In the U.S. capital, hundreds of Ethiopians dressed in traditional white shawls chant in the ancient liturgical language of one of the oldest ...

A kesis or priest, waves a censer burning incense as he walks through rows of congregants at Re'ese Adbarat Debre Selam Kidist Mariam Church, an Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo church, in Washington, D.C.

“The Ethiopian Orthodox Church has so many beautiful rituals ... Bililigne said. The incense from the censer, he said, represents the Virgin Mary, and the coal that burns it, the divinity ...

the Ge’ez language reverberates throughout DSK Mariam Church. Congregants prostrate themselves in reverence to God and bow when a priest walks among them swinging a censer burning incense.

“The Ethiopian Orthodox Church has so many beautiful rituals ... Bililigne said. The incense from the censer, he said, represents the Virgin Mary, and the coal that burns it, the divinity ...

delivered in that Orthodox church’s native language. The church walls are decorated ornately, glowing with candlelight, and the sanctuary smells of incense. Kengor’s first Divine Liturgy moved him.

St. John died in a building behind the St. Nicholas Russian Orthodox Cathedral on Capitol Hill. The room where he died is a ...