| Debre Libanos |
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Debre Libanos is a Monastery in Ethiopia , lying north west of Addis Ababa in the Oromia region. The abbot of Debre Libanos, called the '' Ichege '', was the second most powerful official in the Ethiopian Church after the '' Abuna ''. In the reign of Emperor Fasilides , after invading Oromo s had ravaged the monastery's lands in Shewa the Emperor granted the Ichege his palace at Azazo , where the various Ichege lived. 1 It was founded in the Thirteenth Century by Saint Takla Haymanot , although the buildings have been repeatedly rebuilt. Emperor Haile Selassie notes in his autobiography that while he was governor of the district of Sallale , during the reconstruction of the church at Debre Libanos, an inscribed gold ring was found in the excavations, which he personally delivered to then Emperor Menelik II . 2 The present building dates only from 1961 , but Tekla Haymanot's Cave can still be seen, its Holy Water a focus for Pilgrim s. Following the attempted assassination on his life on 19 February 1937 , governor Rodolfo Graziani believed the monastery's Monk s and Novice s were involved in this attack, and unwilling to wait for the results of the official investigation, ordered Italian Colonialist s to massacre the inhabitants of this monastery. On 21 May of that year, 297 monks and 23 laymen were killed; a memorial Tomb stands to them. REFERENCES # Richard R.K. Pankhurst, ''History of Ethiopian Towns'' (Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1982), p. 111. ISBN 3515032045 # Haile Selassie, ''My Life and Ethiopia's Progress'', 1974 (Chicago: Frontline Distribution International, 1997), p. 27. |