Emperor Fasilides

Alem Sagad Fasilides was born on 20 November 1603 at Magazaz, in Bulga in the Shewa region, a son of Emperor Susenyos I (placed in this archive) and his consort, whose name is recorded as Sultana. He came of age amid the gravest religious crisis of his dynasty: his father's embrace of Roman Catholicism, urged by Jesuit missionaries, and the bitter civil strife that conversion unleashed across the highlands.

Proclaimed emperor in 1630 during a revolt, Fasilides took the throne in full when Susenyos abdicated in 1632. Among his first acts was the restoration of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church to its ancient standing as the faith of the imperial state. He sent to the Patriarch of Alexandria for a new abuna, renewing a bond that had lapsed, and he confiscated Jesuit lands, exiling the missionaries to Fremona and later banishing them altogether.

Around 1636 Fasilides broke with the tradition of the roving royal camp and fixed a permanent capital at Gondar. There he raised the great stone castle of the Fasil Ghebbi and founded churches, inaugurating the Gondarine age that would flower for two centuries. He built stone bridges across his realm and turned his diplomacy toward the Muslim powers of the age while closing Ethiopia to Europe.

He reigned until his death at Azezo on 18 October 1667 and was laid to rest at the monastery of St. Stephen on Daga Island in Lake Tana. May the founder of Gondar, who guarded the faith of his fathers, be honored in lasting memory.