Arts and humanities
"Master class" through his latest book Moines, saints et hérétiques en Éthiopie médiévale. École française de Rome, 2023.
This book seeks both to understand the paradoxical expansion of early Eustathian communities and the meanings of heterodoxy in medieval Ethiopian society.
In the early 14th century, in the north of the Christian kingdom of Ethiopia, the monk Ēwosṭātēwos was at the origin of a dissident monastic movement, based on the strict observance of the two Sabbaths, Saturday and Sunday. Such a doctrine was deemed heretical by the ruler and the Egyptian metropolitan, who ruled the Ethiopian Church. Ēwosṭātēwos' followers, the Eustathians, were then ostracized from Christian society. Despite violent persecution, the monks established powerful communities by the mid-14th century, contributing to the widespread dissemination of their ideas and the cult of their founding saints.
How can we explain the astonishing trajectory of the movement founded by Ēwosṭātēwos?
This book seeks both to understand the paradoxical expansion of the first Eustathian communities and the meanings of heterodoxy in medieval Ethiopian society.
Through the analysis of hagiographic narratives and archives, combined with fieldwork, this study shows that the Eustathaeans were able to mobilize multiple strategies to establish their communities over the long term, and to stage their history and memory.
