Christianity never penetrated deep into Africa until the colonization era, despite there being an indigenous Christian kingdom in Africa since antiquity. Considering the evangelizing efforts made by Christians everywhere else, ive never heard of Ethiopians being evangelical. Is it because they never did it, or they did but were never successful? I know that the modern day Sudan region used to have a sizeable Christian population before being islamized in medieval times, so it means Christianty did spread out of Ethiopia somewhat. Were those missions, if they existed, aggressive like the Northern Crusades, or were they peaceful?
I would also like to ask the same question about the St Thomas Christians in India, if possible.
One quick correction, here: The Nubian Christian kingdoms are generally accepted as having adopted Christianity from the same source as Aksum (the Coptic Church in Alexandria, Egypt) and not in a secondary transmission from Aksum--so it's not quite right to say that it 'spread out of Ethiopia' to get there. Christian monarchs retained primacy for centuries after the Islamic conquest of Egypt in part because of geography (the Nile being always quite important), but the key thing is that their ecumenical relationship remained with Egypt, not with Aksum (or Zagwe Ethiopia which would emerge after the eclipse of Aksum). Certainly, they all didn't exist in vacuums, but Nubia did adopt Christianity by all accounts prior to Ezana's embrace of the faith in the early 300s.
Christianity, however, was long primarily the religion of the elites, and constantly had to contend with the intrusion of a more populist Islam. Thus, much of the 'evangelizing' work involved the installation of priests and attempts to enforce or advance the faith within Ethiopia itself--not further afield. I have not heard of whether during the Aksumite period any particular strain of Aksumite Christianity was pressed in Sabean tributary lands of Arabia (or elsewhere) and it's unclear what that would have meant during the era before the collapse of Adulis. Glen Bowersock's The Throne of Adulis might touch on this, but it's in my locked-down office. Harold Marcus's general history of Ethiopia is now quite aged, but still covers some of the issues of religious conflict in the various stages of Ethiopia's development. Embrace of 'Ethiopianism' in churches more recently is not an embrace of Ethiopian Orthodoxy, of course, but rather a reference back to Biblical uses of the term, even though Ethiopia would in the context of pan-African movements gladly claim inspiration.
Like other Christian denominations the Ethiopian Church was indeed engaged in proselytizing outsiders to their faith. Their activities mostly centred around the territory of the modern states of Ethiopia and Eritrea. That’s an area of far more than a million square kilometres. We must bear in mind that the adoption of Christianity by the Aksumite king Ezana in the fourth century only marks the starting point of the Christianization of Ethiopia, not its conclusion. Much of that territory wasn’t even controlled by the Aksumite monarchy, many other parts probably only accepted a loose kind of overlordship. The region is also far from ethnically homogenous but linguistically and culturally rather diverse. For the missionaries of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church all this opened a wide field for their activities. These days the Ethiopian Orthodox Church has roughly 36 Million adherents, its offshoot, the Eritrean Orthodox Church, has another 3 Million. Of course much of this is a result of historically rather recent population growth that affected the whole continent. But it is also the fruit of centuries of Christian mission. Those numbers may pale in comparison with the roughly 560 Million Muslims living in Africa and are also only a small part of the total Christian population of the continent. But then again the Muslim states surrounding and entering Africa were far larger than the Christian Ethiopian principalities and modern Western missionaries had the advantage of following the outright conquest of the continent by European powers. So it’s not exactly a fair comparison.
Missionary activity did follow the conquering armies of Ethiopian monarchs, with monks as its primary protagonists. Members of the Ethiopian elite founded monasteries in newly conquered pagan territories. Holy Men like the 13th century saint Takla Haymanot ventured out and taught their religion to strangers, performed miracles, reclaimed barren lands, felled the holy trees of pagan communities and used them as building material for newly erected churches. The crusades are probably not the best comparison here. The Christianization of large parts of western and central Europe in the early Middle Ages makes for a better fit, with Frankish kings and wandering Christian preachers (often from the British Isles) joining forces.
One area beyond modern Ethiopia and Eritrea that was also affected by Aksumite Christianity was already alluded to by u/khosikulu: Yemen. Only a relatively narrow stretch of sea separates the southern corner of the Arabian Peninsula from north-eastern Africa. It’s no surprise that both share a longstanding historical connection. Speakers of South Semitic languages settle on both sides of the Red Sea. One of the starting points for Ethiopian civilization came with settlers from ancient South Arabia. Ethiopia’s later imperial dynasty even claimed descent from the mythical Queen of Sheba. For Aksum the Yemen was an attractive goal for imperial expansion and at different times they controlled various parts of it. They also acted as guardians for South Arabia’s Christian minority. When Dhu Nuwas, the Jewish ruler of the Yemenite kingdom of Himyar, started to persecute the Christians of his realm in the 6th century the Aksumite king Kaleb invaded. Himyar was conquered and put under the authority of an Aksumite governor, Abraha. The later soon seems to have ruled independently. Abraha promoted Christianity throughout his domain. In his residence at Sanaa he donated a huge cathedral. Almost nothing of it remains today besides some capitals with Christian crosses that have been reused in the Great Mosque of Sanaa. Ethiopian Christianity didn’t survive long in Yemen. Later in the 6th century the Persian Sasanids invaded and made Yemen part of their empire. Then in the 7th century of course the region was incorporated into the Islamic Caliphate.
I second the correction by u/khosikulu. Nubia was indeed home to the other important Christian kingdoms of Sub-Saharan Africa. But they didn’t receive their new faith from Ethiopia. Nubia is culturally and politically much more closely depended on its northern neighbour Egypt and its from here that Christianity entered. However I disagree with their assertion that this happened earlier than Ezanas conversion in the 4th century. Back then the region was still ruled by the Kushite kingdom and I know of no evidence that would suggest Christianity playing a major role in it. In the 4th century that state collapsed, partly as a result of attacks by Ezana’s Aksum. Afterwards Nubia was controlled by various tribal entities like the Nuba, Blemmyes and Nobades. Until the 6th century they seem to have remained majority Pagan. A peace treaty from the year 452 AD with the Roman authorities of Egypt allowed them continued worship at the Pagan sanctuary on the isle of Philae, near the Egyptian-Nubian border. Only under emperor Justinian I (527-565 AD) seem Christian missionaries to have been successful in converting the elites of the now more stable Nubian kingdoms of Nobadia, Makuria and Alodia.
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