Dr. Getatchew Haile to deliver HMML’s Ex Oriente Lux spring lecture “Ethiopia: Endangered Garden of

The Rev. Columba Stewart, OSB, executive director of the Hill Museum & Manuscript Library (HMML), is pleased to announce that Getatchew Haile, renowned scholar and Regents Professor Emeritus of Medieval Studies and Cataloguer of Oriental Manuscripts, will deliver HMML’s “Ex Oriente Lux (Light from the East): Eastern Christians Illuminating Global Events” Spring Lecture.

Haile will present “Ethiopia: Endangered Garden of Christianity’s Earliest Traditions” at 3:30 p.m. Thursday, April 2, at room AV1, Alcuin Library, Saint John’s University. The event is free to the public, and is preceded by a reception at 3 p.m. in the lower lobby of the Alcuin Library.

Haile will offer the same presentation at noon Wednesday, April 1 at the Minneapolis Club. Lunch will be served. Arrangements must be made through HMML. Attendance at the Minneapolis Club presentation costs $20.

Ethiopia adopted Christianity as its official religion in the fourth century and was the second nation to do so. Prior to the arrival of Christianity, Judaism was the most influential religion in Ethiopia. Because of its relative isolation, Ethiopia retains many ancient Jewish and Christian practices, rituals and traditions that are no longer practiced elsewhere. Among these is the tradition of hand copying religious manuscripts. This tradition preserves some of the earliest copies of the Hebrew and Christian Bibles and the only surviving copies of many early religious texts other churches lost or discarded over time.

Unfortunately, unknown numbers of Ethiopian manuscripts are lost or destroyed every year due to poverty and regional instability. HMML is working to digitize Ethiopia’s manuscripts, continuing a commitment that began with microfilming projects HMML carried out in the 1970s.

Since the 1970s, HMML has partnered with Ethiopian scholars and officials of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church to photographically preserve Ethiopia’s manuscripts. The most prominent of these scholars is Haile. He escaped Ethiopia during the Marxist revolution, after being shot by the new government’s soldiers.

Haile had helped HMML microfilm manuscripts in Ethiopia and so HMML invited him to settle in the St. Cloud area, offering him the position of Curator of Ethiopic Manuscripts at the library. He accepted and worked at HMML until his retirement in 1995.

A MacArthur Fellow, Haile studied theology at the Coptic Theological College in Cairo, Egypt (B.D., 1957), social sciences at the American University in Cairo, Egypt (B.A., 1957), and Semitic philology at the Eberhard-Karls- Universität Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany (Ph.D., 1962). He also taught for over 10 years at the Haile Sellassie I (now Addis Ababa) University, Addis Ababa (Ethiopia), before he moved to the United States in 1976. Haile is also a Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy.

“Dr. Haile is a great scholar and a great man who uniquely appreciates the incredible value of Ethiopia’s incomparable manuscript legacy,” said Stewart, who in January appeared with Haile on American Public Media's program “Speaking of Faith with Krista Tippett.” “We are honored to provide Dr. Haile with this opportunity to share his knowledge and appreciation of Ethiopia’s important place in world history with Minnesota audiences.”

HMML’s Ex Oriente Lux speaker’s series seeks to educate members of the CSB/SJU and surrounding community about the lives and legacies of the Christians of the East. The series title refers both to the fact that Christianity itself came from the East, and to the conviction that Eastern Christian perspectives and insights about world events have much to offer to Western understanding. Through the series, HMML hopes also to increase awareness of the importance of manuscript preservation.

Few people can deliver this purpose better than Haile. As Tippett said, “Dr. Haile carries the meaning of HMML’s mission in his own person. In his life, you can see the cultural and geopolitical implications that manuscripts can have for post-war and post-colonial peoples with the task of recovering their own identity.”

The next lecture in this series will take place during the fall semester. Watch the HMML Web site for upcoming Ex Oriente Lux announcements. For more information, contact Phil Steger, 320-363-2130, [email protected].