Church of Saint George, Lalibela

Of the eleven churches cut from the rock at Lalibela, Bete Giyorgis, the Church of Saint George, is the one that has become the emblem of Ethiopia. Approached from the surrounding ground it is almost invisible: all you see at first is a great cross lying flat at your feet, its arms carved with three nested Greek crosses. Only at the edge of the pit does the building reveal itself, a monolith some twelve metres high standing free inside a square trench, sculpted from a single block of reddish volcanic tuff and shaped in plan as a perfect equal-armed cross.

The church was not built but excavated. The masons cut a trench around a block of living rock and then worked downwards, shaping roof, walls and window openings as they went, before hollowing out the interior. It dates from the late twelfth or early thirteenth century, the reign of King Gebre Mesqel Lalibela, whose project was to create a new Jerusalem in the highlands, with a channel named after the Jordan dividing the churches into two groups. Bete Giyorgis stands apart from both, alone in its own shaft to the south-west. Church tradition says that Lalibela received the instructions for building it in a vision, variously attributed to God or to Saint George himself.

The details repay close attention. The lower windows follow the old Aksumite style, while the upper row has ogee-shaped heads with floral relief, and cross motifs recur on the ceiling within. Inside is a simple shrine to Saint George and, behind a curtain that only priests may pass, a tabot representing the Ark of the Covenant. The church is reached by a narrow passage cut into the rock that descends and turns into a tunnel before emerging at the foot of the walls, and small openings in the trench sides hold the remains of pilgrims who died after reaching Lalibela. The churches were inscribed together as a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1978 and remain a living place of worship and pilgrimage.

Getting there

Bete Giyorgis lies on the south-western edge of Lalibela town, within walking distance of the other rock-hewn churches. Lalibela Airport (LLI) is about 23 km south-west of the town; the larger Alula Aba Nega Airport at Mekelle (MQX) is about 170 km away in a straight line.