H.I.H. Princess Esther Sellassie Antohin

The Imperial House of Sellassie of
The Solomonic Dynasty in
The African Diaspora

Princess Esther Sellassie-Antohin was born Aster Fikre-Sellassie, on
April 30, 1960, in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, the daughter of Fikre-
Sellassie Hapte-Mariam, King of the Oromo, and his wife, Princess
Edjigaheu Asfa-Wossen, eldest daughter of His Imperial Majesty Crown
Prince Asfa-Wossen Haile-Sellassie, who was the eldest son and heir
of H.I.M. Haile Sellassie I. Princess Esther is the sister of H.I.M.
Crown Prince Bekere Fikre-Sellassie, Regent of the Imperial Ethiopian
Crown Council and heir to the throne of Solomon.
In 1971 at the age of 11, Princess Esther was sent to finish her
elementary education at the Clarendon School, Abergale, North Wales.
In June of 1974, upon returning home for the summer holidays, she
found that the Marxists had successfully staged a coup and taken
control of the Ethiopian government, an event which resulted in so
much unhappiness and suffering for the Ethiopian people. Princess
Esther's entire family was arrested and cruelly mistreated under the
ensuing Mengistu regime. Her mother, a kind and gentle woman, was
unspeakably abused for two years in the infamous Alem Bekange maximum
security prison before her death there, alone and neglected.
Princess Esther's greatgrandfather, H.I.M. Haile Sellassie I, was
cruelly murdered by the new regime. H.I.M. Haile Sellassie I will be
remembered as the person who abolished slavery in Ethiopia, an
abominable institution practiced at that time by the more than 50%
Moslem population of Ethiopia. H.I.M. Haile Sellassie I will also be
remembered as the leader who successfully saved Ethiopia from
European imperialism. Ethiopia had remained the only African people
never dominated by European colonialism, until that day the country
was betrayed to a more insidious imperialism, international
Communism. It was not until the Iron Curtain fell and Soviet Russia
collapsed that the Ethiopian people overthrew the despised puppet
government of Mengistu.
The story of Princess Esther's escape from the Red and White Terror
in Ethiopia can now be told. In July of 1977, eleven children, Esther
and six of her siblings, plus four of her cousins, were smuggled out
of Addis Ababa and airlifted to Nairobi, Kenya.
The "mission impossible" of her escape was planned and developed by a
small group of Christian philanthropists in Europe and carried out
with great attention to detail by one courageous American missionary,
Rev. Dale Collins, who gravely risked his own life for the safety of
the children.
The children were flown to the United States in August 1977 and began
a new life in Arlington, Virginia, at the home of their maternal
uncle, Dr. Zewdi Gabre-Sellassie, former Ethiopian Ambassador to the
United Nations. Dr. Gabre-Sellassie, a scion of the Tigrean Royal
Family, was educated at Oxford University where he wrote his
acclaimed doctoral dissertation, Yohaness, A Political Biography.
Princess Esther's education had been interrupted for three years in
Ethiopia, but in June 1980 she graduated from Emma Willard
Preparatory School for Girls in upstate New York. That fall she
enrolled in New York University where she completed a Bachelor's of
Arts degree in Russian history and language. In her senior year she
met and fell in love with the man who would become her husband, Lord
Anatoly Antohin. They were married March 2, 1984, in Jerusalem at
Mary's Tomb by Archbishop Grabbe of the Russian Mission; in
attendance at their wedding were the Spiritual Heads of the
Ethiopian, Armenian, Greek and other Orthodox Churches of the East.
The young couple then moved to Jersey City, New Jersey, where Esther
first became deeply involved and committed to the well-being of her
African people – all her people, those who had recently left Ethiopia
and those whose forbears had come involuntarily centuries before.
With the assistance of Congressman Frank Guiarini of Jersey City and
the citizenry of that city, she was able to raise $100,000 in five
months for the Haile Sellassie Fund to help the victims of famine in
Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa. Her two children, Edjigaheu (Sasha
Alexandra) and Tafari (Alexei), named respectively after her saintly
mother and her greatgrandfather, "Ras Tafari," were born in Jersey
City. Her husband was offered and accepted employment in the Theater
Department of Hollins College, Roanoke, Virginia.
The rest of the story is really quite simple and the real story is
only now beginning. Princess Esther stresses that a life-time of work
needs to be done "to bind up her nation's wounds," as Abraham Lincoln
phrased it, and to better the lives of all African-Americans,
her "Spiritual Children of Ethiopia in the African Diaspora." When
asked how she understands the tragic events that brought her to such
a strong position of support for the Restoration, she responded with
dignity and resolution:
"One way to understand it is this: the Children of Israel were in
Egypt a little over 400 years and that same period time has
transpired for the African Diaspora in the Americas. The Almighty in
His infinite mercy has heard the cries of His African children and
taken pity upon them. In His great wisdom, He has brought about the
exile of the Solomonic Dynasty, the most ancient royal family, the
House of Sellassie, to serve Him as a voice of encouragement and
moral leadership in the African Diaspora. In the Lord's good time,
together with all children of our one heavenly Father, we will walk
forward into the Kingdom of God."

Continue to Part 1:"On Rastafarianism (Introduction)"

Continue to Part 2:"I-tal, Dreadlocks, and Ganja"

Continue to Part 3:"JAH, & I and I"

Continue to Part 4:"False Prophets in The Latter Days"

Continue to Part 5:"Nyabinghi"

Continue to Part 6:"Three Persons"

Continue to Part 7:"Restoration"

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