St. Kristos Samra is called the “Mother of Reconciliation” and her name means “Christ delights in her.” She is considered one of the first female philosophers of Ethiopia and remains the most venerated saint in Ethiopia today. Born sometime in the 1400s, an account of her life was written in 1508, regarded as one of only ten known biographies of African women written by Africans before the 1800s. In her lifetime, she spanned the realities of marriage, motherhood, and monasticism, remaining committed to her vision of healing a broken world, the birth-giving of small tastes of the Kingdom.
Born into a wealthy and holy family in the Christian Ethiopian empire, St. Kristos Samra was married to the son of the emperor’s priest. According to her biography, the emperor looked upon Kristos Samra as a daughter and gave her gifts and servants. She was known as a fierce, beautiful, and determined woman, and gave birth to nine children.
Although her fiery nature was often put to good use, one day, St. Kristos Samra became angry with one of her servants and thrust at her with a firebrand, causing this servant’s death. Her biography tells us that she was immediately overcome with remorse and prayed for the Lord to bring this woman back from the dead. To everyone’s astonishment, that is exactly what happened.
St. Kristos Samra took this as a sign that she should devote her life to God in prayer, and left for Däbrä Libanos, Ethiopia’s most famous monastic community. She was known to spend long hours praying while standing in the lake and lived the life of a hermit. After some years, she received a vision asking her to establish her own religious community on Lake Tana. For nearly the rest of her life, she devoted herself to this task, mentoring dozens of younger women who came to join her.
The last three years of St. Kristos Samra’s life were spent again in solitude and prayer. Before her death, however, she told a scribe named Filəṗṗos her life story along with thirty of her visions. In some ways, she was like a combination of Julian of Norwich and St. Katherine combined: the resulting document contains a short biographical telling of her life next to a much more extensive detailing of her philosophy and visions, “her belief in the possibilities for healing a broken world,” according to her English translator. She desired to see all of the universe reconciled, even hoping for the repentance of the devil himself. In her vision, evil never had the final word, and reconciliation was the goal of all.
St. Kristos Samra is buried at Gʷangut, where her monastery remains a site of great pilgrimage today. Many churches and monasteries in Ethiopia are named after her and devoted to her. Like the recently canonized Matushka Olga of Alaska, she holds a special place in women’s hearts as a saint who helps women conceive, give birth to a healthy child, and survive childbirth.
St. Kristos accompanies us as a woman quick to repent, quick to love, and quick in her courage to follow the promptings of the Holy Spirit. In describing her visions of reconciliation and healing, she speaks to the reality of the resurrection. Her commitment to remaking the world one act at a time means that her life profoundly heralds the Kingdom to come.
We celebrate her life on August 30th. Holy Mother Kristos Samra, pray to God for us!