Athanasius, Patriarch of Alexandria, was the anti-Arian bishop of Alexandria. He taught and consecrated Frumentius (Abba Sälama) as first bishop of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church about 330 A.D. During the second period of his persecution by the Roman Emperor Constantinus, acting on the instigation of Arian bishops, Athanasius is thought of have made his way to Ethiopia from the Libyan desert where he had made his refuge about 356-61. He is venerated as a saint. He wrote many works, and one of the well-known Ethiopian anaphoras is attributed to him.

Ephraim Isaac

Bibliography

E. Cerulli, “Punti di vista sulla storia dell’Etiopia,” Atti del primo convegno internazionale di studi etiopici, Roma 1959 (Roma, 1960): 21, 22.

F. L. Cross, The Study of St. Athanasuis (Oxford, 1945).

I. Guidi (ed.), Le synaxaire éthiopien, Patrologia orientalis, Vol. VII (Paris, 1907), 427-9.

H. M. Gwatkin, Arianism (Cambridge, 1900).

F. Lanchert, Das Liber des St. Athanasius (Leipzig, 1895).

H. G. Opitz, *Untersuchunger zur Überlieferung der Shriften dea Athanasius * (Berlin, 1935).

H. Quasten, Patrology (Westminster, 1950).

E. Schwartz, Zur Geschichte des Athanasius (Giessen, 1933).

H. von Campenhausen (S. Godman, trans.), The Fathers of the Greek Church (New York, 1959).

This article is reproduced, with permission, from The Dictionary of Ethiopian Biography, Vol. 1 ‘From Early Times to the End of the Zagwé Dynasty c. 1270 A.D.,’ copyright © 1975, edited by Belaynesh Michael, S. Chojnacki and Richard Pankhurst, Institute of Ethiopian Studies, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. All rights reserved.

External link

Encyclopaedia Britannica (complete article): Saint Athanasius