Kristos Samra

Kristos Samra lived in the 15th century (no exact dates of her birth or death appear in her hagiography).[5]

The main source on her life is the Gädlä Krəstos Śämra (The Life of Kristos Samra), a hagiography written in Ethiopic by a scribe named Filəṗṗos (Phillip) about her around 1508.[6] Before she died, she told Filəṗṗos her life story and thirty of her visions. He wrote her hagiography at the monastery of Debre Libanos sometime between 1450 and 1508. A translation of two portions of the hagiography are available in English;[1] a print version translated into Amharic is also available.

According to her hagiography, the only contemporaneous source on her life, she was born into a wealthy and pious family from a frontier province in the Christian Ethiopian empire and married to the son of the emperor's own priest (priests can be married in the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church). She gave birth to eight sons and two daughters.[2]

When she was around forty years old, one day she became enraged with a badly behaved maidservant and thrust a firebrand down her throat and the maidservant died.[7] Then Kristos Samra felt terrible and guilty and prayed for God to restore the life of the maidservant fortunately her prayer was answered and the maid was alive again. So Kristos Samra was amazed and she felt "if God hears my prayer while I'm in this worldly life how much will he answer my prayer in monastery?"

She decided to be a nun and started her journey to a spiritual life. But when she arrived at the monastery with her infant son, they told her that no males were allowed into the nunnery. She was traveling with that maidservant, who was carrying her baby son and insisted on being with Kristos Samra when she headed to the monastery. So she left the child outside and by God's will another nun came and saved the boy and raised him.[6] Another version has that Saint Michael the Archangel to heaven.[2]

Kristos Samra spent two years as a novice before becoming a nun. She then left for Lake Tana, a place known for its many monasteries and ascetic monks and nuns, to live the life of a hermit. As her first remarkable act, she spent twelve years praying while standing several hours a day in the shallow waters of the lake near the shore, an act common among devout Ethiopians. Living in solitude, she moved around the lake, staying at monasteries, including Narga Sellase and Tana Qirqos. During this period, she had visions, speaking with angels and saints as well as Christ and his mother the Virgin Mary.

In her most well-known vision, she traveled to heaven and hell to plead with Christ and Satan to reconcile themselves to each other so that human beings would no longer suffer due to their enmity.[2][6]

Then the biblical Patriarchs came to her in a dream and told her to settle at Gʷangut, located on the southwestern end of Lake Tana. They told her that the entire world would come there to prostrate themselves at her feet. In response, she gave up the life of a hermit and founded a monastery.[8]

A monk named Yəsḥaq (Isaac) helped her by building a church, training female novices, and celebrating the liturgy. Eventually, she withdrew once again into solitude, standing in a pit for three years and in the lake for another three years.[6]

She was buried at Gʷangʷət, where her monastery is today.

Some scholars, such as Ephraim Isaac, consider her to be one of the first female philosophers in Ethiopia, and many other countries.[2][9] Her contemporary, Zara Yacob of 17th century Ethiopia is also seen as the first philosopher of Ethiopia, and Africa.[9]

One scholar has stated that her hagiography is one of only "ten known biographies of African women written by Africans before the nineteenth century."[1] Also, that because it is an "as-told-to" biography, "it is more of an intellectual autobiography, the narrative of one woman’s philosophy and her belief in the possibilities for healing a broken world".[1]

Krəstos Śämra is one of such visionary medieval women saints as Julian of Norwich and Margery Kempe, Rabia of Basri and Lalla Aziza, and Mirabai.[1]