Frumentius

Frumentius was a fourth-century Christian missionary from Tyre in Phoenicia who became the first bishop of Aksum and is regarded as the apostle of Ethiopia. The principal ancient account of his life is given by Rufinus of Aquileia in his Ecclesiastical History, who states that he heard the story from Frumentius's companion Aedesius, later a priest at Tyre. According to this narrative, a Tyrian philosopher named Meropius undertook a voyage toward India, taking with him two young relatives, Frumentius and Aedesius. On the return journey their ship put in at a Red Sea port on the African coast belonging to the kingdom of Aksum. The local inhabitants killed the rest of the company, but the two youths were spared and brought to the royal court.

At Aksum, Aedesius was made cupbearer while Frumentius, who showed greater ability, was entrusted with secretarial and administrative duties and with the education of the heir to the throne. After the death of the reigning king, the queen regent asked the two Tyrians to remain and assist in the government until her son came of age. During this period Frumentius used his influence to favor Christian merchants trading in the kingdom, to obtain for them places of worship, and to encourage conversions. When the young ruler—generally identified by historians with King Ezana, whose inscriptions and coinage independently attest a turn from traditional religion to Christianity in the mid-fourth century—assumed power, Aedesius returned to Tyre. Frumentius traveled to Alexandria to ask the bishop of that see to send a pastor for the Christian community that had formed in Aksum.

Athanasius, who occupied the Alexandrian see from 328, interviewed Frumentius and consecrated him bishop for the Ethiopians, sending him back to Aksum. The date of the consecration cannot be fixed with precision, but it belongs to the middle decades of the fourth century. A letter of the emperor Constantius II, written about 356 or 357 and preserved by Athanasius, urges the Aksumite rulers Ezana and Sazana to send Frumentius to Alexandria to be examined by the Arian bishop George, which implies that Frumentius was already well established as bishop and that the court did not comply. Frumentius is credited with the conversion of the court and with the organization of the church in the kingdom. Aksum thus became one of the earliest polities to adopt Christianity as a royal religion.

In Ethiopian tradition Frumentius is known as Abba Salama, Father of Peace, and Kesate Birhan, Revealer of Light. The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church traces its foundation to his mission. For many centuries thereafter the metropolitan bishop of Ethiopia, titled Abuna, was a Copt appointed by the Patriarch of Alexandria, a dependence that began with Frumentius's own consecration by Athanasius. Little is recorded of his later years. He is believed to have died at Aksum in the later fourth century. He is venerated as a saint in the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, and Ethiopian churches. His feast is kept on 27 October in the Roman Martyrology; the Ethiopian church commemorates him on 26 Hamle and 18 Tahsas.