Samuel of Waldebba ( Ge'ez ሳሙኤል ዘሀገረ ወልድባ) was a late fourteenth- and early fifteenth-century

Ethiopia Ethiopia, , om, Itiyoophiyaa, so, Itoobiya, ti, ኢትዮጵያ, Ítiyop'iya, aa, Itiyoppiya officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country in the Horn of Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the ...

saint In religious belief, a saint is a person who is recognized as having an exceptional degree of Q-D-Š, holiness, likeness, or closeness to God. However, the use of the term ''saint'' depends on the context and Christian denomination, denominat ...

of the

Ethiopian Orthodox Church The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church ( am, የኢትዮጵያ ኦርቶዶክስ ተዋሕዶ ቤተ ክርስቲያን, ''Yäityop'ya ortodoks täwahedo bétäkrestyan'') is the largest of the Oriental Orthodox Churches. One of the few Chris ...

. He is considered the founder of Waldebba Monastery in northern Ethiopia and is one of Ethiopia's most prominent saints.Nosnitsin, Denis. "Samuˀel of Waldəbba ". In Encyclopaedia Aethiopica: O-X: Vol. 4, edited by Siegbert Uhlig, 516-18. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2010.

Life

The ''Gadle Samuel'' hagiography, written in the fifteenth century and with both long and short versions, states that he was born in

Aksum Axum, or Aksum (pronounced: ), 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, a naval and trading power that ruled the whole region ...

and had a brother. His mother left her husband to become a nun and Samuel followed her example by refusing to marry. He went to the monastery called Däbrä Bänkʷal, where he became a monk. After his father died, he became a

coenobitic Cenobitic (or coenobitic) monasticism is a monastic tradition that stresses community life. Often in the West the community belongs to a religious order, and the life of the cenobitic monk is regulated by a religious rule, a collection of prece ...

monk, living alone in the wilderness among the wild beasts. He tamed lions and performed many miracles. He walked through water without his book getting wet and Saint Michael flew him through the air to visit Jerusalem. He was an extreme ascetic; for instance, standing in a pit praying for months, wearing sackcloth, and not eating for forty days. He is said to have died at the age of 100. Stories about Samuel also appear in the Ethiopian Miracles of Mary.

Illuminations

The saint is a popular subject o
painting.
as shown by this image of him riding a lion in the British Library Oriental manuscript 590.

References

Nosnitsin, Denis. "Samuˀel of Waldəbba ". In ''Encyclopaedia Aethiopica: O-X: Vol. 4'', edited by Siegbert Uhlig, 516–18. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2010. Borissus Turaiev, ''Vita Samuelis Valdebani'', Petropoli 1902 (Monumenta AethiopiaeHagiologica 2). Osvaldo Raineri, “Samuele di Waldebba”, in J. N. Cañellas – S. Virgulin – G. Guaita (eds.), B''iblioteca sanctorum orientalium. Enciclopedia dei Santi. Le Chiese Orientali'', Roma 1998ff. vol. 2, 934ff.

External links

Short exposé on the Waldebba monastery and Samuel of Waldebba (youtube)
15th-century Ethiopian people Ethiopian saints 15th-century Christian saints {{Ethiopia-hist-stub