Holy Trinity Cathedral

(March 17, 2007: Addis Ababa.)

The tomb of Sylvia Pankhurst, daughter of the famous Emmeline Pankhurst. Sylvia Pankhurst was a defender and exponent of Ethiopia, loved by many.

detail from the throne of Emperor Haile Selassie

a mural depicting Haile Selassie speaking to the League of Nations in Geneva

in the room containing the tombs of the Emperor and Empress, these mysteriously draped chairs had no explanation -- they were just there for me to photograph

Holy Trinity Cathedral, sometimes called Selassie Cathedral, north of the city centre on the Entoto Road, is reached after passing many other important sites and beautiful landmarks. The biggest Orthodox church in the country, it is also a tribute to some of the painful episodes in the country's more recent history.

On the grounds, memorials to some of the country's heroes can be found. See my previous post about the gardens.

Inside the cathedral, two elaborate thrones of the Emperor Haile Selassie and the Empress Itege Menen, are located under the central dome. In the central dome, four different murals depict some relatively recent events of Ethiopian history. Of the four, I remember in particular the depictions of the massacre of Ethiopian resistance fighters armed with medieval weapons at the hands of the Italians in a three-day blood-bath in Addis Ababa in February, 1937, and the exiled Emperor Haile Selassie speaking before the League of Nations on June 30, 1936. His pleas for the liberation of Ethiopia from Italian occupation fell on deaf ears.

During the revolutionary years after the early 1960's, the aging Emperor Haile Selassie died under mysterious circumstances, allegedly at the hands of his successor, Mengistu Haile Mariam, a military man who came to power in the midst left wing student protests, and widespread dissatisfaction with the old empirical regime, taking advantage of a fractured military coalition that had dissolved parliament and established a provisional government. Haile Selassie had been under virtual house arrest and his death came on the heels of the infamous footage of starving children juxtaposed with glimpses of sumptuous emperial banquets broadcast by the BBC. The remains of the Emperor have been rumoured to have been buried in all sorts of demeaning places, under Mengistu's office, even under Mengistu's toilet.

In 1991, one of the most miserable and infamous periods of Ethiopian history came to an end as an alliance of opposition groups defeated Mengistu and he went into exile in Zimbabwe. The remains of the Emperor Haile Selassie were exhumed and temperarily buried at Ba'ata church, also called the Beta Maryam Mausoleum, the mausoleum of the prior emperors Menelik, Taytu and Zawditu. At last, in 2000, the Emperor's family were permitted to hold a final funeral for him. His remains, with the Empress Menen's, now lie in Gondorian style tombs found in the wing north of the cathedral's Holy of Holies.

In colourful Ethiopian style, the Emperor's final funeral was not without it's conflicts. While the government issued statements decrying the days of the old emperor's rule, Rastafarians who had settled around Sheshamene, south of the capital, called it a sacrilege.

To the amusement of many Ethiopians who considered the Emperor to be human with human flaws, many in Jamaica, where Marcus Garvey's "Return to Africa" movement had taken hold, saw the crowning of Haile Selassie as emperor in 1930 as the fulfillment of prophecy. They took their name from Ras Tafari, the name Haile Selassie had before adopting a new name when he was crowned emperor, and many Rastafarians came and settled in Shashemene, a busy cross-roads town, south of Addis Ababa.

Establishing a new religion based in part on holy scriptures and partly on individual inspiration experienced by the ritual use of ganga (marijuana), the Rastafarians objected vociferously to the idea that their god, the King who had come out of Africa, was to be given any sort of public funeral. They claimed that the exhumed remains were a blasphemous lie, that their Emperor-God was not dead.

Otherwise, the cathedral is an odd mixture of architectural styles, with typical Christian paintings of the gospel stories found around the interior walls of the main sanctuary.

some gardens

(March 16 - 17, 2007: Addis Ababa.)

Some gardens around Addis Ababa, public and private:

I think as much as anything, it's the quality of the sunshine that fascinates me in these gardens, where the sun is almost directly overhead every day of the year. Ethiopia, after all, boasts 13 months of sunshine (it follows the Julian calendar)!

Euphorbia splendens var. milii , crown-of-thorns

bottle brush tree, Callistemon rigidus

my friend, Kassahun, in the garden beside the Seventh-Day Adventist church in Addis.

On the grounds of Holy Trinity Cathedral (next few photos below), off Entoto Road, north of the centre of Addis, lovely trees cast shade on the burial place of many patriots who lost their lives during the Italian occupation of Ethiopia (1933-1941). Also found here is the tomb of Sylvia Pankhurst, daughter of the famous suffragette, Emmeline Pankhurst. Sylvia Pankhurst was one of the few people outside Ethiopia who protested the Italian occupation. She and some of her heirs later lived in and have written extensively about Ethiopia.

On the grounds is also a memorial to those high-ranking ministers and officials who were killed in the infamous Death of the Sixty, on the night of December 23, 1974, executed by the Derg.

bouganvillea blossoms

Below: Emperor Haile Selassie's former palace is now the home of the University of Addis Ababa's main campus off Entoto Road. In the palace itself, some parts, such as the emperor's bedroom and bath have been retained as they were when the Emperor's family lived there. The palace also houses the library of the Institute of Ethiopian Studies and the Ethnological Museum.

The Ethnological Museum is layed out with the unique thematic arrangement of life cycles ( for example: birth, marriage, death, etc.). It houses representative artifacts from many diverse peoples who live in Ethiopia.

A photo below of some architectural detail of the entrance hall of the Ethnological Museum -- before I was informed that taking photographs inside the museum is strictly forbidden!