Tekle Haymanot
Encyclopedia
Tekle Haymanot or Takla Haymanot (Ge'ez
Ge'ez alphabet
Ge'ez , also called Ethiopic, is a script used as an abugida for several languages of Ethiopia and Eritrea but originated in an abjad used to write Ge'ez, now the liturgical language of the Ethiopian and Eritrean Orthodox Church...

 ተክለ፡ ሃይማኖት takla hāymānōt, modern tekle hāymānōt, "Plant of Faith"; known in the Coptic Church as Saint Takla Haymanot of Ethiopia) (c. 1215 – c. 1313) was an Ethiopia
Ethiopia
Ethiopia , officially known as the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. It is the second-most populous nation in Africa, with over 82 million inhabitants, and the tenth-largest by area, occupying 1,100,000 km2...

n monk
Monk
A monk is a person who practices religious asceticism, living either alone or with any number of monks, while always maintaining some degree of physical separation from those not sharing the same purpose...

 who founded a major monastery in his native province of Shewa
Shewa
Shewa is a historical region of Ethiopia, formerly an autonomous kingdom within the Ethiopian Empire...

. Tekle Haymanot is significant for being the only native Ethiopian saint popular both amongst Ethiopians and outside that country. According to Tesfaye Gebre Mariam "he is the only Ethiopian saint celebrated officially in foreign churches such as Rome and Egypt." His feast day is August 17, and the 24th day of every month in the Ethiopian calendar
Ethiopian calendar
The Ethiopian calendar , also called the Ge'ez calendar, is the principal calendar used in Ethiopia and also serves as the liturgical calendar for Christians in Eritrea belonging to the Eritrean Orthodox Church, Eastern Catholic Church and Lutheran Evangelical Church of Eritrea...

 is dedicated to Tekle Haymanot.

Early life

Tekle Haymanot was born in Zorare, a district in Selale which lies on the eastern edge of Shewa. He was the son of the priest
Priest
A priest is a person authorized to perform the sacred rites of a religion, especially as a mediatory agent between humans and deities. They also have the authority or power to administer religious rites; in particular, rites of sacrifice to, and propitiation of, a deity or deities...

 Sagaz Ab ("Gift of Faith") and his wife Egzi'e Haraya ("Choice of God"), who is also known as Sarah; Tekle Haymanot was born after his parents, who had failed to have children, pledged their firstborn to God. According to tradition, his ancestors had been Christians from Tigray
Tigray Province
Tigray was a province of Ethiopia. The Tigray Region superseded the province with the adoption of the new constitution in 1995. The province of Tigre merged with its neighboring provinces, including Semien, Tembien, Agame and the prominent Enderta province and towards the end of 19th century it...

 who had settled in Shewa ten generations before.

During his youth, Shewa was subject to a number of devastating raids by Motalami, the pagan king of Damot, which lay beyond the Jamma River
Jamma River
The Jamma River is a river in central Ethiopia and a tributary of the Abay on its right side. It drains parts of the Semien Shewa Zones of the Amhara and Oromia Regions. The Upper Jamma flows through steep, deep canyons cut first through volcanic rock and then through the Cretaceous sandstone and...

. One of Motalami's most notorious predations was the raid which led to the abduction of Egzi'e Haraya; she was reunited with Sagaz Ab through the intercession of the Archangel Michael. These raids weakened the morale of the Christian
Christian
A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...

s in Shewa, and strengthened the practice of paganism
Paganism
Paganism is a blanket term, typically used to refer to non-Abrahamic, indigenous polytheistic religious traditions....

. There are a number of traditions, some of less historical value than others, which describe Tekle Haymanot's interactions with Motalami.

His father gave Tekle Haymanot his earliest religious instruction; later he was ordained a priest by the Egyptian bishop Qerilos.

Later career

The first significant event in his life was when Tekle Haymanot, at the age of 30, travelled north to seek further religious education. His journey took him from Selale to Grarya, then Katata, Damot
Damot
Damot was a medieval kingdom in what is now Ethiopia, and tributary to the Ethiopian Empire. Originally located south of the Abay and west of the Muger River, under the pressure of Oromo attacks the rulers were forced to resettle north of the Abay in southern Gojjam between 1574 and 1606.Its...

, Amhara Midir, to end at the monastery of Iyasus Mo'a
Iyasus Mo'a
Iyasus Mo'a is a saint of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church; his feast day is 26 Hedar . In life he was an Ethiopian monk and abbot of Istifanos Monastery in Lake Hayq of Amba Sel.He was born in Dehana, which may have been the woreda in the Wag Hemra Zone, although G.W.B...

, who had only a few years before founded a monastery on an island in the middle of Lake Hayq
Lake Hayq
Lake Hayq or Lake Haik is a freshwater lake of Ethiopia. It is located north of Dessie, in the Debub Wollo Zone of the Amhara Region . The town of Hayq is to the west of the lake....

 in the district of Amba Sel (the present-day Amhara Region
Amhara Region
Amhara is one of the nine ethnic divisions of Ethiopia, containing the homeland of the Amhara people. Previously known as Region 3, its capital is Bahir Dar....

). There Tekle Haymanot studied under the abbot for nine years before travelling to Tigray
Tigray Province
Tigray was a province of Ethiopia. The Tigray Region superseded the province with the adoption of the new constitution in 1995. The province of Tigre merged with its neighboring provinces, including Semien, Tembien, Agame and the prominent Enderta province and towards the end of 19th century it...

, where he visited Axum
Axum
Axum or Aksum is a city in northern Ethiopia which was the original capital of the eponymous kingdom of Axum. Population 56,500 . Axum was a naval and trading power that ruled the region from ca. 400 BC into the 10th century...

, then stayed for a while at the monastery of Debre Damo
Debre Damo
Debre Damo is the name of a flat-topped mountain, or amba, and a 6th century monastery in northern Ethiopia. The mountain is a steeply rising plateau of trapezoidal shape, about 1000 by 400 meters in dimension. With a latitude and longitude of , it sits at an elevation of 2216 meters above sea level...

, where he studied under Abbot Yohannes, Iyasus Mo'a's spiritual teacher. By this point, a small group of followers began to attach themselves around him, attracted by Tekle Haymanot's reputation.

Eventually Tekle Haymanot left Debre Damo with his followers to return to Shewa. On his return route, he stopped at Iyasus Mo'a's monastery in Lake Hayq, where tradition states he received the full investiture of an Ethiopian monk's habit
Religious habit
A religious habit is a distinctive set of garments worn by members of a religious order. Traditionally some plain garb recognisable as a religious habit has also been worn by those leading the religious eremitic and anachoritic life, although in their case without conformity to a particular uniform...

. The historian Taddesse Tamrat sees in the existing accounts of this act an attempt by later writers to justify the seniority of the monastery in Lake Hayq over the followers of Tekle Haymanot.

Once in Shewa, he introduced the spirit of renewal that Christianity was experiencing in the northern provinces. He settled in the central area between Selale and Grarya, where he founded in 1284 the monastery of Debre Atsbo (renamed in the 15th century Debre Libanos
Debre Libanos
Debre Libanos is a monastery in Ethiopia, lying northwest of Addis Ababa in the Oromia Region. Founded in the thirteenth century by Saint Tekle Haymanot, the monastery's chief abbot, called the Ichege, was the second most powerful official in the Ethiopian Church after the Abuna.The monastery...

). This monastery became one of the most important religious institutions of Ethiopia, not only founding a number of daughter houses, but its abbot
Abbot
The word abbot, meaning father, is a title given to the head of a monastery in various traditions, including Christianity. The office may also be given as an honorary title to a clergyman who is not actually the head of a monastery...

 became one of the principal leaders of the Ethiopian Church called the Echege, second only to the Abuna
Abuna
Also see Leaders of ChristianityAbun is the honorific title used for any bishop of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church as well as of the Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church...

.

Tekle Haymanot lived for 29 years after the foundation of this monastery, dying in the year before Emperor Wedem Arad
Wedem Arad
Wedem Arad was of Ethiopia and a member of the Solomonic dynasty. He was the brother of Yagbe'u Seyon and seized power from his nephews.-History:...

 did; this would date Tekle Haymanot's death to 1313. He was first buried in the cave where he had originally lived as a hermit; almost 60 years later he was reinterred at Debre Libanos
Debre Libanos
Debre Libanos is a monastery in Ethiopia, lying northwest of Addis Ababa in the Oromia Region. Founded in the thirteenth century by Saint Tekle Haymanot, the monastery's chief abbot, called the Ichege, was the second most powerful official in the Ethiopian Church after the Abuna.The monastery...

. In the 1950s, Emperor Haile Selassie constructed a new church at Debre Libanos Monastery over the site of the Saint's tomb. It remains a place of pilgrimage and a favored site for burial for many people across Ethiopia.

Later traditions

Tekle Haymanot is frequently represented as an old man with wings on his back and only one leg visible. There are a number of explanations for this popular image. C.F. Beckingham and G.W.B. Huntingford recount one story, that the saint "having stood too long, one of his legs broke, whereupon he stood on one foot for seven years." Paul B. Henze describes his missing leg as appearing as a "severed leg ... in the lower left corner discreetly wrapped in a cloth." The traveller Thomas Pakenham learned from the Prior of Debre Damo how Tekle Haymanot received his wings:
One day he said he would go to Jerusalem to see the Garden of Gethsemane and the hill of blood that is called Golgotha. But Shaitan (Satan) planned to stop Teklahaimanot going on his journey to the Holy Land, and he cut the rope which led from the rock to the ground just as Teklahaimanot started to climb down. Then God gave Teklahaimanot six wings and he flew down to the valley below ... and from that day onwards Teklahaimanot would fly back and forth to Jerusalem above the clouds like an airplane.


Many traditions hold that Tekle Haymanot played a significant role in Yekuno Amlak's ascension as the restored monarch of the Solomonic dynasty
Solomonic dynasty
The Solomonic dynasty is the Imperial House of Abyssinia. Its members claim lineal descent from King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, the latter of whom tradition asserts gave birth to the first King Menelik I after her Biblically described visit to Solomon in Jerusalem .-Overview:The dynasty, a...

, following two centuries of rule by the Zagwe dynasty
Zagwe dynasty
The Zagwe dynasty was an historical kingdom in present-day Ethiopia. It ruled large parts of the territory from approximately 1137 to 1270, when the last Zagwe King Za-Ilmaknun was killed in battle by the forces of Yekuno Amlak...

, although historians like Taddesse Tamrat believe these are later inventions. (A few older traditions credit Iyasus Mo'a with this honor) Another tradition credits Tekle Haymanot as the only Abuna
Abuna
Also see Leaders of ChristianityAbun is the honorific title used for any bishop of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church as well as of the Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church...

born in Ethiopia until the church was granted autocephaly
Autocephaly
Autocephaly , in hierarchical Christian churches and especially Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox churches, is the status of a hierarchical church whose head bishop does not report to any higher-ranking bishop...

 in the 1950s.

A number of gadlat or hagiography
Hagiography
Hagiography is the study of saints.From the Greek and , it refers literally to writings on the subject of such holy people, and specifically to the biographies of saints and ecclesiastical leaders. The term hagiology, the study of hagiography, is also current in English, though less common...

 of this saint have been written. G.W.B. Huntingford mentions two different gadlat: "one written by Abba Samuel of Waldiba in the first quarter of the 15th century and the other by one Gibra Maskel of Debre Libanos early in the 16th century". E.A. Wallis Budge has translated a third one, entitled The Life of Täklä Haymanot, which is attributed to one Täklä S'ion. Tesfaye Gebre Mariam adds to these another version popular at the monastery of Debre Libanos version and containing far more details of the saint's life than is in any other version of the gadla, and which Tesfaye confirmed was written by Ichege Yohannis Kema.

See also

  • Coptic Christianity
    Coptic Christianity
    The Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria is the official name for the largest Christian church in Egypt and the Middle East. The Church belongs to the Oriental Orthodox family of churches, which has been a distinct church body since the Council of Chalcedon in AD 451, when it took a different...

  • Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church
    Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church
    The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church is the predominant Oriental Orthodox Christian church in Ethiopia. The Ethiopian Church was administratively part of the Coptic Orthodox Church until 1959, when it was granted its own Patriarch by Coptic Orthodox Pope of Alexandria and Patriarch of All...

  • St. Takla Haymanot's Church (Alexandria)
    St. Takla Haymanot's Church (Alexandria)
    St. Takla Haymanot's Church is a Coptic Orthodox church in the city of Alexandria, Egypt, located in the district of Ibrahimia near Alexandria Sporting Club. Consecrated on 19 June 1969, it is dedicated to Saint Takla Haymanot, a 13th-century Ethiopian monk...


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