St. Frumentius of Axum

St. Frumentius (died c. 383), known in Ethiopia as Abba Selama, "the Father of Peace," was, according to the church historian Rufinus, a young man from Tyre who as a boy was shipwrecked with his brother on the coast of the Red Sea and taken to the court of the kingdom of Axum, in present-day Ethiopia and Eritrea. Rising to a position of trust and influence there, he encouraged the small community of Christian merchants and, when free to leave, resolved to seek a bishop and missionaries for the land.

He traveled to Alexandria, where St. Athanasius, recognizing that no one was better fitted to shepherd the new flock, consecrated Frumentius himself as the first bishop of Axum. Returning, he baptized the king Ezana — under whom Christianity became the religion of the kingdom — and established the Church that endures to this day as the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church. Venerated in the Eastern, Ethiopian, and Western calendars alike, he is honored as the Apostle of Ethiopia.