Ethiopia is a stronghold of Orthodox belief and one of the oldest centres of Christianity on African soil. It existence dates back to the powerful kingdom of Aksum in Northern Ethiopia, and for two thousand years Orthodoxy has continued to hold sway in the country. The rock-hewn churches of Lalibela are witness to the original Christian culture. Under Emperor Haile Selassie, the church continued to grow and gain huge landholdings. But in 1974, in the Marxist revolution which brought the dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam to power, all that came to an end. The land was expropriated without compensation. Today, the Ethiopian church is still losing ground. They are losing their faithful - not to the Moslems who've been in the country since the 7th century - but to the new religions with their attractive social programmes. Both Moslems and Orthodox faiths claim 45 per cent of the population as adherents - but now 10 per cent of Ethiopians belong to the Catholic or free church groups - and that number is continuing to grow.