Background
Mandefro was born to an Orthodox Christian family, attended Christian school, and joined the priesthood.
Mandefro was born to an Orthodox Christian family, attended Christian school, and joined the priesthood.
Princeton Theological Seminary.
He was one of the clerics fortunate enough to be tutored personally by Emperor Haile Selassie I, the titular head of the Church. Mandefro then returned to Ethiopia to seek assistance for renovations. Unfortunately the building was taken by the New York City authorities in his absence.
With the assistance of Emperor Haile Selassie, and the Ethiopian consulate in New York, Mandefro returned to New York City and purchased another site for the Church in 1969.
On the other hand, a large number of other Rastas were likewise disappointed because he would not baptise them in the name of the Emperor, but only in the name of Jesus Christ. Only after the Marxist Derg Revolution that toppled Haile Selassie and appointed their own Patriarch over the Church, did the requirement become enforced for prospective baptisees in Jamaica to renounce his divinity and cut their dreadlocks.
Abba Mandefro also founded many Orthodox Churches throughout the Caribbean and elsewhere, and received the title "Archbishop Yesehaq of the Western Hemisphere and South Africa" in 1979. In the 1990s, a schism happened in the Orthodox Church when the new government of the EPRDF took power in Ethiopia and appointed their own Patriarch, Abuna Paulos.
Abuna Yesehaq refused to recognise this political change, pointing out that according to the ancient Church canons, the Church leaders are to remain in office until they pass away, and cannot be dismissed or reappointed by any secular government.
However, the New York City authorities took the side of the newly appointed Patriarch, and police interrupted a Church service on 9 August 1998 with guns drawn, using profanity, handcuffed children, and took possession of the Church in the name of Abuna Paulos.