frumentius was ordained by the Patriarch of Alexandria; ordination in the East always produces ecclesiastical dependence. So the new Church fell into its place in the Christian world naturally. It was never independent nor autocephalous. Till Cyprus claimed to be autocephalous[1] there was no idea of independence of a Patriarch. In the first period there were three and only three Patriarchs — of Rome, Alexandria, Antioch; every part of Christendom was subject to one of these three. Missionary Churches beyond the empire were added to the domain of the centre from which they received their faith and bishops, practically the nearest centre. So, just as the Persian Church was counted an outlying province of Edessa and through Edessa belonged to Antioch, so Abyssinia became simply a province of the Alexandrine Patriarchate.[2] This position has hardly been disputed (except perhaps once, unsuccessfully);[3] indeed the bonds which bound the Abyssinian Church to Alexandria have always been exceedingly close; they have worked disastrously to Abyssinia by making her share the Coptic heresy. The Primate of Abyssinia has never been counted as an independent Patriarch; he has always been a suffragan of Alexandria, has always been ordained there, and is now always a Coptic monk (p. 309) sent from Egypt. We shall find the Church of Abyssinia, then, in every way a humble and backward daughter of the Coptic Church.[4] Her liturgy, vestments, canon law and, to a great extent, customs are Coptic in origin; but she has evolved some local practices of her own. In general, we may say that she owes all the good in her to the Copts, she shares their weaknesses and has further weak points of her own. The Copts themselves do not hold a very enlightened form of Christianity; we can imagine what a backward dependent of their Church must be, we can conceive how little culture, theology and spirituality there is in a body
