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At a glance
- Traditional author
- Apostolic Sinodos tradition
- Traditional date
- Early church canons preserved in Ethiopic Sinodos corpus
- Traditional audience
- EOTC broader NT (official item 30)
Listed in: Ethiopian 81.
Meaning of Gitsew
Sinodos book Gitsew in the EOTC broader New Testament.
Traditional understanding
The third of the four Sinodos books in the Ethiopian Orthodox New Testament: apostolic canons for church discipline and order.
Historical context
Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo broader canon (46 OT + 35 NT) as published at ethiopianorthodox.org.
Setting of the writing
Apostolic church-order tradition in Ethiopic reception.
Literary shape
Church-order or historical book in the EOTC broader-canon enumeration, received as Scripture in that list rather than in the Western 66.
Themes
- canons
- church order
Gitsew chapter by chapter
Gitsew
Gitsew 1 — Gessew
Gessew presents fifty-six canons, the Ge'ez form of the Apostolic Canons. The collection legislates for bishops, presbyters, and deacons, for synods, for who may be received or excluded, and for the church’s common goods. It is shorter and more legal in tone than Te'ezaz, a handbook of rulings rather than a long pastoral constitution.
Meaning: Gessew turns order into justiciable canons. A church that must judge cases—ordination, schism, property—needs a remembered apostolic court, not only exhortation.