Laike Mandefro
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Abuna Yesehaq ( Ge'ez: አቡነ ይስሐቕ; born Laike Maryam Mandefro; 1933 - 29 December 2005), was a leader of the
Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church () is the largest of the Oriental Orthodox Churches. One of the few Christian churches in Africa originating before European colonization of the continent, the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church dates bac ...
in the
Western hemisphere The Western Hemisphere is the half of the planet Earth that lies west of the Prime Meridian (which crosses Greenwich, London, United Kingdom) and east of the 180th meridian.- The other half is called the Eastern Hemisphere. Geopolitically, ...
.


Life

Laike was born to an Orthodox Christian family in Adwa, Tigray, attended Christian school in the monastery of Abune Gerima where he became a monk, and joined the priesthood. He was one of the clerics fortunate enough to be tutored personally by
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Haile Selassie I Haile Selassie I (born Tafari Makonnen or ''Ethiopian aristocratic and court titles#Lij, Lij'' Tafari; 23 July 189227 August 1975) was Emperor of Ethiopia from 1930 to 1974. He rose to power as the Ethiopian aristocratic and court titles, Rege ...
, the titular head of the Church. In October 1959, the Ethiopian Orthodox Church officially established a branch in
New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York New York may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * ...
; Abba Laike Mandefro, as he was then known, was sent there in 1963 and was given the task of finding a more suitable building for the Church, which was purchased in 1966. Mandefro then returned to Ethiopia to seek assistance for renovations; unfortunately the building was taken by the New York City authorities in his absence. With the assistance of Emperor Haile Selassie, and the Ethiopian consulate in New York, Mandefro returned to New York City and purchased another site for the Church in 1969. In 1970, he was sent to
Jamaica Jamaica is an island country in the Caribbean Sea and the West Indies. At , it is the third-largest island—after Cuba and Hispaniola—of the Greater Antilles and the Caribbean. Jamaica lies about south of Cuba, west of Hispaniola (the is ...
where he began to minister specifically to the
Rastafari Rastafari is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic religion that developed in Jamaica during the 1930s. It is classified as both a new religious movement and a social movement by Religious studies, scholars of religion. There is no central authori ...
community, at the official invitation of Rasta elders including
Joseph Hibbert Joseph Nathaniel Hibbert (1894 – September 18, 1986) was, along with Leonard Howell, Archibald Dunkley, and Robert Hinds, one of the first preachers of the Rastafari movement in Jamaica following the coronation of Ras Tafari as Emperor Hai ...
, who was in turn named as a "Spiritual Organizer" by Mandefro. Many government officials and others in Jamaica were deeply disappointed that Abba Mandefro defended the Rastafarians' faith on many occasions, and that he baptised thousands of them, pointedly refusing to denounce their faith in Haile Selassie as the returned Christ. On the other hand, a large number of other Rastas were likewise disappointed because he would not baptise them in the name of the Emperor, but only in the name of the
Trinity The Trinity (, from 'threefold') is the Christian doctrine concerning the nature of God, which defines one God existing in three, , consubstantial divine persons: God the Father, God the Son (Jesus Christ) and God the Holy Spirit, thr ...
. This however did not disturb those Rastas who viewed Christ and Haile Selassie as one and the same, and readily underwent baptism at the hands of this man who had been sent from Ethiopia by their living God. Only after the
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Derg The Derg or Dergue (, ), officially the Provisional Military Administrative Council (PMAC), was the military junta that ruled Ethiopia, including present-day Eritrea, from 1974 to 1987, when they formally "Civil government, civilianized" the ...
Revolution that toppled Haile Selassie and appointed their own Patriarch over the Church, did the requirement become enforced for prospective baptisees in Jamaica to renounce his divinity and cut their
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. Abba Mandefro also founded many Orthodox Churches throughout the
Caribbean The Caribbean ( , ; ; ; ) is a region in the middle of the Americas centered around the Caribbean Sea in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, mostly overlapping with the West Indies. Bordered by North America to the north, Central America ...
and elsewhere, and received the title "Archbishop Yesehaq of the Western Hemisphere and South Africa" in 1979. On 4 November 1980, he baptized world-renowned Rastafari musician
Bob Marley Robert Nesta Marley (6 February 1945 – 11 May 1981) was a Jamaican singer, songwriter, and guitarist. Considered one of the pioneers of reggae, he fused elements of reggae, ska and rocksteady and was renowned for his distinctive voca ...
, then suffering from terminal illness, into the church. In the 1990s, a schism happened in the Orthodox Church when the new government of the
EPRDF The Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF; ) was an ethnic federalist political coalition in Ethiopia that existed from 1989 to 2019. It consisted of four political parties: Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF), Amhara ...
took power in Ethiopia and appointed their own Patriarch,
Abuna Paulos Abune Paulos (born Gebremedhin Woldeyohannes; 3 November 1936 – 16 August 2012) was the fifth Patriarch of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church from 1992 to his death in 2012. His full title was "His Holiness Abuna Paulos, Fifth Patriar ...
. Abuna Yesehaq refused to recognise this political change, pointing out that according to the ancient Church canons, the Church leaders are to remain in office until they pass away, and cannot be dismissed or reappointed by any secular government. However, the New York City authorities took the side of the newly appointed Patriarch, and police interrupted a Church service on 9 August 1998 with guns drawn, using profanity, handcuffed children, and took possession of the Church in the name of Abuna Paulos.


Death

Abuna Yesehaq died on December 29, 2005, at the Newark Beth Israel Medical Centre, Newark, New Jersey, USA, at the age of 72. His death was announced by a spokesman for the archbishopric in
Dallas Dallas () is a city in the U.S. state of Texas and the most populous city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the List of Texas metropolitan areas, most populous metropolitan area in Texas and the Metropolitan statistical area, fourth-most ...
, where he had recently moved his seat, and by Father
Haile Malekot Haile may refer to: Personal names As a Ge'ez name, it means 'the power of'. Please note that some names in this list may be other, homonymous, names. Given name * Haile Selassie (1892–1975), Emperor of Ethiopia * Haile Gerima (born 1946), E ...
of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church in Kingston, Jamaica. The Archbishop was buried in Jamaica in accordance with his personal wishes to fulfill his mission, directed by Emperor Haile Selassie I, to establish the Ethiopian Orthodox Church in Jamaica, whose people had a love for Ethiopia and the Emperor. His funeral at the National Arena in Jamaica on January 20, 2006, drew hundreds of mourners including Jamaican politicians, celebrities and members of the Rastafarian community, and was marked by lengthy rituals of liturgical drumming and chanting in the ancient Ethiopian languages of Ge'ez and
Amharic Amharic is an Ethio-Semitic language, which is a subgrouping within the Semitic branch of the Afroasiatic languages. It is spoken as a first language by the Amhara people, and also serves as a lingua franca for all other metropolitan populati ...
. His Mausoleum is in Kingston, Jamaica, at the Holy Trinity Ethiopian Orthodox Church on Maxfield Ave.


As author

* Archbishop Yesehaq.
The Ethiopian Tewahedo Church: An Integrally African Church
'' J.C. Winston Pub. Co., 1997. 244 pp.


References



* ttps://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/08/nyregion/08yesehaq.html?_r=1&oref=slogin Obituary in NY Times*Barry Chevannes, "The Apotheosis of Rastafari Heroes", in Religion, Diaspora and Cultural Identity by John W. Pulis, p. 345 {{DEFAULTSORT:Yesehaq, Abuna 1933 births 2005 deaths 20th-century Oriental Orthodox archbishops 21st-century Oriental Orthodox archbishops Christian missionaries in Jamaica Abunas Oriental Orthodox monks People from Adwa Princeton Theological Seminary alumni Ethiopian Christian missionaries 20th-century Christian monks Oriental Orthodox missionaries