Lalibela is a complex of eleven monolithic churches carved directly downward into red volcanic rock in the Amhara highlands of northern Ethiopia, the holiest pilgrimage site of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church after Aksum. Each church was excavated as a single block from the surrounding bedrock rather than built up from cut stone, connected by tunnels and trenches that still carry pilgrims and worshippers between them, and the largest, Bete Medhane Alem, is the largest monolithic church in the world.
Ethiopian tradition attributes the complex to King Gebre Meskel Lalibela of the Zagwe dynasty, who is said to have carved the churches over roughly twenty four years in the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries with the aid of angels, intending to build a New Jerusalem after the Muslim conquest of the Holy Land made pilgrimage there difficult for Ethiopian Christians. The complex was inscribed as one of Ethiopia's first UNESCO World Heritage Sites in 1978.
Lalibela remains an active site of Orthodox worship rather than a museum piece; white robed pilgrims and resident clergy use the churches daily, and the site draws especially large crowds for the Ethiopian Christmas festival, Genna, and for Timkat, the Ethiopian celebration of Christ's baptism.