Debre Bizen is an

Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church The Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church () is one of the Oriental Orthodox Churches with its headquarters in Asmara, Eritrea. It was given autocephaly by Shenouda III of Alexandria, pope of the Coptic Orthodox Church, after Eritrea gained its in ...

monastery A monastery is a building or complex of buildings comprising the domestic quarters and workplaces of Monasticism, monastics, monks or nuns, whether living in Cenobitic monasticism, communities or alone (hermits). A monastery generally includes a ...

. Located at the top of Debre Bizen the mountain (2460 meters) near the town of Nefasit in

Eritrea Eritrea, officially the State of Eritrea, is a country in the Horn of Africa region of East Africa, with its capital and largest city being Asmara. It is bordered by Ethiopia in the Eritrea–Ethiopia border, south, Sudan in the west, and Dj ...

. Its library contains many important Ge'ez manuscripts.

History

Debre Bizen was founded in the 1350s by Filipos, who was a student of Absadi. By 1400, the Monastery followed the rule of the House of

Ewostatewos Ewostatewos (, ''ʾEwosṭātewos'', or ዮስጣቴዎስ, ''Yosṭātewos'', a version of ''Eustathios''; 22 July 1273 – 23 September 1352) was an Ethiopian religious leader of the Orthodox Tewahedo during the early period of the Solomonic d ...

( ''Eustáthios''), and a ''gadl'' (

hagiography A hagiography (; ) is a biography of a saint or an ecclesiastical leader, as well as, by extension, an adulatory and idealized biography of a preacher, priest, founder, saint, monk, nun or icon in any of the world's religions. Early Christian ...

) of Ewostatewos was later composed there. According to Tom Killion, it remained independent of the Ethiopian Church, while Richard Pankhurst states that it continued to be dependent on the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church centered in

Axum Axum, also spelled Aksum (), is a town in the Tigray Region of Ethiopia with a population of 66,900 residents (as of 2015). It is the site of the historic capital of the Aksumite Empire. Axum is located in the Central Zone of the Tigray Re ...

. In either case, a charter survives of the Emperor

Zara Yaqob Zara Yaqob (; 1399 – 26 August 1468) was Emperor of Ethiopia, and a member of the Solomonic dynasty who ruled under the regnal name Qostantinos I (; "Constantine"). He is known for the Geʽez literature that flourished during his reign, th ...

in which he granted lands to Debre Bizen. The monastery was one of several habitations damaged by the

Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire (), also called the Turkish Empire, was an empire, imperial realm that controlled much of Southeast Europe, West Asia, and North Africa from the 14th to early 20th centuries; it also controlled parts of southeastern Centr ...

in their campaigns to establish their province of Habesh Eyalet in the 16th century. When Abuna Yohannes XIV, who came from

Cairo Cairo ( ; , ) is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Egypt and the Cairo Governorate, being home to more than 10 million people. It is also part of the List of urban agglomerations in Africa, largest urban agglomeration in Africa, L ...

to Eritrea to serve as head of the Eritrean/ Ethiopian Church, was held for ransom at Arkiko by the local

naib Nawab is a royal title indicating a ruler, often of a South Asian state, in many ways comparable to the Western title of Prince. The relationship of a Nawab to the Emperor of India has been compared to that of the Kings of Saxony to the Ge ...

, the

abbot Abbot is an ecclesiastical title given to the head of an independent monastery for men in various Western Christian traditions. The name is derived from ''abba'', the Aramaic form of the Hebrew ''ab'', and means "father". The female equivale ...

of Debre Bizen helped him to escape.Richard R.K. Pankhurst, ''The Ethiopian Royal Chronicles'' (Oxford: Addis Ababa, 1967), pp. 125-9.

References

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History

See also

References

Further reading