and ford. we go further, so you can. >> how effective will the first vaccine be against the coronavirus? tonight, the back story of the pfizer vaccine, as told by the scientists on two continents who raced to create something that is as novel as the virus itself. >> to have a vaccine that was needed so much, and to have it be 95% protective, and to have it happen so quickly, is unparalleled in my experience. ( ticking ) >> good afternoon brothers. our work is to help people who don't have lawyers to access justice. >> this soft spoken, 35-year-old

lawyer founded an organization called justice defenders. a group that so far has trained hundreds of incarcerated men and women in prisons in africa, to become paralegals and lawyers. the results have been astounding. ( ticking ) >> it's not easy to get to... ♪ ♪ ...but for centuries, pilgrims have made their way to a place where faith, mystery and miracles coexist. the story of these 11 ethiopian churches, each carved from a single block of stone, with no brick, no mortar, nor wood, is a creation story you'll need to >> i'm lesley stahl. >> i'm bill whitaker. >> i'm anderson cooper. >> i'm norah o'donnell. >> i'm scott pelley. those stories, tonight, on "60

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♪ you are all i need baby baby to get by ♪ >> bill whitaker: more than 15,000 of our family members, friends and neighbors fell to the coronavirus this past week. so we could almost hear a national sigh of relief when the pharmaceutical company, pfizer, started delivering the first doses of its vaccine across the country. pfizer, a frequent advertiser on this broadcast, and its german partner, biontech, were the only major vaccine developers to refuse federal money for research and development, yet

they were the first to get emergency use authorization from the f.d.a. friday the biotech company, moderna, was granted authorization too. under operation warp speed, the federal government set a target of 20 million inoculations by the end of the year. but that goal might be ambitious; the vaccine's rollout has been rocky. still, for the first time since the pandemic hit, there appears to be an end in sight, thanks to a revolutionary advance in biotechnology. this is a worldwide pandemic, the worst in a century. a vaccine with this technology had never gone to market before. that's a big bet you made that this would work. >> katrin jansen: yeah, i didn't see it as much-- maybe as a bet because we are scientists. that's what we do for a living, every day. we discover new things. everything is new.

>> whitaker: kathrin jansen is head of vaccine research and development for pfizer. based in new york, it's one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world. jansen, who developed an interest in science as a child in germany, grew up to develop vaccines for pneumonia and the h.p.v. virus. so, when she first heard of the novel coronavirus, her thoughts turned immediately to a vaccine. when you were starting off on this mission, new york was on fire with this virus. >> jansen: yeah, we were living in a hot zone in new york. and we saw firsthand what was happening every day. and bill, the most chilling thing for me was when we walked our dog. and you see one refrigerated truck after the other appearing in the parking lots in front of the hospitals. >> whitaker: refrigerator truck

morgues? >> jansen: morgues, right. that was absolutely fueling the desire to come up with a vaccine no matter what it takes. >> whitaker: this was kind of personal? >> jansen: i took this very personally. i wanted to fight it, beat it, fight it down. it was-- nothing else mattered. >> whitaker: across the atlantic, in mainz, germany, doctors ugur sahin and ozlem tureci were also focused on fighting the coronavirus. founders of a cutting edge biotechnology company called biontech, they had been collaborating with pfizer on a flu vaccine when sahin read an article on january 24th, about a mysterious disease in wuhan, china. >> dr. ugur sahin: we knew that we are most likely running into a global pandemic. and we knew that we don't have time to waste.

>> dr. ozlem tureci: we started to think about how to implement a vaccine development program from scratch basically, and so we had to pivot the entire company. >> whitaker: did you have any doubts about doing that? >> sahin: i did not have doubts. the only thing that concerned me is that we might be too late. >> whitaker: the married couple's company, biontech, is doing pioneering work on vaccines made with m.r.n.a., molecules in our cells that pass genetic instructions from our d.n.a. to particles that make proteins, the building blocks of life. >> sahin: we felt responsibility to start to develop a vaccine, because we knew the potency of our technology. >> whitaker: manipulating m.r.n.a. molecules in the lab to fight disease has been considered promising technology for more than 30 years, but it has never produced a proven

vaccine. with the coronavirus spreading through europe, sahin and tureci redoubled their efforts. by february, biontech had produced 20 different versions of m.r.n.a. that triggered immune responses in mice and monkeys. sahin knew his small company would need help taking its research beyond the lab, so he picked up the phone and called his friend at pfizer, kathrin jansen. >> sahin: and she said, "ugur, why are you calling me?" and i said, "kathrin, we started to make a vaccine against covid- 19. i wanted to ask you if you think that pfizer would join us." and she said, "of course, ugur, actually i wanted to call you, because we are also interested to develop a vaccine, and it will become our most important project." >> whitaker: it became more like an obsession for pfizer's c.e.o., albert bourla. >> albert bourla: what i was thinking was if-- if-- not us,

then who? we are having a lot of experience with vaccines. we have a lot of manufacturing capability with vaccines. i went and i said, "we need to do something to see if we can help in developing a medical solution." >> whitaker: since march he had been pressing pfizer scientists to develop a vaccine quickly. he set an october deadline. >> bourla: then of course, i gave them also some tools in their hands. i told them that they should think, this is not business as usual. there is no consideration of return on investments. this is considered w-- to have an open checkbook, that right-- >> whitaker: an open checkbook. >> bourla: yes. >> whitaker: did you have any idea how much you'd be willing to spend? >> bourla: will cost us around $2 billion. and i knew that if we fail, and to have to write it off, is going to be very painful. but it will not take pfizer down. >> whitaker: kathrin jansen convinced her boss, albert bourla, that m.r.n.a. technology

had the best chance of meeting his tight deadline. from her work with biontech on a flu vaccine, she was convinced m.r.n.a. was on the cusp of a breakthrough. so pfizer c.e.o. bourla signed off on the partnership, and rolled the dice on the experimental technology. there was a big chance that you might not succeed. >> bourla: i believe in the power of science. i believe in the power of the private sector. and i believe in the miracles that science in the private sector can do for mankind. >> whitaker: unlike old school vaccines made with real virus often grown slowly in eggs, these m.r.n.a. molecules are produced rapidly in a lab, programmed with a bit of the virus' genetic code. we've all seen pictures of the coronavirus with its crown of spike proteins. the m.r.n.a. vaccine instructs your healthy cells to make replicas of the spikes.

they can't make you sick but they do teach the immune system what the virus looks like. if the real virus shows up, your immune system antibodies will attack. by may, pfizer was ready to start testing the vaccine at different sites in the u.s. >> dr. mark mulligan: and i raised my hand and said yes. >> whitaker: they tapped dr. mark mulligan. >> mulligan: why did you want to be in this study? >> whitaker: he's director of n.y.u.-langone vaccine center in manhattan. >> mulligan: i've worked on h.i.v./aids vaccines, zika, ebola, flu pandemic vaccines. so this is really the moment for us to jump in and say, "okay, let's do it. let's try to be part of the solution." >> whitaker: almost 44,000 people around the world volunteered for the phased, double blind trials, testing the vaccines against a placebo. most were between the ages of 16 and 85. researchers faced some

skepticism when they reached out for african american and hispanic volunteers. were these communities well represented in the trials? >> mulligan: i feel that they were. if you add the hispanic population and the african american black population and the indigenous american population, it came in at just under 40%. we would like to have done a little better, particularly with african americans. we were just under 10%. but i think overall, it's good and we've had several town halls with community partners in harlem. it's important for us to be able to say, "yes. that we tested it in your community. yes, it was equally tolerated, safe, and equally protective." >> participants on the schedule for today. >> whitaker: normally phased trials run sequentially. to speed up the process, the f.d.a. allowed these trials to run simultaneously. dr. mulligan told us he had never seen it done so quickly. what do you say to people who worry that that was too fast,

that this is being rushed to market? >> mulligan: given the huge public health emergency that we're in internationally, it was appropriate that all speed be used. i've done vaccine trials for 30 years, and i-- i promise no corners have been cut on the usual safety evaluations. >> whitaker: volunteers' blood samples were brought to this pfizer facility in pearl river, new york, where these robots ran day and night helping to analyze the effectiveness of the vaccine. they'll continue collecting and analyzing samples for two years. >> jansen: these robots have taken care of probably about over 180,000 tests. >> whitaker: when the critical third phase results were revealed last month, kathrin jansen was taking a break in the country with her husband. she got a call from pfizer c.e.o., albert bourla. >> jansen: and i said, "what's

up, albert?" he said, "well, kathrin, we spoke to the f.d.a., we can say the vaccine is over 90% efficacious." and i said, "what? ( laughs ) that is fantastic." so my husband and i, he was standing right next to me, we-- we are jumping up and down. >> mulligan: to have a vaccine that was needed so much, and to have it be 95% protective, and to have it happen so quickly, is unparalleled in my experience. >> whitaker: can we all just say goodbye to our masks? >> mulligan: i'm afraid not. we aren't sure yet that the vaccines will prevent asymptomatic infection. the vaccine isn't probably going to make a difference for this current surge that we're in. >> whitaker: we're still gonna be going through this for a while. >> mulligan: absolutely. this won't be like a light switch that's on/off, but rather like those dimmer switches that we slowly turn up to bring up the lights. 5%, 10%, 20% 50% of people getting vaccinated over months.

but to end the pandemic in 2021, we need to get probably 75% of people vaccinated and then we can stop the pandemic. >> whitaker: there still are a number of unknowns about this vaccine: how long does it last; are there long-term safety issues, why a few people have had severe allergic reactions? it still needs to be tested on young children and pregnant women. but the most pressing issue: the bumpy rollout. the development of the vaccine was rapid, but so far, the distribution has been anything but. pfizer cut the projected number of doses for 2020 by more than 50%, citing a shortage of raw materials. states are complaining they're not getting clear guidance from the federal government's operation warp speed about what they're getting and when. at the moment, the light at the end of the tunnel is still faint.

( bell ringing ) this past week, when the u.s. death toll from the pandemic hit 300,000, the bells at the national cathedral in washington, d.c. rang 300 times- - once for every thousand americans killed by the virus. this vaccine has been called a miracle. how would you describe it? >> jansen: we can call it a miracle. but a miracle always has a sense of it just happened. it didn't just happen, right? it was something that was deliberate. it was with passion, done with passion. it was urgency. it was always having in your sight that devastating disease. ( ticking )

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>> anderson cooper: over the years we've done a number of stories about wrongly convicted prisoners who get exonerated when a crusading attorney takes on their case. in prisons around the world however, that rarely happens. in kenya, for example more than 80% of prisoners have never been represented by a lawyer. justice defenders would like to change that. it's an organization started in africa by a soft spoken, 35 year old lawyer named alexander mclean. justice defenders has worked in 46 prisons in kenya and uganda, giving legal training to hundreds of inmates who can then help their fellow prisoners, the innocent and the guilty, get a fair hearing in court. they are also helping some prisoners get law degrees, and as we found out when we visited kenya before the pandemic, the results have been astounding. thika main prison outside

nairobi is a miserable place. built 66 years ago to hold 300 prisoners, when we visited a little more than a year ago, there were more than 1,000. in this one dank holding cell, 140 men were packed tightly together. the air thick with the smell of sweat, and urine. they'd been accused of everything from trespassing, and robbery, to assault and murder. some have already been convicted but most have yet to stand trial. they can't afford bail, so they'll likely have to wait here for years. >> alexander mclean: good afternoon brothers. our work is to help people who don't have lawyers to access justice. >> cooper: that's alexander mclean, the founder of justice defenders, which has been working in kenya's prisons for 13 years. >> mclean: how many of you have a lawyer? >> francis munyao: two, three. >> cooper: just three men in this group of more than 200 prisoners have an attorney. >> mclean: we think it's a problem that often poor people go to court without defense.

>> cooper: defending the defenseless is at the heart of alexander mclean's mission. most of the people who are in prisons in kenya don't come to court knowing their rights knowing how a court works. >> mclean: you might meet people in prison who think that the police are the ones who've convicted them of an offense. or they've never had a copy of their judgment. so they know that they've been convicted, but they don't know exactly what of and why. and so our hope with our work is that we give people fair hearings, so even if they're convicted or they're given a prison sentence, afterwards they say, "well, that's fair because my voice has been heard." >> cooper: morris kaberia was sent to thika prison in 2005. he was a police officer and was accused of stealing a cell phone and credit card. how much time do you end up in pre-trial detention, waiting for your trial? >> morris kaberia: eight good years. >> cooper: eight years? >> kaberia: eight years. from 2005 to 2013. >> cooper: in court, he claimed he'd been framed because he didn't pay a bribe to a superior officer.

the judge found him guilty of armed robbery and gave him the mandatory sentence: death. the death penalty for an armed robbery? >> kaberia: yes. >> cooper: when the verdict came, do you remember that day? >> kaberia: very much. when the judge sentenced me to death, to suffer death by hanging, i just saw black, darkness everywhere. >> cooper: mclean took us to langata women's prison in nairobi, where justice defenders have trained 31 inmates to be what they call paralegals. they are given a three week law course, which enables them to then teach other prisoners about bail, court procedures, and rules of evidence. the paralegals also prepare petitions and write appeals challenging inmates' convictions and sentences. what year did you arrive here? jane manyonge became a paralegal three years ago. she was a schoolteacher when she was charged with killing her husband, who she says was abusive.

convicted of murder, she too was given a mandatory death sentence. you didn't know your rights, you didn't-- >> jane manyonge: never, never. >> cooper: how courts work. >> manyonge: and that's what propelled me to join the paralegals. that legal, basic knowledge that i get, it goes a long way. you don't need a degree to draft somebody an appeal, or something like that. >> cooper: how does that feel? >> manyonge: you feel that you are still a human being, even if you are here. you can do something to change someone's life. >> cooper: alexander mclean began volunteering to help others as a teenager growing up in south london. his father is jamaican and his mother is english. he first went to africa when he was 18 to do hospice work in prisons and hospitals in uganda. >> mclean: we went onto this ward, and by the toilet on the floor i saw a man lying on a plastic sheet in a pool of urine. and for five days i washed him and tried to advocate for him. came the sixth day and he was lying dead and naked on the floor

>> cooper: it's not something a lot of people i think would volunteer to do. >> mclean: i guess that sometimes in life, we see things that we can't unsee, and then we have a choice as to how we respond to them. because every person has gifts, and talents, and something to contribute to our society. our society can only flourish when the inherent worth of each person is valued. >> cooper: after returning to london, and graduating from law school, he could have gotten a high paying job. instead, in 2007, he started a charity to improve conditions in african prisons. at nairobi's kamiti maximum security prison, a notorious and sometimes violent place, he met george karaba who was on death row for killing a man in a dispute over land. >> george karaba: i remember the first thing that we asked was how he could be able to provide us with reading materials. >> cooper: so mclean began collecting whatever books he could find for the prisoners >> mclean: my sense was that books could transform us and-- and transform our circumstances

and take us-- to a different place. >> 9, 10, 11... >> cooper: prison authorities had already started an academy of their own, with classes from first grade through high school teaching math, english, science, and religion and with mclean's help they turned a room at the end of a cell block into a library. >> karaba: you can't imagine the happiness. you can't imagine-- >> cooper: just from a book. >> karaba: yeah. because when i start reading this book, and it's actually enlightening me. it's like now, i'm being opened up to the outside world. it started giving us hope. >> cooper: mclean wanted to do more than just improve life in kenya's prisons, he wanted to make sure those accused of crimes had a fair hearing. >> mclean: often there's people from backgrounds of privilege who become lawyers, or become politicians and make the law, but it's the poorest people in our societies who disproportionately feel the impact of the law. and i wondered what it'd look like to tap into that lived experience.

>> cooper: so in 2012 mclean arranged with the university of london law school for inmates to begin taking a three year correspondence course, the same one nelson mandela took when he was in prison. to qualify, they have to pass an entrance exam, and have a track record of helping other prisoners while they've been behind bars. so even if they may have murdered somebody and have a life sentence, if-- if they have transformed themselves in prison, if they are serving others, they might be able to qualify? >> mclean: yes. because we believe that there's more to someone that's killed than being a murderer or more to someone that's-- who's stolen than being a thief. i don't think any of us has to be defined by the worst thing that we've done. >> cooper: remember morris kaberia, the cop in for armed robbery? he enrolled in law school and found the learning curve steep. >> kaberia: i had never touched a computer in my life before i went to prison. >> cooper: really? >> kaberia: yes. i touched the first computer in that law class.

>> cooper: in some ways, they are like law students anywhere. in the chapel at kamiti maximum security prison, we watched as they held a moot court, a mock legal hearing where they role- play, arguing cases with all the gravitas and grandeur of a real kenyan courtroom. some prisoners play prosecutors. >> the society, as a whole, needs protection. >> cooper: others, the defense. >> it is better to acquit nine guilty suspects, then convict one innocent person. >> cooper: there's also a defendant. >> please proceed. >> cooper: and prisoner judges to render a verdict. >> the appellants have proved the appeal. (cheers) >> cooper: you may have noticed prison guards in attendance, remarkably some of them are taking law classes as well. willie ojulu, is the chief inspector at langata women's prison, and just completed his university of london law degree.

i don't know that i know of many guards in the united states who train to become a lawyer so they can give legal advice to the people they're guarding. it's pretty unique. >> willie ojulu: well, it sounds unique, but that's what happens here. you know, people are brought to prison as a punishment, but not for punishment. >> cooper: i've never heard it phrased that way. so your goal is not to punish them? but-- >> ojulu: but to help them improve on their life and manage their life properly, so that they don't get in conflict with the law. >> cooper: last year inside kamiti maximum security prison, there was a graduation ceremony the likes of which no one here had ever seen. 18 inmates, former prisoners and guards, received their university of london law school degrees. george karaba got his, and while he may spend the rest of his life in prison, he says he has been transformed. >> karaba: even if i do not get out of prison, i will still

continue doing what i do. >> cooper: to see somebody you've helped get out of prison. >> karaba: it gives me great satisfaction. >> cooper: does it feel like part of you goes out with that person? >> karaba: yeah. i feel part of me is actually out. and therefore, i'm good. >> cooper: george karaba and others helped morris kaberia appeal his death penalty conviction. kaberia argued the case himself, and was stunned when the judge acquitted him of all charges after 13 years in prison. >> kaberia: i felt like-- i-- i- - i did not hear right. so i asked her, "what?" (laugh) and she told me, "hey, come on. i thought you're a lawyer." >> cooper: you didn't believe what she was saying? >> kaberia: i-- i don't believe-- >> cooper: you wanted to see it in writing? >> kaberia: i don't believe it can happen that way because i-- it-- it was not-- even in my mind. first impression is very important. >> cooper: morris kaberia was freed, but when he got out, he went right back to prison, as a full-time employee of justice defenders. here he is teaching inmates a lesson he learned in court first hand. always look the judge straight in the eye. >> kaberia: don't just lie low,

don't keep quiet, it might affect your defense or your case. >> cooper: justice defenders says in the last three years in kenya, they've helped more than 18,000 people get a fair hearing, and almost 4,000 people get acquitted and released. this was pauline njeri's walk to freedom, after five years in prison for fraud. her daughter was there to greet her. some of the people that your paralegals are training have committed very serious offenses. >> mclean: for sure. >> cooper: do they really deserve, a chance to get out if they've really committed those crimes? >> mclean: we're not determining sentence. those who are guilty of offenses should be punished. and the punishment should be proportionate and it should be viewed towards equipping them one day to leave prison and to contribute to society. but those who are innocent shouldn't be wrongly punished.

>> cooper: justice defenders relies entirely on donations, and spends about $2 million a year helping inmates. they've begun trying to expand their work into other prisons in africa, europe, and the united states. >> mclean: we have a shared hunger for justice. >> cooper: already, their impact in kenya has been profound. morris kaberia was part of a team of justice defenders who successfully challenged the constitutionality of kenya's mandatory death sentence. the law was changed, and as a result thousands of death row inmates became eligible for re- sentencing. that must feel extraordinary. >> kaberia: extraordinary. i love law. i love law. i eat law and drink law. i love law. i-- >> cooper: you eat and drink it. >> kaberia: i sleep law. i-- everythi-- i do everything in law. (laugh) >> cooper: listening to you talk about the law, it sort of makes me excited about the law. >> kaberia: yes. let me tell you, cooper. you know, there is one thing we do.

we make assumptions as people, as a society. and we dig our graves through those assumptions. law is not for lawyers. law is not for the government. law is not for some people somewhere or the rich. law is for everyone. ( ticking ) >> how prison internet access transformed the kenyan court system. at 60minutesovertime.com. for groceries, gifts and more on your list. it's the fastest way to get what you need, today. at target. and unmatched overall value. together with a dedicated advisor, you'll make a plan that can adjust as your life changes, with access to tax-smart investing strategies that help you keep more of what you earn. and with brokerage accounts,

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( ticking ) >> scott pelley: this christmas season brings fresh hope with vaccines rolling out and a new year dawning. it's a time of faith, and reminded us of lalibela, a monument to rare devotion.

800 years ago, an ethiopian king ordered a new capital for christians. on the central plateau of ethiopia stand 11 churches, each carved from a single, gigantic, block of stone. no bricks, no mortar, no concrete, no lumber- just rock sculpted into architecture. as we first told you last christmas, not much is known about who built them or how. but the faithful of the ethiopian orthodox church say there's no mystery really. the churches of lalibela were built by angels. the northern highlands of ethiopia rose 31 million years ago, when fissures in the earth flooded the horn of africa with lava a mile deep. on hillsides, you can still see columns of lava frozen in time. iron made the basalt red, and

gases trapped inside made the stone light-- as light and pliable as air. christians laid their mark on ethiopia before the year 400. they found the ancient stone welcomed the bite of a chisel. the churches were carved around the year 1200 by people called the zagwe. their king, lalibela, is said to have traveled the 1,600 miles to jerusalem. legend has it, when he returned and jerusalem fell to the islamic conquest, lalibela ordered a new home for christianity. >> fasil giorghis: and he came back with an ambitious idea, a vision of creating an african jerusalem, a black jerusalem, here in the highlands of ethiopia. >> pelley: fasil giorghis is an ethiopian architect and historian who walked us through the rock of ages. >> giorghis: well, there are three groups of churches, and

each group is interconnected within itself. >> pelley: we're sitting in saint mary's church. >> giorghis: yes. >> pelley: how was it built? >> giorghis: well, it was built starting from outside. they formed the shape. and then they start digging or excavating downwards. >> pelley: so they dug essentially a trench around the whole perimeter. >> giorghis: yes. >> pelley: which left them with a giant cube of solid rock. >> giorghis: yes, exactly. >> pelley: and then they carved their doors and in they went? >> giorghis: in they went. >> pelley: chipping inside, largely in darkness, artists sculpted many rooms, with no room for error. archways, vaults and columns imitate traditional construction even though, in solid rock, there's no need to hold up the ceiling. the enduring mystery is, why? why did king lalibela attempt the seemingly impossible when easier building techniques were known?

as the story goes, he was helped by angels. >> giorghis: yes. >> pelley: who worked on the project overnight. >> giorghis: i think i would rather take this as a symbolic thing, because-- >> pelley: do you not have any experience working with angels in architecture? >> giorghis: well, i get inspiration from angels. >> pelley: the site of the 11 churches covers about 62 acres. it's divided by a stream king lalibela christened the river jordan. the largest church covers around 8,000 square feet. each is about four stories tall. but their most astounding dimension cannot be measured-- it is the length to which they summon adoration. >> giorghis: this is considered to be a holy place, that coming here as a devout christian is a very strong sign of their belief. some people travel hundreds of

kilometers to get here on foot. on foot. and they have been doing it for several centuries. ♪ ♪ >> pelley: the churches are open for worship year-round, but we were there christmas eve when nearly 200,000 pilgrims rose to heaven on a path descending into the earth. many walked for days or weeks, fasting, robed in white-- an ordeal that is rinsed from the disciples in the tradition of jesus. any ethiopian over the age of 30 cannot forget the suffering of drought and war and a million people lost to starvation. and so, having known poverty in this life, they've invested their souls in the next. tewede yigzaw, told us, "i believe god is here. i came with faith."

her neighbor, getaye abebeaw, and his daughter told us they walked from their farms nearly 100 miles away-- a journey of three days. god can hear your prayers anywhere. why did you feel you had to be here? "so that god can see our devotion," she said, "and our dedication." "we were very tired," he said. "we were falling and getting back up throughout the journey, all to see the celebration here. and god will recognize our effort." ( bell tolling ) the christmas celebration ethiopians call "genna" compresses them shoulder to shoulder, to fast and chant and praise all night 'til dawn brings christmas day.

the ethiopian orthodox church claims to be among the earliest capitals of christianity, thanks to a mysterious figure of the hebrew bible. the faithful believe that the queen of sheba left ethiopia, went to jerusalem, where she met king solomon. from that meeting came a son, and, when the son was an adult, he returned to ethiopia with 12,000 israelites and the ark of the covenant, containing the tablets with the word of god, the ten commandments. and the ark remains in ethiopia, according to the priests of the orthodox church. we met tsigie selassie mezgebu, the head priest of lalibela, at the church of st. george, which was last to be built, and judged to be the masterpiece. i met a woman on christmas day who had spent three days walking here.

who are these pilgrims? "these are believers," he told us. "not just three days, even three monthset ♪ ♪ when there was no air travel or buses, people used to travel from various parts of the country for months, to come here and celebrate with us." the celebration beats to the rhythm of ancient instruments; the kebero double-headed drum, and a rattle called the sistrum whose sound was known in north africa 3,000 years before jesus. on christmas eve, we watched you and your priests lead the chant all night long. what are you saying in that chant? "we tell the people that god became human, and a human became god.

because of christ, we went from being punished by god to being his children again. christmas is the day that forgiveness was born." but, while god forgives, time does not. after eight centuries, the basalt basilicas are weary of wind and water. >> stephen battle: what's absolutely clear is that something quite miraculous happened here. >> pelley: stephen battle is an architect with the world monuments fund, who told us lalibela's miracle is being undermined, because the rock is not rock-solid. >> battle: when you're building a conventional building, you go to a quarry, and you'll have different grades of stone. and you try and select the best stone. you leave the bad stuff behind. when you're carving a church out of the mountainside, you don't have that luxury. and so, typically, in any one of the churches here, you get good stone-- and a lot of it is good stone. but then you also get actually

bad stone, and actually very bad stone, which is really very soft indeed. and over time, if you touch it, it actually crumbles. >> simon warrack: and this is one of the most sacred parts of lalibela. >> pelley: we saw the good and the bad in the chamber where king lalibela is laid to rest. this is one of the best- preserved sculptures i've seen at lalibela. >> warrack: yes. this is particularly beautiful. and they're also painted. >> pelley: simon warrack is a master stonemason, also with the world monuments fund, a u.s.- based charity that preserves some of humankind's great achievements. warrack has repaired european cathedrals and roman antiquities. but lalibela is more complicated because of the sincere belief that angels worked this stone. simon, you can't actually cut this stone in order to fit a new piece in, because the stone you would be cutting is sacred. >> warrack: yeah, this was one of the first big issues that i

came across. if we ever had to drill a hole to strengthen it, to put in a pin, we had to discuss it with the priests. they collected the dust. there was a whole procedure around touching the fabric of the church. >> pelley: the priests collected the dust? >> warrack: yes, yes. >> pelley: that was the issue when warrack was asked to resurrect the cross in this window without disturbing the fragment that remained. so, this cross wasn't here. >> warrack: this was completely gone, yes. it was a very thin piece of stone remaining. so i hollowed out the back of the cross shape that we were inserting, so that it was fitting over the original stone, a bit like a, like a dentist. and so we were able to conserve this tiny bit of stone, which is, in stone masonry terms, it's crazy. but you have to do that in this kind of situation. >> pelley: there have been other crazy conservation ideas. a dozen years ago, five umbrellas were built to keep the

heavens from pouring down. >> battle: the local people call them gas station roofs. and i think it's a pretty apt way of describing them. so you can imagine, we have this extraordinary site with some of the most beautiful buildings in the world, with extraordinary, huge, spiritual significance. and there's a bunch of gas station roofs that have been placed over the top of them. it's really not compatible, it's not appropriate. >> pelley: unholy to behold, the roofs became a lesson in the law of unintended consequences. the churches were too wet. now, they're too dry. for the first time in 900 years, they're not being rained on. >> battle: exactly right. and so the stone is contracting much more than it has ever done before. and what happens is this creates little failures on a micro level and the stone starts to crumble. >> pelley: the roofs were meant to be temporary, and in a few years they must be re-covered. stephen battle prays they'll be removed altogether and replaced by intensive maintenance. to that end, the world monuments

fund is teaching conservation to dozens of lalibela's priests and laymen in the hope that a host can protect the heavenly perhaps for centuries to come. how long can they last? >> battle: well, another 900 years, if they're looked after properly. oh, yes, way beyond a shadow of a doubt, absolutely, if they're looked after correctly. >> pelley: even beyond another millennia, we're not likely to know with certainty the answer to why. why attempt what must have seemed impossible? no answer was apparent, until we chipped away at what we saw christmas day. in the old testament, isaiah advises those who seek god to, "look to the rock from which you were cut, and the quarry from which you were hewn." whoever cut this rock, angels or man, understood that in the presence of a miracle, faith is

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merry christmas. >> merry christmas to you too. merry christmas to your family from ours or whatever your holiday is, it may a -- may bit a safe one and great one together, apart, apart together, i guess. >> yes. happy anniversary. >> thank you. >> we are just saying. >> we are trying to figure it out is this an anniversary show or christmas show or a birthday show? because we are about to introduce the birthday girl so if you see inside studio g 2 people always with us samantha and hashtag always, and sam as we call her is now sam-ta tonight so we see how sam-ta is dressed up. >> it is happy birthday, and the weird thing every time she talks i harebells, i don't know what it is. >> i don't know. >> and of course hashtag, this is going to be his big television debut, you always h