About five kilometers east of Adwa, in the Mehakelegnaw Zone of Ethiopia’s northern Tigray Region, sits the Ethiopian Orthodox church known as Abba Garima Monastery. One of the Nine Saints, Abba Garima, founded it in the sixth century, and King Gabra Masqal (also Gebre Meskel) constructed it. The monastery gained notoriety for its riches and early manuscript copies of the gospels. Mark’s portrait illumination from Gärima 2, which is probably the earliest of the two Gärima Gospels, from the sixth century. Henry Salt was the first European known to have visited the monastery in contemporary times, having done so on September 14, 1805. At the time, he was informed that Prince Gabra Masqal, the son of Emperor Kaleb, had constructed the structure. When Beatrice Playne visited the monastery in the 1950s, she discovered that the church had been rebuilt before her visit since it had burned down twenty years earlier. She was nevertheless shown a number of cherished items that were centuries old, including numerous illuminated manuscripts “whose ornamental headings struck me as Syrian in style.” The final gift that was displayed to her was “an ancient spring which, they said, had never failed since the beginning of the world.” The Abune Garima monastery has long been connected to the family of Patriarch Abune Paulos, the fifth Patriarch of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. The Patriarch initially swore monastic vows as Abba Gebre Medhin at this monastery.
