Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church

The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church (Amharic: የኢትዮጵያ ኦርቶዶክስ ተዋሕዶ ቤተ ክርስቲያን, romanized: Yä-ityopp'ya ortodoks täwahədo betä krəstiyan), also sometimes known as the Abyssinian Church or the Church of Abyssinia, is the largest of the Oriental Orthodox Churches. The EOTC is the first indigenous Christian church from sub-Saharan Africa and precedes the arrival of the Western European colonizers with their Catholic and Protestant denominations to the region by more than a millennium. It dates back to the Christianization of the Kingdom of Aksum by Coptic Orthodox missionaries in 330; it has between 38 million and 51 million adherents in Ethiopia, and 60 million members worldwide. It is a founding member of the World Council of Churches. The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church is in communion with the other Oriental Orthodox churches (the Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church, the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria, the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church, the Armenian Apostolic Church, and the Syriac Orthodox Church).

The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church had been administratively part of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria from the first half of the 4th century until 1959, when it was granted autocephaly with its own patriarch by Pope Cyril VI of Alexandria, Pope of the Coptic Orthodox Church.