About this journey
Debre Libanos is a monastery in Ethiopia, lying northwest of Addis Ababa in the Oromia Region. Founded in the thirteenth century by Saint Tekle Haymanot, the monastery’s chief abbot, called the Ichege, was the second most powerful official in the Ethiopian Church after the Abuna.
The monastery complex sits on a terrace between a cliff and the gorgle of one of the tributaries of the Abbay River (the Blue Nile). None of the original buildings of Debre Libanos survive. Current buildings include the church over Tekle Haymanot’s tomb, which Emperor Haile Selassie ordered constructed in 1961; a slightly older Church of the Cross, where Buxton was told a fragment of the True Cross is preserved; and five religious schools.
Along the side of the church, you cross a river and proceed on foot up a hill for about 15 minutes. According to legend, the Ethiopian Saint, Tekle Haimanot, prayed for 7 years (or 29 years, depending who you ask). The legend says that he stood on one foot for so long that the other foot fell off. Sick people queue to receive holy water (which is believed to be a sign of the saint’s prayer).
