Abba Estifanos of Gwendagwende

Who is Abba Estifanos of Gwendagwende?

Abba Estifanos was an Ethiopian Christian monk, itinerant preacher and martyr who is known for his reformation movement and as an early dissident of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church and Emperor Zara Ya'iqob in the 15th century. His followers were known as Stephanites and were known for advocating sola gratia, soli Deo gloria and for their asceticism. Over the course of a century of persecution by clergy and five consecutive kings following Zara Ya'iqob, membership in the Stephanites movement dwindled and vanished. Estifanos was a proponent of soli Deo gloria which placed him at odds with Ethiopian Orthodox Church authorities and Emperor Zara Ya'iqob as his teachings deemed prostration as an act reserved to God alone and hence the teaching of The Church of Ethiopia that prostration for veneration of saints, angelic beings, religious icons and monarch was wrong. His reformation movement taking place close to seventy years prior to European Protestant reformation, the similar tenants that it has with Protestantism and the exponential growth of Evangelicals and Orthodox Tehadeso membership in Ethiopia in the late 20th century has sparked a new interest in his life and that of his followers.