Patriarch Abune Paulos was born in Adwa in Tigray Province; his birth name was Gebre Medhin Wolde Yohannes.
This practice was very common in Tigray, where the outside world knew of only a few such churches until the Catholic priest Abba Tewelde Medhin Josief presented a paper to the Third International Conference of Ethiopian Studies in which he announced the existence of over 120 churches, 90 of which were still in use.
Tewolde was instrumental in securing recommendations from the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) encouraging African countries to develop and implement community rights, a common position on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights, and a clear stance against patents on life.
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Tewolde Berhan graduated in 1963 from Haile Selassie I University (later renamed Addis Ababa University) and received his doctorate from the University of Wales in 1969.
Ge'ez script has been used since the 1902 translation of the New Testament by Tewolde-Medhin Gebre-Medhin, Dawit Amanuel, and Swedish missionaries.
In 1960 he travelled to Europe to study experimental drama at the Royal Court Theatre in London and the Comédie-Française in Paris.
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Besides these compositions, Tsegaye translated Shakespeare (Hamlet and Othello being the most popular of these works), as well as Molière's "Tartouffe" and "Doctor Despite Himself", as well as Bertolt Brecht's "Mother Courage".
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A close friend of Chief Segun Olusola, the Nigerian Ambassador in Addis Ababa, who was a fellow poet, Tsegaye was present when the ambassador agreed to throw his diplomatic pressure behind the national demand for the return of the Aksum obelisk, which had been taken on Mussolini's personal orders in 1937.
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Born in Boda, near Ambo, Ethiopia, While still at elementary school he wrote a play called "King Dionysus and the Two Brothers" and saw it staged in the presence, among others, of Emperor Haile Selassie.