The GE'ez Acts of Abba Estifanos of Gwendagwende

Abuna Estifanos (Stephen), the edition and translation of whose hagiographical life is presented here, was the leader of a monastic reform movement that shook the foundations of the Ethiopian State and Church in the 15th century. The reform movement of Estifanos and his followers was known to the local clergy from the time of the reign of Emperor Zar'a Ya'eqob (1434-1468). The basis of the this reform movement was that monks should observe a strict monastic life, according to the rules laid down by the fathers of monasticism, and that the teachers of the Church should limit the doctrine of Christianity to what was found in the eighty-one canonical books of the Bible, recognized by the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, and the observance of God's Commandments found in them.