in Ecclesiastical History, is the name of a sect, in the Christian church, established in the empire of Abyssinia. The Abyssinians are a branch of the Copts or Jacobites; with whom they agree in admitting but one nature in Jesus Christ, and rejecting the council of Chalcedon: whence they are also called Eutychians, or Monophysites, and stand opposed to the Melchites. They are only distinguished from the Copts, and other sects of Jacobites, by some peculiar national usages.—The Abyssinian sect or church is governed by a bishop or metropolitan styled Abuna, sent them by the Coptic patriarch of Alexandria residing at Cairo, who is the only person that ordains priests. The next dignity is that of Komos, or Hegumenos, who is a kind of arch-presbyter. They have canons also, and monks: the former of whom marry; the latter, at their admission, vow celibacy, but with a reservation: these, it is said, make a promise aloud, before their superior, to keep chastity; but add in a low voice, as you keep it. The emperor has a kind of supremacy in ecclesiastical matters. He alone takes cognizance of all ecclesiastical causes, except some smaller ones referred to the judges; and confers all benefices, except that of Abuna.

There are two classes of monks among the Abyssinians; those of Debra Libanos, and those of St Euilathius. The latter are grossly ignorant. Their head is the superior of the convent of Mahebar Selafé, in the north-west part of Abyssinia, near Kuara and the Shangalla, towards Semnaar and the river Dender. The chief of the former is the Itchegué who is ordained in the following manner. Two chief priests hold a white cloth or veil over his head, a third repeats a prayer, and then they all lay their hands on his head, and join together in singing psalms. In turbulent times this Itchegué has more extensive influence than even the Abuna.—The monks do not live in convents, but in separate houses round their church; and each cultivates for himself a portion of the land which is assigned them as their property.—The churches are built on eminences, in the vicinity of running water, for the advantage of purifications and ablutions, according to the Levitical law, and are surrounded with rows of Virginia cedar. They are circular buildings with conical summits and thatched roofs, and encompassed on the outside with pillars of cedar, to which the roof projecting eight feet beyond the wall is fixed, and forms an agreeable walk in the hot or rainy season. The internal partition and arrangement of the church, is that prescribed by the Mosaic law; and many of the ceremonies and observances in their mode of worship, are obviously derived from the ceremonial rites of the Jewish religion.

The Abyssinians have at different times expressed an inclination to be reconciled to the see of Rome; but rather out of interest of state than any other motive. The emperor David, or the queen regent on his behalf, wrote a letter on this head to Pope Clement VII., full of submission, and demanding a patriarch from Rome to be instructed by; which being complied with, he publicly abjured the doctrine of Eutychius and Dioscorus in 1626, and allowed the supremacy of the Pope. Under the emperor Sultan Seghed all was undone again; the Roman missionaries settled there had their churches taken from them, and their new converts banished or put to death. The congregation de propaganda have made several attempts to revive the mission, but to little purpose.—The doctrines and ritual of this sectary form a strange compound of Judaism, Christianity, and superstition. They practice circumcision; and are said to extend the practice to the females as well as males: They observe both Saturday and Sunday as Sabbaths; they eat no meats prohibited by the law of Moses; women are obliged to the legal purifications; and brothers marry their brothers wives, &c. On the other hand, they celebrate the epiphany with peculiar festivity, in memory of Christ's baptism; when they plunge and sport in ponds and rivers; which has occasioned some to affirm that they were baptized anew every year. Among the saints days is one consecrated to Pilate and his wife; because Pilate washed his hands before he pronounced sentence on Christ, and his wife desired him to have nothing to do with the blood of that just person. They have four lents: the great one commences ten days earlier than ours, and is observed with much fervency, many abstaining therein even from fish, because St Paul says there is one kind of flesh of men, and another of fishes. They allow of divorce, which is easily granted among them, and by the civil judge; nor do their civil laws prohibit polygamy itself. They have at least as many miracles and legends of saints as the Roman church; which proved no small embarrassment to the Jesuit missionaries, to whom they produced so many miracles, wrought by their saints, in proof of their religion, and those so well circumstantiated and attested, that the Jesuits were obliged to deny miracles to be any evidence of a true religion; and in proof hereof, to allege the same arguments against the Abyssinians which Protestants in Europe allege against Papists. They pray for the dead, and invoke saints and angels; have to great a veneration for the virgin, that they charged the Jesuits with not rendering her honour enough. They venerate images in painting; but abhor all those in relivo, except the cross. They hold that the soul of man is not created; because, say they, God finished all his works on the fifth day. They admit the apocryphal books, and the canons of the apostles as well as the apostolical constitutions, for genuine. Their liturgy is given by Alvarez, and in English by Paget; and their calendar by Ludolph.