# Petros I of Ethiopia

Source: https://coptic-lore-forge.lovable.app/wiki/petros-i-of-ethiopia — Coptic Orthodox Wiki (updated 2026-10-01)

Petros I was metropolitan of Ethiopia in the first half of the tenth century, remembered for his role in a royal succession and later accounts of his mistreatment.[^1][^3]

## Appointment and royal succession

Petros I flourished in the first half of the tenth century as metropolitan of Ethiopia. According to the *History of the Patriarchs*, he was chosen and consecrated by the Coptic patriarch Quzma, or Cosmas III (920–932), during the reign of an Ethiopian sovereign whose name is not given in the Arabic account. His name appears in Arabic as Butrus.[^1]

Before his death, this sovereign entrusted his two sons to Petros and asked him to select whichever would make the better ruler. Petros chose the younger brother and placed him on the throne.[^2]

## Later remembrance and succession

The *History of the Patriarchs*, as summarized in the account of Petros’s successor Dan’el, relates that a later Ethiopian ruler attributed his kingdom’s calamities to divine wrath over an earlier king’s mistreatment of Petros I. The account states that the Ethiopian church had remained without a metropolitan since that mistreatment.[^3]

The later ruler asked King George II of Nubia to intercede with the Coptic patriarch for pardon and the appointment of a new metropolitan. George wrote to Patriarch Philotheus (979–1003), who appointed Dan’el, a monk of Dayr Abu Maqar. Dan’el is considered Petros I’s direct successor despite the decades separating their episcopates.[^4]

## Sources
[^1]: The Coptic Encyclopedia, Volume 3, Aziz S. Atiya (Editor in Chief) (p. 829)
[^2]: The Coptic Encyclopedia, Volume 3, Aziz S. Atiya (Editor in Chief) (p. 829)
[^3]: The Coptic Encyclopedia, Volume 3, Aziz S. Atiya (Editor in Chief) (p. 831)
[^4]: The Coptic Encyclopedia, Volume 3, Aziz S. Atiya (Editor in Chief) (p. 831)