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The Ethiopian Church was bitterly divided by theological disputes about Christology. The arguments were tangled and difficult to make sense of, but many of the monks seemed to think that Jesus Christ being God meant he couldn’t really be human at the same time. Others appeared to take the view that Jesus was born and lived as a human being up to his baptism, and was then adopted as God’s Son. A lot of what he was hearing struck Ghebre-Michael as bizarre and obviously wrong. Certainly it did not fit with what he read in the Scriptures or the early Church Fathers. His erudition, and his burning passion for truth, attracted a small band of eager students who travelled around and studied with him. Eventually, around 1825, they arrived in Gondar, the seat of both the bishop (when there was one) and the echage, a senior abbot who was the recognised spokesman for all the monasteries in Ethiopia. There Ghebre-Michael at last found the Book of the Monks. The rich opportunities for theological research and discussion in that city full of churches, monasteries and learned ecclesiastics occupied him for many happy years. However, in 1838 he closed his school. Hungry for a deeper understanding of God, he’d resolved to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. This meant heading northwards through Tigre towards the port of Massawa. He took his time, visiting the various monasteries of north-east Ethiopia along the way, and when at last he reached Massawa, he was strongly advised not to risk pursuing his journey alone.
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