PAEZ, PEDRO

born 1564, Olmedo, Spain died May 20, 1622, Gorgora, Ethiopia in full Pedro Pez Xaramillo, also called Pero Pez learned Jesuit priest who, in the tradition of Frumentiusfounder of the Ethiopian churchwent as a missionary to Ethiopia, where he became known as the second apostle of Ethiopia. Pez entered the Society of Jesus in 1582 and sailed for Goa, in India, in 1588. En route to Ethiopia (1589) he was captured by Turkish pirates and enslaved until 1596, when he returned to Goa. He finally reached Ethiopia in 1603. There he learned two of the main languages, translated a catechism, and wrote a treatise on the theological errors of the Ethiopian church and a history of the country. Pez succeeded in converting the formerly monophysite king Susenyos of Ethiopia to orthodoxy, and for a while most of Ethiopia was Roman Catholic. Pez was the first European to visit Lake Tana, the source of the Blue Nile in northwestern Ethiopia, where he died of fever.