{"id":3897,"date":"2015-12-06T21:23:18","date_gmt":"2015-12-06T21:23:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/eotcmk.org\/e\/the-short-biography-of-abba-iyyesus-moa\/"},"modified":"2015-12-06T21:23:18","modified_gmt":"2015-12-06T21:23:18","slug":"the-short-biography-of-abba-iyyesus-moa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eotcmk.org\/e\/the-short-biography-of-abba-iyyesus-moa\/","title":{"rendered":"The Short Biography of Abba Iyyesus Moa"},"content":{"rendered":"

December 7, 2015<\/span><\/b><\/i><\/span> <\/p>\n

By Kassa Nigus<\/b><\/i><\/span><\/span> <\/p>\n

Abba Iyesus-Mo’a, one of the saints of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahido Church, was the founder and abbot of the famous monastery of St. Stephen of Lake Hayq in Wollo, about 630 km North of Addis Ababa. <\/span><\/span>According to his hagiography, Abba Iyyesus Mo’a was conceived to his father Zekristos and his mother Egzi’e Kibra on Sunday, August 26, 1205 and was born on Wednesday, May 26, 1206 E.C during the reign of Ne’akuto Le’ab in a place called Dahina Gabriel, in Gondar. <\/span><\/span> <\/p>\n

He was raised up in his parents’ house learning religious and ethical education. At the age of thirty, he went to the Monastery of Debre Damo and started his ascetic life. After years of harsh trial and education, he received the monastic order from   Abba Yohanni, the seventh abbot of Dabra Damo around 1247 E.C. <\/span><\/span> <\/p>\n

According to his hagiography, one day, the angle of God, St. Gabriel, appeared and told him to go to the place known as “Haiq,” where his name will be glorified and his legacy celebrated through generations. Then, he asked the angle saying, “How can I know the place?”  But the angle ordered him to go forward obeying the order, so he started his journey and reached hurriedly after six hours walk, which could be a journey of several months, by the help of the angle.  <\/span><\/span> <\/p>\n

Before his arrival to the Monastery of Haiq Estifanos, he remained and served there for about six months in the church of Saints Peter and Paul, which is found north of the Monastery. He offered evangelical sermons for the people in the day time and then entered into the lake in the night for prayer. As his Gadl (hagiography) has recorded,  the entrance and departure of Abba Iyyesus Mo’a (in the form of light) into and from the lake every morning and every evening is divinely revealed to church fathers lived around the church of Haiq Estiphanos. <\/span><\/span> <\/p>\n

Eventually through the request of the fathers of the Monastery and by the order of God, he was nominated as abbot of the Monastery. During his stay of forty-four years as an abbot, he collected several manuscripts from different monasteries and made them to be copied, and he established the first modern Ethiopian church libraries. Similarly, he established the first great church schools there where he trained 800 disciples and sent them across the country for evangelical services authorizing with a title Neburane’ed (nebure’ed being the highest hierarchal church position). <\/span><\/span> <\/p>\n

 Dabre Hayq became a center of education and pilgrimage even during the lifetime of its founder. Abba Iyyesus Mo’a is one of the most eminent personalities of Ethiopian monasticism and is said to have been the spiritual father of many disciples, who stayed with him on the island and who in return established other monasteries. <\/span><\/span>Among the few prominent disciples of Abba Iyyesus Mo’a are: <\/span><\/span> <\/p>\n