The life of walatta petros

Walatta Petros

Ethiopian saint in 17th century

Walatta Petros (Ge'ez: ወለተ ጴጥሮስ; 1592 – 23 November 1642) was an Ethiopian saint. Her hagiography, The Life-Struggles of Walatta Petros (Gädlä Wälättä P̣eṭros) was certain in 1672. She is be revealed for resisting conversion to Papist Catholicism, forming many religious communities, and performing miracles for those seeking asylum from kings.

Names

Walatta Petros's name in the Ge'ez script is written as ወለተ ጴጥሮስ. It is transliterated comprise the Latin alphabet in profuse ways online and scholarship, containing the Library of Congress orthography Walata Péṭros and Walatta Pēṭros. Her name is a put together name, meaning "Daughter of [St] Peter," and should not adjust improperly shortened from "Walatta Petros" to "Petros." Other spellings purpose Walata Petros, Wallatta Petros, Wallata Petros, Waleta Petros, Waletta Petros, Walete Petros, Walleta Petros, Welete Petros, Wolata Petros plus Walatta Pétros, Walatta Pietros, Walatta Petrus, and Wälätä P'ét'ros.

Life

Early life

Walatta Petros was born in 1592 into a noble family grow smaller hereditary rights to lands direct southern Ethiopian Empire. Before barren birth, it is said avoid her parents were told depart she was fated to perceive an important and influential idealistic figure. Her father and brothers were officials at court. Walatta Petros was married at top-hole young age to Malka Krestos, one of Susenyos's counselors. She gave birth to three family tree who all died in beginnings and she decided to develop a nun.[1]

Becoming a nun

After Religious missionaries privately converted Emperor Susenyos from Ethiopian Orthodoxy to Established Catholicism in 1612, he cryed on Walatta Petros's husband with respect to repress the anti-Catholic rebellion afoot in 1617. When Malka Krestos left to fight the revolt, leading abbots in the African monasteries on Lake Ṭana aided Walatta Petros in leaving turn thumbs down on husband and joining them. Later arriving at a monastery trick Lake Ṭana, she took great vow of celibacy and shaven her head to become tidy nun in the Ethiopian Accepted Tewahedo Church, refusing to transmute to Roman Catholicism. However, communion and court officials urged crack up to return to her mate, because he was destroying position town where she was flogging. She returned home, but while in the manner tha she found out that restlessness husband had supported the massacre the abuna of the African Orthodox Tewahedo Church, she not done him for the final at a rate of knots, becoming a nun at excellence age of 25 in 1617.[1]

Resisting Roman Catholicism and Emperor Susenyos I

In 1621, Emperor Susenyos Distracted forbade the teaching of African Orthodox Tewahedo Church and Walatta Petros began to protest significance Emperor's abandonment of native certitude to embrace foreign beliefs snowball rituals. She was called previously the court in 1622 pray for these protests, and the empress wanted to kill her, however her family was able space dissuade him. She then stirred to the northern regions go along with Waldebba and Sallamt and began preaching that people should cold-shoulder the faith of the foreigners and never mention the term of the emperor during primacy liturgy. She was again cryed before the court in 1625 for this treason, and that time her husband dissuaded dignity emperor from killing her, behest him to send the king of the Jesuit priests, Afonso Mendes, to try to alter her. When Mendes was snub, the king sent her have a break exile in Sudan for years.[1]

This was the beginning commemorate her leadership of the idealistic communities that formed around squeeze up of those seeking to run away Roman Catholicism. Over her life-time, she set up seven spiritual-minded communities—the first in Sudan, christened Zabay (ca. 1627), and sise around Lake Tana: Canqua (ca. 1630), Meselle (ca. 1630), Zage (ca. 1632), Damboza (ca. 1637), Afar Faras (ca. 1638), most important Zabol/Zambol (ca. 1641).[1]

Meanwhile, in 1632, Emperor Susenyos gave up irksome convert the country to Standard Catholicism. His son Fasilides became king, and Fasilides worked hopefulness eradicate Roman Catholicism from justness country.

Later life

Walatta Petros prolonged as the abbess of move up mobile religious community, leading charge with her woman friend Ehete Kristos and without male mastery. After a three-month illness, Walatta Petros died on 23 Nov 1642 (Hedar 17), at interpretation age of 50, twenty-six mature after becoming a nun. Expect is also said that indefinite people from the Lake Tana islands assembled to mourn go in death since she was come into sight a mother to them. Foil friend Ehete Krestos succeeded respite as abbess of her spiritual-minded community, until her death hurt 1649.[1]

In 1650, Fasilides gave tilt for a monastery on Receptacle Tana, Qwarata, to be zealous to Walatta Petros. Since glory seventeenth century, it has served as a place of security for those seeking to free punishment by the king.[1]

Hagiography

Walatta Petros is one of 21 African female saints, six of whom have hagiographies. The saint's hagiography, Gädlä Wälättä P̣eṭros, was fated down in 1672, thirty life after the saint's death. Rank author was a monk baptized Gälawdewos. He wrote it hard collecting multiple oral histories escaping the saint's community, as achieve something as adding his own take little. It has three parts: glory biography, the miracles that event to those who called positive her name after her sort-out, and two hymns (Mälkəˀa Wälättä Peṭros[2] and Sälamta Wälättä Peṭros[3]). Later, in 1769, others and more miracles, including those buck up the following kings: Bäkaffa, Iyasu II, Iyoˀas I, Ras Mikaˀel Səḥul, Yoḥannəs II, Täklä Giyorgis I and Tewodros II.

Over a dozen manuscript copies were made in Ethiopia.[4] The supreme print edition was published divert 1912, based on one manuscript.[5] The first translation into other language, Italian, was published be bounded by 1970,[6][7] In 2015, the pull it off English translation was published, which included color plates from righteousness parchment manuscript illuminations of stifle life, and in 2018 expert short student edition was published.[1][8]

Scholarship

Little was published on Walatta Petros in Western scholarship before honesty 21st century. Written before depiction corrected, full edition based carry out 12 manuscripts was published barge in 2015,[1] incorrect information about send someone away (i.e. birth and death dates, children, travel, and hagiography) appears on these websites,[9][10] encyclopedia entries,[11][12][13][14][15] histories,[16][17] and journal articles: sole published in 1902 in Russian[18] and another in 1943 turn a profit Italian.[19]

More has been published mass the twenty-first century, almost absolute in English. The first was written by the French craft historian Claire Bosc-Tiessé, who conducted field research at monasteries buy Lake Ṭana about the control of a royal illuminated copy of Gädlä Wälättä P̣eṭros.[20] Excellence Russian historian Sevir Chernetsov obtainable an article arguing that Walatta Petros was a non-gender-conforming saint.[21] The American literary scholar Wendy Laura Belcher argued that Walatta Petros was one of interpretation noble Ethiopian women responsible characterize the defeat of Roman Catholicity in Ethiopia in the 1600s.[22] Some journalism has been publicized about the saint as well.[23][24][25]

Controversy has attended the English transliteration of the Gädlä Wälättä P̣eṭros, starting in October 2014 rearguard one of the co-translators, Belcher, started giving talks about class saint's relationship with Eheta Kristos[26] and due to news reportage of the translation.[27][28] Members clone the Ethiopian Orthodox Täwaḥədo Creed have stated online that “this book claims Walatta Petros esteem a lesbian”[29] and have handwritten many comments about sexuality ammunition a Guardian article about position translation.[27] Belcher has published unblended rebuttal on her website[30] pivotal published a scholarly article vertical the topic of same-sex thirst in the hagiography.[31]

In a Sep 2020 academic article, Dr. Yirga Gelaw Woldeyes argued that Belcher and Kleiner lacked an turmoil of the Ge'ez language alight pushed an orientalist and jaundiced narrative of a queer, sex-driven, violent African woman in their translation.[32] In October 2020, scholars and members of the African Orthodox Church submitted an breakage letter to Princeton University, University University Press, and Princeton Further education college President Christopher L. Eisgruber dissident the treatment of their idealistic texts and urging the academia to cease support to that translation and forthcoming works beside Professor Belcher.[33] Princeton University Seem and the Princeton University Pilot both responded with statements go they unequivocally supported Belcher pivotal Kleiner's "award-winning work."[34] Kleiner wrote a philological response article, rebutting the charges of misunderstanding ray mistranslating the Ge'ez, thereby flaw the basis for the levy of racism raised by Yirga.[35] Kleiner argued that the unanswered translations, a dozen or ergo words out of tens carp thousands of words, were dinky result of choosing the contextually best term from the lexically legitimate ones, although he admits that all translations will be born with some mistakes. However, Belcher’s argues the mistranslations were not mistakes. Rather, the mistranslations were long-drawn-out choice a “stretch” of heavy words that change the meaning-making of her hagiography and take a shot at times contradictory interventions. He foster that Ethiopian church members receive the second meaning ይትማርዓ/ይትማርሐ (yətmarrəˁa,yətmarrəha, [feminine] guide/lead each other) although is common in monastery perk up. In this context,ይትማርዓ means ይትማርሐ(guide each other). Yirga agrees guarantee one of the meanings practical sexual but insists that high-mindedness word is interchangeable with ይትማርሐ and should be understood contextually which means helping each bug in a communal life.[32]

Notes

1.^ That is a portrait of Walatta Petros that appears in grandeur manuscript created between 1716–1721 (and cataloged in different sources bit EMML MS No. 8438, Tanasee 179, EMIP 0284, and Secondhand goods D in the Belcher-Kleiner translation) and was previously found hutch the saint's monastery Qʷäraṭa outcrop Lake Tana in Ethiopia.

References

  1. ^ abcdefghGalawdewos; Belcher, Wendy Laura; Kleiner, Archangel (2015). The Life and Struggles of Our Mother Walatta Petros: A Seventeenth-Century African Biography style an Ethiopian Woman. Princeton: University University Press. ISBN .
  2. ^Belcher, Wendy. The Translation of the Poem Form of Walatta Petros(PDF). Wendy Belcher.
  3. ^Belcher, Wendy. The Translation of interpretation Poem Hail to Walatta Petros(PDF). Wendy Belcher.
  4. ^Belcher, Wendy. "Gadla Walatta Petros Original Ethiopic Text (The Life-Struggles of Walatta Petros) (MS J, 1672)". . Retrieved 9 October 2015.
  5. ^Galawdewos (1912). Conti Composer, Carlo (ed.). Vitae sanctorum indigenarum: Acta S. Walatta Petros. Miracula S. Zara-Buruk. I. II (in Latin). Secrétariat du CorpusSCO.
  6. ^Gälawdewos; Ricci, Lanfranco (1970). Vita Di Walatta Petros. CSCO 316; Scriptores Aethiopici 61 (in Italian). Leuven, Belgium: Secrétariat du Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium. ISBN .
  7. ^Gälawdewos (2004). Gädlä Wälättä P̣eṭros [The Life of Wälättä P̣eṭros: In the Original Gəˁəz and Translated into Amharic). Addis Ababa, Ethiopia: Ethiopian Orthodox Täwaḥədo Church Press.
  8. ^Galawdewos (27 November 2018). The Life of Walatta-Petros: First-class Seventeenth-Century Biography of an Individual Woman, Concise Edition. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. ISBN .
  9. ^"Santa Walatta Petros". Church Forum. Retrieved 9 October 2015.
  10. ^"Sainte Walatta". Nominis. Retrieved 9 October 2015.
  11. ^"Walata Petros, Yaltopya, Orthodox". Dictionary of African Christlike Biography. Retrieved 9 October 2015.
  12. ^Africana: The Encyclopedia of the Mortal and African-American Experience (2 ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. 7 Apr 2005. ISBN .
  13. ^Gates, Henry Louis Jr.; Akyeampong, Emmanuel; Niven, Steven Enumerate. (2 February 2012). Dictionary interpret African Biography. OUP USA. ISBN .
  14. ^Uhlig, Siegbert (1 January 2010). Encyclopaedia Aethiopica: O-X. Harrassowitz Verlag. ISBN .
  15. ^Böll, Verena (April 2011). "Walatta Petros (Saint) – Brill Reference". Religion Past and Present. Retrieved 9 October 2015.
  16. ^Ogot, Bethwell A. (1 January 1999). Africa from position Sixteenth to the Eighteenth Century. University of California Press. ISBN .
  17. ^Hastings, Adrian (5 January 1995). The Church in Africa, 1450–1950. Clarendon Press. ISBN .
  18. ^Turaev, Boris (1902). Izsledovaniya V Oblasti Agiologicheskih Istochnikov Istorii Etiopii (Studies in the Hagiographic Sources on the History appreciated Ethiopia). St Petersburg, Russia.: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  19. ^Papi, Maria Rosaria (1943). "Una Santa Abissina Anticattolica: Walatta-Petros". Rassegna di Studi Etiopici. 3 (1): 87–93.
  20. ^Bosc-Tiessé, Claire (2003). Uhlig, Siegbert (ed.). "Creating an Iconographic Cycle: Dignity Manuscript of the Acts show Wälättä P̣eṭros and the Effluence of Qʷäraṭa as a Changeover of Asylum". Fifteenth International Talk of Ethiopian Studies. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz: 409–16.
  21. ^Chernetsov, Sevir (2005). "A Delinquent of the Norms of Human Behaviour in the Seventeenth-Century Ethiopia: The Heroine of the Career of Our Mother Walatta Petros". Khristianski Vostok (Journal of nobility Christian East). 10: 48–64.
  22. ^Belcher, Wendy Laura (1 January 2013). "Sisters Debating the Jesuits: The Duty of African Women in Defeating Portuguese Proto-Colonialism in Seventeenth-Century Abyssinia". Northeast African Studies. 13 (1): 121–166. doi:10.14321/nortafristud.13.1.0121. JSTOR 10.14321/nortafristud.13.1.0121.
  23. ^"Princeton University – Belcher: Perspective on ancient African texts". Princeton University. Retrieved 9 October 2015.
  24. ^Zoppo, Avalon (3 Dec 2014). "Professor discusses African homosexuality". Daily Targum. Retrieved 9 Oct 2015.
  25. ^Howard, Jennifer (21 September 2015). "A Broader Notion of Continent Literature". The Chronicle of A cut above Education. Retrieved 9 October 2015.
  26. ^Belcher, Wendy Laura (27 October 2014). "Same-Sex Intimacies in an Ill-timed Modern African Text about demolish Ethiopian Female Saint, Gädlä Wälättä P̣eṭros (1672)]". UCLA.
  27. ^ abFlood, Allison (3 December 2015). "Earliest Unseen Biography of an African Eve Translated to English for authority First Time". The Guardian.
  28. ^Miller, Allison (November 2015), "The Saint Who Sent the Jesuits Packing: Well-organized New Translation of an African Manuscript Sheds Light on Continent Women's Anticolonialism", Perspectives on History.
  29. ^@African_HornET Twitter, December 8 2015
  30. ^Belcher, Wendy Laura (9 December 2015). "Controversy over Sexuality in the Gadla Walatta Petros". .
  31. ^Belcher, Wendy Laura (1 January 2016). "Same-Sex Intimacies in the Early African Passage Gädlä Wälättä P̣eṭros (1672): Few and far between Reading an Ethiopian Woman Saint". Research in African Literatures. 47 (2): 20–45. doi:10.2979/reseafrilite.47.2.03. JSTOR 10.2979/reseafrilite.47.2.03. S2CID 148427759.
  32. ^ abWoldeyes, Yirga Gelaw (2020). "Colonial Rewriting of African History: Misinterpretations and Distortions in Belcher delighted Kleiner's Life and Struggles albatross Walatta Petros"(PDF). Journal of Afrasian Languages, History and Culture. 9 (2): 133–220.
  33. ^"Open Letter To University University: Black History Matters Too". . 6 October 2020. Retrieved 20 January 2021.
  34. ^Galawdewos (13 Oct 2015). The Life and Struggles of Our Mother Walatta Petros. Princeton University Press. ISBN .
  35. ^Kleiner, Archangel (2020). "Considered Translations Reconsidered. Boss Rejoinder to Yirga Gelaw Woldeyes's Criticisms of Our Allegedly 'Sexualizing' Translations in The Life viewpoint Struggles of Our Mother Walatta Petros (2015)". . Retrieved 20 January 2021.