Saint Tekle Haymanot of Ethiopia
Tekle Haymanot or “Plant of Faith” is known in the Coptic Church as Saint Takle Haymanot of Ethiopia (1215 – 1313). He was an Ethiopian Hermit, monk and Lek’e P’ap’as ( Ge’ez Title for the bishop with a higher rank than the other bishops, but a lower rank than the Archbishop or Patriarch) who founded a major monastery (Debre Libanos) in his native province of Shewa. Tekle Haymanot 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 is dedicated to him.
Saint 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(1) recount the story that the saint “having stood for 34 years (in others versions it is 28 years) in his cave and prayed, one of his legs broke or was cut off while Satan was attempting to stop his prayers, whereupon he stood on one foot for another 7 years and went on praying. Paul B. Henze(2)
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 the skull that is called Golgotha. But Shaitan (Satan) planned to stop Tekle Haymanot going on his journey to the Holy Land, and he cut the rope which led from the rock to the ground just as Tekle Haymanot started to climb down. Then God gave Tekle Haymanot six wings and he flew down to the valley below … and from that day onwards Tekle Haimanot would fly back and forth to Jerusalem above the clouds like an aeroplane…
Thomas Francis Dermot Pakenham (3), 8th Earl of Longford (born 14 August 1933), known simply as Thomas Pakenham, is an Anglo-Irish historian and arborist who has written several prize-winning books on the diverse subjects of African history, Victorian and post-Victorian British history, and trees.
[1]C. F. Beckingham & G. W. B. Huntingford, Some Records of Ethiopia 1593-1646, 1957.
[2] Paul B. Henze. Layers of Time, a History of Ethiopia, 2004.
[3]Thomas Francis Dermot Pakenham, 8th Earl of Longford (born 14 August 1933), known simply as Thomas Pakenham, is an Anglo-Irish historian and arborist who has written several prize-winning books on the diverse subjects of African history, Victorian and post-Victorian British history, and trees.