Continued 👇🏾
✍🏾The Steadfast Faith of Welete Petros
✍🏾When her aged mother heard what had happened, she sent a servant to her, and her devoted follower, Ehte kirstos, came to her immediately.
✍🏾Welete Petros lived in exile at Gerbel Barha for three years, often suffering from illness. She endured all her pain for the sake of her faith. After being released from exile, she settled in a place called Chanqa in Dembiya. When the persecution subsided, many nuns who had abandoned their monastic robes out of fear gathered around her, and she advised them to return to their monasteries and remain firm. Later, she traveled to Tana Kirkos.
She then went to the island of Mitsli, where she gathered a number of monks around her and strengthened them to fight for their religion. Yet she herself continued to suffer. When she heard that a man named Meziraete kirstos had come to the area with a royal letter forcing Orthodox believers to accept Catholic baptism, she instructed the monks, sent them into the desert for safety, and once again went into exile. When peace returned to the country, she came back to Misli at the age of forty-nine.
✍🏾After returning from exile, she made her home in a place called Menzo. There she lived in prayer and supplication. Abba Tsega Christos, the abbot of Debre Mariam who had been with her at Mitsli Monastery, translated Metshafe hawin for her.
✍🏾When Emperor Suseniyos was struck by God’s judgment . and when the Orthodox faith returned , Abune Markos, the Egyptian bishop, came to Ethiopia and met her on his journey. The bishop said that news of her separation from her husband and her suffering for the faith had reached all the way to Egypt.
She then established a monastery in Menzo and lived there as a monastic mother. The monastery she founded housed both men and women. After the restoration of the Orthodox faith and the reign of Emperor Fasil, she traveled to Gondar to greet the king and to see her relatives.
The king received her with great honor and visited her daily. Whenever he entered, he greeted her respectfully because of the strength of her faith and the holiness of her life.
✍🏾Welete Petros lived the monastic life faithfully and departed this world at the age of fifty. She is commemorated in her monastery on Hidar 17. The feast of her companion Welete Kristos is celebrated on Hidar 7.
✍🏾Standing firm in the faith is not determined by gender. Our Church has many saints like Welete Petros. Today’s sisters and mothers should learn from her example, standing strong in the faith and fighting for the truth.
May the name of the Holy God be praised forever and ever in every tongue that He has created, today and always.
May the blessings of God's mother, the virgin, and the cross be upon us.
Amen.
© John's Repentance
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