page_title: Abba Garima Monastery
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Abba Garima Monastery / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Illumination from the Garima Gospels, in a scene depicting Mark the Evangelist. Polski: Ilustracja z Ewangelii Garimy
context_page_description: Abba Garima Monastery is an Ethiopian Orthodox church, located around five kilometres east of Adwa, in the Mehakelegnaw Zone of the northern Tigray Region in Ethiopia. It was established in the sixth century by one of the Nine Saints, Abba Garima, and built by King Gabra Masqal. The monastery became known for its early manuscript copy of the gospels and its treasury.
context_section_description: The namesake of the monastery, Abba Garima is believed to have been a Byzantine royal with healing powers who was summoned to Axum by Abba Pantelewon. King Gabra Masqal built for him a monastery near Adwa, where he lived for some 20 years performing miracles and healing the sick. Above the monastery on a hill is a spring where Abba Garima is said to have spat on the spot and started a life form.
  The monastery was attacked twice during its history, once by Queen Gudit in the 10th century and a second time in the 1530s by Imam Ahmad Gragn, a Moslem who attacked the monastery with his Turkish muskets.
  The first European recorded to have visited the monastery in modern times was Henry Salt, who visited it on 14 September 1805. He was told at the time that the building had been built by Prince Gabra Masqal (a son of the Emperor Kaleb) in 560.
  In around 1872 or 1873, Emperor Tekle Giyorgis II of Ethiopia was blinded, and imprisoned with his brother and mother at the Abba Garima Monastery, where he died or was executed some years later.
  In 1896, the monastery proved an important location during the Italian invasion when Menelik II spotted the advancing troops from the monastery, which contributed to his decisive victory over the Italians. The following year, Ras Alula died at Abba Garima after being wounded in a battle with his old rival, Ras Hagos of Hamasien. His tomb is located at the rear of the main church.
  Beatrice Playne visited the monastery around 1950, and in found that the church had burned down twenty years prior and had been rebuilt before her arrival. Nevertheless, she was shown a number of prized possessions which were centuries old, including a number of illuminated manuscripts "whose ornamental headings struck me as Syrian in style." The last treasured item he was shown was "an ancient spring which, they said, had never failed since the beginning of the world."
  The family of the fifth Patriarch of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Abune Paulos was long associated with the Abune Garima monastery, and it is at this monastery that the Patriarch first took monastic vows as Abba Gebre Medhin.
caption: Sixth century portrait illumination of Mark from Gärima 2, likely the earlier of the two Gärima Gospels
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