Takla Haymanot: Encyclopedia II - Takla Haymanot - Later career

Takla Haymanot - Later career

The first significant point in his life was when Takla Haymanot, at the age of 30, travelled north to settle at the monastery of Iyasus Mo'a, who had only a few years before founded a monastery on an island in the middle of Lake Hayq. There he studied under the abbot for nine years before travelling to Tigray, where he visited Axum, then stayed for a while at the monastery of Dabra Damo, where he studied under Abbot Yohannes, Iyasus Mo'a's spiritual teacher. by this point, a small group of followers began to attach around him.

Eventually Takla Haymanot left Dabra 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. 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 Takla Haymanot.¹

Once in Shewa, he introduced the spirit of renewal that Christianity was experiencing in the northern provinces. He settled in the central area between Shilalish and Grarya, where he founded in 1284 the monastery of Dabra Asbo (renamed in the 15th century Dabra Libanos). This monastery became one of the most important religious institutions of Ethiopia, not only founding a number of daughter houses, but its abbot became one of the principal leaders of the Ethiopian Church called the Echege, second only to the Abuna.

Takla Haymanot lived for 29 years after the foundation of this monastery, dying in the year before Emperor Wedem Arad did; this would date Takla 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 Dabra Libanos. Emperor Haile Selassie constructed a new church at Debre Libanos Monastery in the 1950's over the site of the Saint's tomb. It remains a place of pilgrimage and a favored site for burial for many people accross Ethiopia.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Later career", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki