MARCUS, MADHIN, & MASKAL!
UNIA Mourns the Passing of Abba Wolde Madhin

Marcus Garvey believed that, "Whilst God has no colour, it is human to see everything through one's own spectacles, and since the white people have seen their God through white spectacles, we have only now started out (late though it be) to see our God through our own spectacles. The God of Isaac and the God of Jacob let Him exist for the race that believes in the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. The Negro must believe in the God of Ethiopia, the everlasting God- God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, the One God of all ages. That is the God in whom we believe, but we shall worship HIM through the spectacles of Ethiopia."

This was a most profound statement coming from a man who was raised as a Roman Catholic. Yet Garvey was a visionary realizing that in the social arena of life two factors dominated the hearts and minds of men, i.e. politics and religion. Politically he urged his down trodden race to reach for the heights of Empire, and to live work and pray for the founding of an African nation that would “take us back to that ancient place and position that we once occupied, when Ethiopia was in her glory”. In the field of religion he was no less comprising warning the generations to come that “in science and religion lie our only hope to withstand the evil designs of modern materialism”. Never forget your God was his ultimatum in his famed thesis on African Fundamentalism and always his prayer was for the restoration of Ethiopia’s glory and prestige upon the world’s stage.

September 11th is celebrated as the New Year on the Ethiopian calendar. This year as the Ethiopian Orthodox Church welcomed the New Year with song and prayer, they were forced to say goodbye to one of their stalwart soldiers who was called home to serve on a higher spiritual plane. Abba Wolde Madhin (formerly Deacon) was the founding president of the Marcus Garvey Memorial Division of the UNIA-ACL in Jamaica. He was succeeded in the presidency by Frank Gordon, O.D. and chose to fulfill his service as Chaplain of the division. He was also elevated to the priesthood as an Abba (Father) in the Ethiopian Orthodox (Tewahedo) Church earlier this year.

Abba Madhin often reminded us that the battle for the redemption of Africa must be fought on both the political and the spiritual front as the Rt. Ex. Marcus Garvey, founder of the UNIA-ACL, had taught. Garvey had been influential in the founding of the African Orthodox Church which was organized by the Antiguan Archbishop Dr. George Alexander McGuire in 1921. It was Abba Madhin who pointed out to me that Garvey had established this church 30 years before the Ethiopian Orthodox Church secured its independence and was transformed from the Coptic to the Tewahedo Church in 1952 under the direction of Emperor Haile Selassie I. He firmly believed that if Garvey had had the opportunity to form a branch of the Ethiopian Orthodox church at the time this would have been his objective but alas using the only channels available at the time, Garvey established the African Orthodox Church to forward the religious aspect of his African Redemption program.

In reviewing the Universal Negro Catechism which was propagated through the African Orthodox Church, there can be no doubt as to the wealth of knowledge that Marcus Garvey possessed in regard to Ethiopia and the history of Africa in general. By teaching his followers that the first universities existed in Africa, and of the wisdom possessed by the ancient Egyptians and Ethiopians- who Garvey said were one and the same- the program of the Universal Negro Improvement Association and the African Orthodox Church was designed to aggressively address the lack of confidence and knowledge of self that perforated the mentality of the Negro race at that time.

Over 80 years later, I am still not convinced that many among the race are even slightly aware of half of these facts that Garvey sought to empower us with. There are still more Negroes in this country who choose to call themselves “Anglican”- a word derived from the racial term “Anglo”- than there are those who know that Ethiopia was the first Christian Empire of the world. September 27th or the 17th of Meskerem by the Ethiopian calendar is celebrated as Maskal by the Orthodox Church. The word Maskal actually means "cross" and commemorates the discovery of the Cross--upon which Jesus was crucified. It is said that the right arm of this cross was given to Emperor Dawit of Ethiopia by Empress Helena, the mother of Constantine the Great, in a show of Christian solidarity between Rome and Ethiopia. Today it is believed to still be buried within the monastery of Gishen Mariam in the Wello region of Ethiopia.

As the members of the UNIA and the Ethiopian Orthodox Church lay the body of Abba Wolde Madhin to rest today, October 2nd 2005, we say a silent prayer for a fallen captain and friend. Wolde Madhin had found his true cross to bear long ago when he took up the cause of Garvey and he bore it well! With the words of our founder, Abba I salute you. May you rest in peace.

“My personal suffering for the program of the Universal Negro Improvement Association is but a drop in the bucket of sacrifice. To correct the evils surrounding our racial existence is to undertake a task as pretentious and difficult as dividing the sea or uprooting the rock of Gibraltar; but, with the grace of the God, all things are possible, for in truth there is prophecy that Ethiopia shall stretch forth her hand, and Princes shall come out of Egypt.” – Rt. Ex. Dr. Marcus Garvey (13/9/23)

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