Johannes Baptista Abessinus

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Johannes Baptista Abessinus (Giovanni Battista Abissino / Giovanni Battista Negro; * 1509/14 in Cyprus; † 1565/55) was a Cypriot Ethiopian , Catholic bishop and papal nuncio .

Live and act

Johannes came from an Ethiopian family who moved from Egypt to Cyprus . In 1538 he was ordained a priest for the Ethiopian colony there by the Bishop of the Copts in Cyprus and celebrated the liturgy for them in the Ethiopian rite . In the Venetian Capodistria he began to celebrate mass in Latin around 1540, according to his own statements with the permission of Pietro Paolo Vergerio . In Rome he was soon accepted as chaplain in the house of Cardinal Gian Pietro Carafa, later Pope Paul IV. There he translated the Ethiopian Mass liturgy into Latin in 1547 (lost). Because of doubts about the validity of the sacraments he received in his homeland by a Coptic bishop, he received under Pope Julius III. the confirmation and all ordinations again after the Roman Catholic rite.

In 1560 he was head of the monastery of S. Stefano dei Mori in the Vatican. Because of his language skills, especially Arabic , he served as an interpreter for the pope and cardinals. In 1562 he translated the Creed of the Chaldean Patriarch Abdisho IV. Marron into Latin. On March 10, 1565, Pope Pius IV sent him to the Orient as papal nuncio to convey the resolutions of the Council of Trent to the Eastern Church Patriarchs of the Armenians, Syrians, Chaldeans and Maronites . To increase his authority, he was previously ordained Catholic Ethiopian Bishop for Cyprus ( episcopus Sancti Salvatoris in Cypro ) in Rome and held the title "Patriarcha totius nationis Abessinae".

He probably died soon after in Cyprus.

literature

  • P. Dib: Une mission en Orient sous le pontificat de Pie IV , In: Revue de l'Orient Chrétien 19 (1914) 24-32. 266-277.
  • Mauro da Leonessa, Un vescovo abissiono del secolo XVI . In: Consacrazione episcopale di Mons. Chidanè Mariam Cassà, eletto Vescovo tit. di Tibari (Città del Vaticano 1930) 51-55.
  • R. Lefevre: Roma e la comunità etiopica di Cipro nei secoli XV e XVI . In: Rassegna di Studi Etiopici 1 (1941) 71-86.
  • Samantha Kelly - Denis Nosnitsin: The Two Yohannәses of Santo Stefano degli Abissini, Rome. Reconstructing Biography and Cross-Cultural Encounter Through Manuscript Evidence . In: Manuscript Studies 2.2 (2017) 392-426.
  • M. Salvadore: African Cosmopolitanism in the Early Modern Mediterranean: The Diasporic Life of Yohannes, the Ethiopian Pilgrim Who Became a Counter-Reformation Bishop . In: Journal of African History 58.1 (2017) 61–83.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Margherita Farina: A new autograph by ˁAbdīšōˁ Marūn. Renaissance Rome and Syriac Churches . In: Journal of Eastern Christian Studies 70 (2018) 241-256, here 243.
personal data
SURNAME Abyssinus, Johannes Baptista
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Ethiopian, Catholic bishop and papal nuncio
DATE OF BIRTH 16th Century
DATE OF DEATH 16th Century