The Lineage and Spiritual Biography of Saint Yared
The Lineage and Spiritual Biography of Saint Yared
Fisseha Hailu Gebregiorgis
The legendary Axumite hymnologist St Yared was born when the Axumite Empire was on the course of its zenith in civilization, which was one of the four world superpowers at that time. One of the remarkable Axumite civilizations was the invention of Gǝʿǝz writing system as such genre represents a decisive element of distinction between Middle East heritage and native creations. Apparently, the Axumite civilization produced St Yared who is not only the inventor of the hymn and notation system but also developed three modes of the hymn: gǝʿǝz, ʿǝzl, and araray. They are still used in the Orthodox Tewahdo Church in day-to-day liturgical activity. As a result, he is one of the most venerated Axumite saints of the Orthodox Tewahdo Church, with many churches built for him and recurrent depictions of him in paintings. In fact, he is one of the first revered saints of the Axumite Church. Many saints, from today’s Tigray, and their hagiographic traditions are attributed to the Axumite period; some of them are: Abunä Muse, the son of Tazene and the brother of King Kaleb, Abunä Gäbrä Kristos, the son of Kaleb, Abunä Yohanni, the Däbrä’ ‘Asa and Abunä Matyas of Däbrä Dammo the same is true for St Yared. Therefore, this paper brought Gädlä Yared into a workable focus objective of this paper is to investigate Gädlä St Yared in the light of his biography and spiritual life. The result of the paper remarks that what were the names of his parents and who were his disciples. Moreover, the paper recommends that looking at original hagiography, homily, Miracle, and Mälki’i of St. Yared and his works can open new potential areas for research