Bauerochse, On Oromo EECMY Liturgy And Hymnody

The following texts are excerpts from publications by Rev. Bauerochse (1925‒2025), a former member of the German Hermannsburg Mission.

(1) English translation (excerpts)

1.1 ON REVISING THE OROMO EECMY LITURGY

**Bauerochse, In Dienst genommen (2007), p. 101‒02:**

[p. 101] Shortly after my arrival [in Aira in 1954], Hornbostel had said to me, “I have been tasked by the governing body of our congregations, the so-called Gimbii Board, with drafting a worship order for all congregations. Please take this on!”

I was happy to do so, though I was surprised that [the carpenter and brass choir leader Hermann] Hornbostel had been given the task, since he wasn’t a theologian. I assumed that the Swedish missionaries and the local pastors in their area had believed they had a uniform order of service, whereas in the Hermannsburg area the situation was unclear. In the 1930s, [Rev. Dietrich] Wassmann had drawn up an order of service for the congregation in Aira.*

[footnote 16] Letter from Rev. Wassmann to Mission Director Schomerus dated May 24 [22?], 1932. See Hermannsburger Missionsblatt, 1932, p. 144.]

But these were available only in handwritten form. Dafaa [Jammoo (later Rev.)], who had learned them from Wassmann, tried from time to time to conduct the service according to them. But the congregation was unfamiliar with the [p. 102] order of service. In the meantime, Onesimos’s hymnal had become widespread, and it included a different order of service in the appendix, which most lay preachers followed. Against this backdrop, the Gimbii Board had commissioned Hornbostel to create a standardized order of service.

I understood the task on a more fundamental level:

Most church members were unfamiliar with Wassmann‘s order of service. He had drafted it at a time when he himself was still learning the Oromo language. Consequently, it was not linguistically polished.
Onesimos‘s order of service was intended for services led by lay preachers without baptism, communion, or other parts of the service. The congregations, however, needed orders of service for all worship services.
And we needed this order of services in both the Oromo language and Amharic, because in the Swedish-administered area, church services were largely conducted in Amharic, as required by government regulations. We had ignored this requirement because no one in our rural district spoke Amharic, and there were hardly any Amharic-speaking officials who could have criticized or reported us. [Emphasis an paragraph breaks added]

I set to work. First, I got an overview of the existing liturgies:

I was familiar with the liturgy compiled by Onesimos.
I had also found a handwritten copy of the liturgy compiled by Wassmann.
I brought a Swedish liturgy back from Najo when I was there in September 1954.
I had various liturgy books from Germany:
[1] During my vicariate [i.e., assistant pastorship] in Burgdorf, I still had to use the old Hanoverian liturgy.
[2] In the meantime, the first editions of the so-called Agenda I of the Lutheran churches had been published.
[3] I had also brought along a liturgy book of the Free Lutheran Church.

Then I prepared sheets of paper with three columns. I wrote [1] my drafts in the middle. I gave these to Dafaa, and he wrote [2] the Amharic translation on the left and [3] the Oromo translation on the right. After we had discussed these, we [p. 103] wrote out our drafts again separately in Amharic and Oromiffa on large sheets of paper, which were duplicated in sufficient numbers for the entire Pastors’ Conference and the Gimbii Board. Both bodies were to deliberate on them. Only then were our drafts approved for use.

It was not just about the texts, but also about the sung parts of the liturgy. Making suggestions for these required a special sensitivity. This is because European-style singing was completely unfamiliar to the Oromo. Their singing—for example, while working in the fields—was more like a chant, often led by a lead singer with a group repeating after him. If we did not want to forgo singing in the worship service, we had to find simple melodies that Oromo Christians could memorize and sing. I had gained some experience by attempting to rehearse melodies that the lay preachers were not yet familiar with. So I made an effort to find simple melodies for the Kyrie, the Gloria, and especially for the Holy Communion liturgy. Of course, they had to be practiced with the pastors and as part of theological training, but it could serve as the opening of a worship service in the Lutheran tradition. It was clear to me that local melodies or forms of worship would eventually supplant the European imports.

Since all the liturgies I had at my disposal came from the Lutheran tradition, it wasn’t too difficult to identify the common elements. We tried to retain the parts translated by Onesimos, such as the Lord’s Prayer and the Creed. However, Pastor Dafaa revised them. He also revised Onesimos’s catechism, which had a different numbering of the commandments than what we are accustomed to. Once Dafaa and I had finalized the order of service for a particular worship service, we submitted it to the pastors’ conference and then to the Gimbii Board. Everything was carefully reviewed, revised as necessary, and then approved for use.

[p. 104] Occasionally, differences in tradition became apparent. For example, a Swedish missionary who had no theological training objected to the practice of laying hands on confirmands and blessing them with the sign of the cross during confirmation. He called this blasphemy. It turned out, however, that he did not know exactly what blasphemy meant. When I told him that “blasphemy” meant reviling God, he insisted that he wasn’t accusing us of that. However, he emphasized that the laying on of hands and the sign of the cross were not customary in his mission. The pastors’ conference decided to leave it to the individual pastors whether they wished to perform these acts.

During the discussion, I was surprised that Pastor Dafaa didn’t say a word. After the meeting, I took him aside and asked why he had remained silent. He then told me a strange story. Years ago, a man appeared in Boji and demanded that people give him money, threatening to curse them if they refused. He would actually make the sign of the cross when people didn’t give him anything and say, “I curse you in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.” That had really frightened the people. Among the Oromo, blessings and curses are taken very seriously. Those who are blessed are considered blessed, and those who are cursed are considered cursed. People had often witnessed the Qaalluu threatening to make others sick. They were convinced that anyone made sick by the Qaalluu would never recover. In their view, adding the sign of the cross to this must make it particularly effective. For them, the entire ritual was imbued with a secret, terrifying power. This was the background against which Dafaa held back when it came to the laying on of hands and the sign of the cross during worship services.

In addition to teaching at the Bible school, I spent my time working on the order of service until the end of my second term of service in Aira [in 1967]. I was glad that we then had orders of service ready for the most important services. I had large-format books with blank pages, carefully bound, sent from [p. 105] Hermannsburg. Students wrote the liturgical texts into these. Later, our order was also distributed in other parts of Ethiopia.

The director of the American Lutheran Mission, Dr. Herbert G. Schaefer, wanted to have a new hymnal printed in Amharic and asked for my permission to include the order of service in it as well. I gladly gave it. However, a belief subsequently arose in Addis Ababa that Dr. Schaefer had developed the liturgy himself. That is not the case.

Note

Bauerochse probably refers to the 4th edition of the hymnal Səbhat läʼamlak [ስብሐት ለአምላክ] (Addis Ababa: Yemisrach Dimts, 1969/79; file not yet available to Ethiopian Gospel Music Net). The 1973 edition of this hymnal does not include an order of service.

1.1.2 **Bauerochse, Onesimos Nesib Seminary (2017), p. 15‒16, 18:**

[p. 15] When I returned to Aira in September 1960 after my home leave, the bible school building was almost ready to be occupied. […] [p. 16] I had to prepare the lessons I would have to give. This was not easy. I enjoyed teaching and preparing it, but at the same time, there were so many other challenges and problems in the mission as well as in the congregations which I had to deal with as Field Director, Treasurer of the Mission and of the congregations and advisor to the Church President. […]

I worked on a new liturgy for the worship services, not only for pastors, but also for evangelists. Liturgies for baptism, confirmation, burial and other church events had to follow. We re-worded the Oromo version of the Apostolic Creed and the Ten Commandments. In June 1961, I was finally ready to start with a first short course in the Bible School […]

[p. 18] When it came to name the Bible School, I had decided to call it the Onesimos Nesib Bible School. The most important tools in our congregational work was the Bible as translated by Onesimos Nesib, and also the hymnbook he compiled. It contained Luther’s catechism (though in a form slightly different from the one used in Germany) and a short order of worship.

Note

Only the second edition of the Oromo hymnal (edited by the Nordlandts in 1935; reprinted in 1960) contained an order of worship.

1.2 ON OROMO CONGREGATIONAL SONGS

[p. 60] To liven up the [Bible school] class [in Aira in the 1950s], I sang with the men. It was a special experience. There was a world of difference between the European melodies Onesimos had adopted for his songs and the traditional singing style of the Oromo people. Onesimos had been taught by Swedish missionaries in Eritrea and had then spent several years in Sweden. That was how he had become accustomed to Swedish songs. After all, there were no Christian songs in the tradition of his people. If he wanted to convey Christian messages, he initially had to rely on Swedish songs. As far as we know [p. 61], Onesimos was not a composer. He certainly must have recited some texts freely in the Oromo style, as I have also heard from evangelists. But there are no records of this.

Singing the hymns translated by Onesimos to Swedish melodies was difficult. A few hymns had become familiar, such as the song “Kommet zum Heiland, kommet doch all,” which is also known in Germany. Others were completely unknown. I, too, was unfamiliar with many of the Swedish hymns. Fortunately, I had somehow managed to get a copy of the Swedish hymnal Sionstoner. The melodies were printed there. So when the preachers came and said, “We would like to learn this or that hymn,” I would tell them to come back the next day, practice the melody on the harmonium that evening, and sing it for them the next day.

Not every melody was suitable. Some melodies that were familiar and popular among us turned out to be completely unsuitable. Take, for instance, the hymn “Nun danket alle Gott.” All our efforts were in vain. Of course, the men would have loved to sing it. They liked the lyrics. But the melody could not be taught. There were several melodies like that, and I had to give up on rehearsing them.

Later, small choirs in the congregations began to perform their own compositions. These songs were often sung by a lead singer, alternating with the choir or the congregation. There was no issue regarding the use of foreign melodies.

During the military regime, young people were more or less strictly forbidden from attending church services. It was, therefore, a profound experience for me when I was in Ethiopia in 1988 and witnessed a small youth choir singing during the worship service in the Chalia congregation, despite the ban.

After the end of the military dictatorship, the singing movement in the congregations grew so strong that my colleague Manfred Zach once remarked, “As a pastor, you have to make sure you actually get a chance to preach.” Today, choirs wearing their own colorful robes play a major role in church services.

[Emphasis and paragraph breaks added]

Bauerochse, On Oromo EECMY liturgy and hymnody

(1) English translation (excerpts)

1.1 ON REVISING THE OROMO EECMY LITURGY

**Bauerochse, In Dienst genommen (2007), p. 101‒02:**

Note

1.1.2 **Bauerochse, Onesimos Nesib Seminary (2017), p. 15‒16, 18:**

Note

1.2 ON OROMO CONGREGATIONAL SONGS

(2) German original

Further reading

(1) Liturgical texts

1.1 Oromo

1.2 Swedish

1.3 German

(2) Other publications

(1) English translation (excerpts)

1.1 ON REVISING THE OROMO EECMY LITURGY

Bauerochse, In Dienst genommen (2007), p. 101‒02:

Note

1.1.2 Bauerochse, Onesimos Nesib Seminary (2017), p. 15‒16, 18:

Note

1.2 ON OROMO CONGREGATIONAL SONGS

(2) German original

Further reading

(1) Liturgical texts

1.1 Oromo

1.2 Swedish

1.3 German

(2) Other publications

**Bauerochse, In Dienst genommen (2007), p. 101‒02:**

1.1.2 **Bauerochse, Onesimos Nesib Seminary (2017), p. 15‒16, 18:**