About the church
A Jamaican church with its home at Creighton Hall, St. Thomas, since the 1970s.
Introduction
The Ethiopian Zion Coptic Church is a Jamaican church whose home is the Creighton Hall estate at White Horses, near Yallahs, in the parish of St. Thomas. Its emblem shows the Lamb of God.
The church’s faith draws on the Old and New Testaments, together with the teachings of Marcus Garvey, self-reliance, and pride in African heritage. Its worship includes Bible reading, chanting, and music rooted in Jamaican traditions such as Nyabinghi, Burru, and Kumina.
Sources: Wikipedia, “Ethiopian Zion Coptic Church”; Moon Jamaica, “Ethiopian Zion Coptic Church”.
Our history
The church took shape in Kingston in the late 1940s, growing out of Jamaican branches of the Ethiopian World Federation. Its first leader, Lovell Williams, known as Brother Louv, set out the church’s core teachings and gathered its early community at Mountain View Avenue, on the eastern side of Kingston near the Wareika Hills.
After Brother Louv’s death in 1969, the community was drawn together again by George Baker Ivy at Hall’s Delight in St. Andrew. In the 1970s, under the leadership of Keith Gordon, known as Niah Keith, the church grew quickly and settled on land in St. Thomas, including the Creighton Hall estate.
There the church farmed on a large scale. It planted coconuts, bananas, yams, sugar cane, ginger, and timber, and built reservoirs, a sawmill, and water and electrical systems. On 6 August 1978 it opened a hilltop tabernacle overlooking the estate, painted red, gold, and green, with a procession of members in robes. The National Library of Jamaica holds a 1979 photograph of the church’s St. Thomas headquarters.
The church was incorporated in Florida in 1975 and has members outside Jamaica. Creighton Hall remains its home today.
Sources: Wikipedia, “Ethiopian Zion Coptic Church”; National Library of Jamaica, “Coptic headquarters in St. Thomas” (photograph, 23 November 1979); Moon Jamaica, “Ethiopian Zion Coptic Church”.
Church life and activities
The church holds its services on Saturdays at Creighton Hall. Its administrative office is at 60 Windward Road, Kingston.
Sources: Moon Jamaica, “Ethiopian Zion Coptic Church”; Ethiopian Zion Coptic Church correspondence, 2025.
In the community
Farming at Creighton Hall has long tied the church to White Horses and the surrounding communities of St. Thomas, where the estate’s fields and workshops provided local work. The church now wants its land to do that again: to provide steady income, jobs for people in the area, and lasting benefit to its neighbours.
Leadership
The church is led by its Chief Elder, Norman Bruce, with Elder Willard Wells.
Past leaders include Lovell Williams (Brother Louv), George Baker Ivy, and Keith Gordon (Niah Keith).
Sources: Ethiopian Zion Coptic Church correspondence, 2025; Wikipedia, “Ethiopian Zion Coptic Church”.