Abuna Takla Haymanot
Patriarch of Ethiopia
Abuna Takla Haymanot (Ge'ez: አቡነ ተክለ ሃይማኖት, born Melaku Wolde-Mikael: 21 September 1917 – 29 August 1988) was the third Patriarch of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church from 1976 to 1988.
After political turmoil of the Ethiopian Revolution, the Derg arrested Abuna Theophilos in May 1976 to consecrate Melaku. The government proceeded to hold church assembly to elect the bahtawi (hermit) Melaku that has little education around the subject. On 7 July 1976, The Assembly of the Church held under the leadership of the Locum Tenens (Acting Patriarch) Archbishop Abune Yohannes that elevated Melaku to Patriarch on 18 July, and ultimately enthroned on 29 August.
Early life
Abune Takla Haymanot was born in 1918, the son of a simple soldier, Wolde Mikael Adamu in southern Begemder province. As a young boy, he left home to study at the Zerzer St. Michael Church School in Bitchena, Gojjam Province where he studied advanced Bible commentary and "Kine" (ecclesiastic poetry). He was ordained a deacon by the then Coptic Archbishop of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, Abune Mattewos. In 1934, just before the Italian occupation, he traveled to Addis Ababa and was ordained a priest by Abune Kerlos, the last Coptic Archbishop of Ethiopia. He then went on to Sodo town, then a very small village in Wolaitta district of Sidamo Province to serve at the Debre Menkirat St.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Abuna Takla Haymanot” is patriarch of Ethiopia. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Abuna, Takla and Haymanot, not as a finished interpretation.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 30, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3655768. VIAF identifies the subject as 143311439. The Library of Congress control number is n2010062940. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1917, 1988, 1976 and 1918.
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