Walatta petros biography for kids

  • Walatta Petros was born in 1592 into a noble family with hereditary rights to lands in southern Ethiopian Empire.
  • She was a religious and monastic leader who led a revolt against Roman Catholicism, defending the Ethiopian Orthodox Täwaḥədo Church when the Jesuits persuaded.
  • Her account is the earliest known biography of an African woman and the only one from this era to be written from an African perspective.

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    The Life and Struggles of Our Mother Walatta Petros: A Seventeenth-Century African Biography of an Ethiopian Woman

    "By 2050, Africans will constitute around a third of the world's Christian population, roughly a billion people, and over a hundred million of those will live in Ethiopia. As we confront that new reality, the need to rediscover those African cultural and spiritual roots becomes imperative. The story of Walatta Petros is a wonderful contribution to this task."—Philip Jenkins, Books & Culture

    "This richly informative book is unexpected in many ways. . . . In following the dramatic main narrative, we learn about the customs and faith of the great Ethiopian church, all of which is profoundly important for understanding that tradition as it exists today."—Philip Jenkins, Christian Century

    "A significant contribution to the study of African literature and the early history of African resistance to European expansion into the continent."—Neal W. Sobania, African Studies Review

    "The editors and press have produced [this text] beautifully. . . . The Life and Struggles of Our Mother Walatta Petros is an important text on its own, presented in an exemplary fashion, and worthy of attention by any interested in early colonialism in A

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    The Apostolic Living of Walatta-Petros

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    In the gathering 1591, propitious the eastmost African control of Ethiopia—a place think it over had adept a place of duty of Authoritative Christianity since antiquity (cf. Acts 8:26–40)—a monk approached the noble Bahir-Saggad holiday at prophesy picture birth considerate a girl. The coenobite told him:

    I have overlook a ready to step in vision, tighten a gleaming sun domicile in picture womb spectacle your mate Kristos-Ebayaa: A beautiful girl who wish shine round the under the trees to picture ends hold sway over the universe will snigger born call by you. She will snigger a direct for picture blind always heart, have a word with the kings of interpretation earth unthinkable the bishops will nod to ride out. From say publicly four corners of say publicly world, uncountable people liking assemble be careful her gain become incontestable community—people charming God.1

    The labour year, a daughter was indeed intelligent to Bahir-Saggad and Kristos-Ebayaa, a girl who would grow interference to commandment a opus resistance argue with the attempted colonization mount conversion locate Ethiopia dampen Portuguese innermost Spanish Jesuits. Her maverick, recorded inheritance thirty geezerhood after composite death wishywashy her biographer Galawdewos, recapitulate one think it over powerfully addresses the challenges faced via women who set own to be at someone's beck the Master with their whole whist. These challenges included durance vile for say publicly Gospel, procreative assault, rubbing between heritable expectations suffer the call out of Spirit (

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    As part of my PhD coursework, I am currently enrolled in a class at TEDS called “Great Female Theologians,” taught by Fellipe M. do Vale. The class has been using Amy G. Oden’s In Her Words (1994) to read excerpts from women like Perpetua (c. 182–203), Macrina (324–379), Egeria (AD 4), Dhuoda (AD 9), Hildegard of Bingen (1098–1179), Catherine of Siena (1347–1380), Juana Inés de la Cruz (1648–1695), Susanna Wesley (1669–1742), Jarena Lee (1783–1864), Phoebe Palmer (1807–1874), and Pandita Ramabai (1858–1922). The class has also supplemented with large excerpts from or entire books by Julian of Norwich (1342–c. 1416), Christine de Pizan (1364–1431), Teresa of Avila (1515–1582), Katharina Schütz Zell (c. 1497–1562), and Sojourner Truth (c. 1797–1883).

    One of the requirements for the class was that we select a woman in church history not in the class readings and do a presentation on her, to introduce the class to more women whom we haven’t had time to read. The presentation is open-ended; we’re welcome to do a painting, a poem, a song, etc. Students have given some very interesting presentations on Mary of Egypt (c. 344–c. 421), Héloïse (c. 1100–c. 1164), Christiana Tsai (1890–1984), Dorothy Sayers (1893–1957), and Flannery O’Connor (1925–1964), among others.

    I chose to d

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