SAINT EUSTATHIUS OF ETHIOPIA
Nazarani
Western scholars consistently remark on the many trappings of "Judaism" which may now be observed in the faith and practice of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church; many believing that they are some kind of throwback to some earlier custom, which has possibly come from the Middle East at an earlier time. Such people miss altogether the point that the Nazarani nature of the Ethiopian Church represents an intentional decision by the synod and the emperor at the Council of Debre Mitmaq in Tegulet in 1450 A.D. to expand the faith and to preserve the real teachings of Jesus and His apostles within the context of modern Christianity. This is something few westerners have either the education, or the strength of will to do.
The story itself begins with Jesus and His apostles, who like Ethiopians, speak a Semitic language, and have a long tradition of taking part in pursuing both Semitic life and culture.
The radical monk Eustathius ኤዎስጣቴዎስ (+1273–1352 A.D.) is without question, one of the most famous and influential saints of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church. Born on 15 July 1273, Eustathius (Ge'ez Ewostatewos from the Greek Εὐστάθιος) was the leader of what has come to be known as the "Sabbatarian" sect within the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church. It is this sect, which although severely persecuted during his lifetime, eventually came to dominate the entire Ethiopian Orthodox Church and set the Semitic cultural tone for the future of Ethiopia.
Although Ethiopia was under the jurisdiction of the Pope in Alexandria, the seat of Christian philosophy, the Nazarani teaching which came from the followers of Jesus were preserved in Ethiopia, in part due to their great distance from that city.
The ideas of the secular world were likely to creep in however, just as they had done in other places. The world watched while the Syriac Orthodox Church underwent a period of mass Hellenisation after it's creation by Yacoub Bar Adæus in the 6th century A.D.
Saint Eustathius’ parents, Kristōs Mōʾā ክሪስቶስ ሞአ and Śina Ḥiywat ሥነ ሕይወት named him ማዕቃበ እግዚ MāʿiqābaʾIgzī, meaning literally "Trust of the Lord" in the Ge'ez language. In the year 1280, whilst still a youth, they sent him to live with his maternal uncle Zacharias who was the Abbot of Babra Maryam Monastery on Mount Qorqor in Garalta, where at the age of fifteen, he took his monastic vows, then being renamed as Eustathius.
His vitæ, which in Ge'ez is known as a gâdl, was written by his disciple Absadi. There are three different versions of this gâdl known in the modern day Ethiopian Church. He lived seventy-nine years in total, fourteen of which were spent in Armenia.
Around 1300 A.D., Eustathius founded his own monastic community at Sarayi in modern day Eritrea, where the Sabbath was kept according to biblical custom.
Sometime in 1337 A.D., the Egyptian born metropolitan (i.e. archbishop) named Jacob arrived at the royal court dragging Eustathius with him, claiming that on his way through the Ethiopia, he had found him preaching against the establishment of the Church and wanted him punished. Amda Zion had him flogged, claiming that he had brought the empire to its knees through the spreading of heresy.
What Eustathius did preach against was the establishment of the Church which at that time, as now, existed together with the state. He believed that the monks and other followers of Jesus were responsible to heaven more so than to any of the trappings of imperial and earthly power. This same view is shared by modern day Nazarani who together with all of the true followers of Jesus, believe that the Church should be independent of the state, and the people of God subject to His Kingdom, rather than the kingship of men.
The “Judaic” doctrines which were being complained about, were the authentic doctrines of the early Church, including the keeping of the Sabbath in accordance with biblical norms.
ויכל אלהים ביום השביעי מלאכתו אשר עשה וישבת ביום השביעי מכל מלאכתו אשר עשה
And God ended His work which He had made on the seventh day; and on the seventh day He rested from His work. (Genesis 2:2)
ויברך אלהים את יום השביעי ויקדש אתו כי בו שבת מכל מלאכתו אשר ברא אלהים לעשות
And God blessed the seventh day and consecrated it, because on it He rested from all of the work He made in Creation. (Genesis 2:3)
It is because of this consecration that we honour the Sabbath and keep it holy. Jesus said to His apostles that:
אמר להון דשׁבתא מטל ברנשׁא אתברית ולא הוא ברנשׁא מטל שׁבתא מרה הו הכיל ואף דשׁבתא ברה דאנשׁא
The Sabbath was made because of man and not man because of the Sabbath, therefore the Son of Man is also the Lord of the Sabbath. (Mark 2:27-28)
Thus we should
זכור את יום השבת לקדשו
Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy. (Exodus 20:8)
After the accusations in Askum, he returned to Sarayi, and was nearly stoned to death in his own cell. Within a year he left control of the monastery to Abba Absadi, who had been his faithful disciple, and taking may of his other disciples with him, left Ethiopia and travelled to Cairo to meet with Pope Benjamin II (+1327-1339), the 82nd Patriarch of Alexandria about his views.
He felt very strongly that the Bible itself was sufficient support for his views on the celebration of both the Jewish feasts and the Sabbath, the keeping of the white linen garments, the use of turbans by the clergy, and other aspects of what are now thought to be purely Ethiopian religious culture. Of course the Judaic seeming aspects of the ministry of Eustathius were not new, nor where they foreign to the Coptic Orthodox Church or hierarchy. But they had been superseded by more than two centuries by the adoption of a platonic view of the Church’s tradition, practice and theology.
Pope Benjamin II was very gracious to Eustathius, but explained to him that regardless of the biblical position, the teaching of the church had long surpassed the truth of the scriptures and could not be changed.
Eustathius then undertook life as an eremitical monk at the monastery of St. Elijah in the Sketis desert for several years before undertaking to travel to Jerusalem, where he hoped to meet Nazarani who agreed with his strong positions. After a pilgrimage to Cyprus he visited Jerusalem, which had a flourishing Ethiopian diaspora even in that period. He also toured Nazareth, Bethlehem, Golgotha, and bathed in the Jordan river. Finding himself satisfied with his work in the Holy Land, he then traveled to Armenia, to Cilicia, where he died on 15 September 1352 A.D.
After Eustathius’ death, his disciples returned to northern Ethiopia, where they set up a centre of learning and began to grow in numbers, including many nobility.
Eventually Eustathius’ views became the mainline view of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church, which now celebrates both the Friday night to Saturday sundown Sabbath (the “Lesser Sabbath”) and the Saturday night to Sunday evening Sabbath (the “Greater Sabbath”) representing the incarnation of YAH (i.e. “Life”) in the form of Jesus the Messiah.
Emperor Zara Yaqob vindicated Abba Eustathius at the Council of Debre Mitmaq in Tegulet (1450 A.D.), which adopted his views, making Ethiopia the last great bastion of Nazarani belief prior to the 2012 foundation of the Nazarani Church, which itself holds apostolic succession from the Ethiopian Orthodox Church.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Taddesse Tamrat, Church and State in Ethiopia, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1972
Tesfaye Gebre Mariam, A Structural Analysis of
Gädlä Täklä Haymanot, African Languages and Cultures, Vol. 10, No. 2 (1997),
pp. 181-198, Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd., retrieved 28 October
2015 from http://www.jstor.org/stable/1771714
George Wynn Brereton Huntingford, The Historical Geography of Ethiopia: From the First Century Ad to 1704, Fontes historiae Africanae: Series varia, Volume 4 of Series varia, Fontes historiae Africanae, London, The British Academy, 1989, ISBN 0197260551
Gianfranco Ficcadori, "Ewosṭatewos" in Siegbert Uhlig, Encyclopaedia Aethiopica: D-Ha, Wiesbaden, Harrassowitz Verlag, 2005, ISBN 344705238
© 2016 – All Rights Reserved by Righteous Endeavour