Kristos Samra (, 15th century) was an Ethiopian female

saint In Christianity, Christian belief, a saint is a person who is recognized as having an exceptional degree of sanctification in Christianity, holiness, imitation of God, likeness, or closeness to God in Christianity, God. However, the use of the ...

who founded an eponym

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 ...

Lake Tana Lake Tana (; previously transcribed Tsana) is the largest lake in Ethiopia and a source of the Blue Nile. Located in Amhara Region in the north-western Ethiopian Highlands, the lake is approximately long and wide, with a maximum depth of , and ...

. She is one of Ethiopians over two-hundred indigenous saints and the earliest of about fourteen Ethiopian female saints. She is venerated by both the

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 ...

, the

Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church () is the largest of the Oriental Orthodox Churches. One of the few Christian churches in Africa originating before European colonization of the continent, the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church dates bac ...

, and the

Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria The Coptic Orthodox Church (), also known as the Coptic Orthodox Patriarchate of Alexandria, is an Oriental Orthodox Christian church based in Egypt. The head of the church and the See of Alexandria is the pope of Alexandria on the Holy Apo ...

, with her feast day on 30 August.

Life

Kristos Samra lived in the 15th century (no exact dates of her birth or death appear in her hagiography). The main source on her life is the ''Gadle Kristos Samra'' (The Life of Kristos Samra), a

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 ...

written in Ethiopic by a scribe named Filippos about her around 1508.Filəṗṗos. ''Atti di Krestos Samra thiopic Original'' Ed. Enrico Cerulli. Corpus scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium. (Leuven, Belgium: Imprimerie orientaliste L. Durbecq, 1956). Before she died, she told Filippos her biography and thirty of her visions. He wrote her hagiography at the monastery of

Debre Libanos Debre Libanos () is an Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church, Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo monastery, lying northwest of Addis Ababa in the North Shewa Zone (Oromia), North Shewa Zone of the Oromia Region. It was founded in 1284 by Saint Tekle Hay ...

sometime between 1450 and 1508. A translation of two portions of the hagiography are available in English; a print version translated into Amharic is also available. According to her hagiography, the only contemporaneous source on her life, she was born into a wealthy and pious family from a frontier province in the Christian Ethiopian empire and married to the son of the emperor's own

priest A priest is a religious leader authorized to perform the sacred rituals of a religion, especially as a mediatory agent between humans and one or more deity, deities. They also have the authority or power to administer religious rites; in parti ...

(priests can be married in the

). She gave birth to eight sons and two daughters. When she was around forty years old, one day she became enraged with a badly behaved

maid A maid, housemaid, or maidservant is a female domestic worker. In the Victorian era, domestic service was the second-largest category of employment in England and Wales, after agricultural work. In developed Western nations, full-time maids a ...

servant and thrust a firebrand down her throat and the maidservant died. Then Kristos Samra felt terrible and guilty and prayed for God to restore the life of the maidservant. Fortunately, her prayer was answered and the maid was brought back to life. Kristos Samra, amazed by what happened, ansked herself "if God hears my prayer while I'm in this worldly life, how much will he answer my prayer in a monastery?" She decided to be a nun and started her journey to a spiritual life. But when she arrived at the monastery with her infant son, they told her that no males were allowed into the nunnery. She was traveling with that maidservant, who was carrying her baby son and insisted on being with Kristos Samra when she headed to the monastery. Then she left the child outside and by God's will another nun came and saved the boy and raised him. Another version has that

Saint Michael the Archangel Michael, also called Saint Michael the Archangel, Archangel Michael and Saint Michael the Taxiarch is an archangel and the warrior of God in Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. The earliest surviving mentions of his name are in third- and second- ...

took the child to heaven. Kristos Samra spent two years as a

novice A novice is a person who has entered a religious order and is under probation, before taking vows. A ''novice'' can also refer to a person (or animal e.g. racehorse) who is entering a profession with no prior experience. Religion Buddhism ...

before becoming a nun. She then left for

, a place known for its many monasteries and

ascetic Asceticism is a lifestyle characterized by abstinence from worldly pleasures through self-discipline, self-imposed poverty, and simple living, often for the purpose of pursuing spiritual goals. Ascetics may withdraw from the world for their pra ...

monks and nuns, to live the life of a

hermit A hermit, also known as an eremite (adjectival form: hermitic or eremitic) or solitary, is a person who lives in seclusion. Eremitism plays a role in a variety of religions. Description In Christianity, the term was originally applied to a Chr ...

. As her first remarkable act, she spent twelve years praying while standing several hours a day in the shallow waters of the lake near the shore, an act common among devout Ethiopians. Living in solitude, she moved around the lake, staying at monasteries, including Narga Sellase and Tana Qirqos. During this period, she had visions, speaking with

angel An angel is a spiritual (without a physical body), heavenly, or supernatural being, usually humanoid with bird-like wings, often depicted as a messenger or intermediary between God (the transcendent) and humanity (the profane) in variou ...

s and saints as well as Christ and his mother the

Virgin Mary Mary was a first-century Jewish woman of Nazareth, the wife of Saint Joseph, Joseph and the mother of Jesus. She is an important figure of Christianity, venerated under titles of Mary, mother of Jesus, various titles such as Perpetual virginity ...

. In her most well-known vision, she traveled to heaven and hell to plead with Christ and

Satan Satan, also known as the Devil, is a devilish entity in Abrahamic religions who seduces humans into sin (or falsehood). In Judaism, Satan is seen as an agent subservient to God, typically regarded as a metaphor for the '' yetzer hara'', or ' ...

to reconcile themselves to each other so that human beings would no longer suffer due to their enmity. Then the biblical

Patriarchs The highest-ranking bishops in Eastern Orthodoxy, Oriental Orthodoxy, the Roman Catholic Church (above major archbishop and primate), the Hussite Church, Church of the East, and some Independent Catholic Churches are termed patriarchs (and in ...

came to her in a dream and told her to settle at Gʷangut, located on the southwestern end of

. They told her that the entire world would come there to prostrate themselves at her feet. In response, she gave up the life of a hermit and founded a monastery.R. E. Cheesman, ''Lake Tana and the Blue Nile'' (London: Macmillan, 1936). A monk named Yishaq helped her by building a church, training female novices, and celebrating the liturgy. Eventually, she withdrew once again into solitude, standing in a pit for three years and in the lake for another three years. She was buried at Gʷangʷət, after which her monastery is named at this place.

Popularity

Some scholars, such as

Ephraim Isaac Ephraim Isaac (born 29 May 1936) is an Ethiopian scholar of ancient Ethiopian Semitic languages and of African and Ethiopian civilizations. He founded the Institute of Semitic Studies, which he directs from his home in Princeton, NJ, and is the ...

, consider her to be one of the first female philosophers in Ethiopia, and many other countries. Her contemporary, Zara Yacob of 17th century Ethiopia is also seen as the first philosopher of Ethiopia, and Africa. One scholar has stated that her hagiography is one of only "ten known biographies of African women written by Africans before the nineteenth century." Additionally, due to it is an "as-told-to" biography, "it is more of an intellectual autobiography, the narrative of one woman’s philosophy and her belief in the possibilities for healing a broken world". Kristos Samra is such visionary medieval women saints as

Julian of Norwich Julian of Norwich ( – after 1416), also known as Juliana of Norwich, the Lady Julian, Dame Julian or Mother Julian, was an English anchoress of the Middle Ages. Her writings, now known as ''Revelations of Divine Love'', are the earli ...

and

Margery Kempe Margery Kempe ( – after 1438) was an English Catholic mystic, known for writing through dictation '' The Book of Margery Kempe'', a work considered by some to be the first autobiography in the English language. Her book chronicles her domes ...

, Rabia of Basri and Lalla Aziza, and

Mirabai Meera, better known as Mirabai, and venerated as Sant Meerabai, was a 16th-century Hindu mystic poet and devotee of Krishna. She is a celebrated Bhakti saint, particularly in the North Indian Hindu tradition. She is mentioned in '' Bhaktama ...

. In modern times, Kristos Samra is the most venerated saint in Ethiopia. With feast day of 30 August, her pilgrimage attracts thousand travellers in Lake Tana.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kristos Samra 15th-century Christian saints Christian female saints of the Middle Ages Ethiopian women Marian visionaries Angelic visionaries Ethiopian saints Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church 15th-century Ethiopian people