Born: 1592 (circa), Ethiopia
Died: 23 November 1642
Country most active: Ethiopia
Also known as: ወለተ ጴጥሮስ
Gädlä Wälättä P̣eṭros, published in 1672 and written in Gəˁəz, is one of the oldest surviving African biographies, and the earliest known biography of an African woman. But more impressive than the work itself is the woman whose story it tells – Ethiopian saint Walatta Petros, a revered religious leader who was a driving force preventing the Catholic colonization of her country and her church. A Ḥabäša noblewoman, she led a successful, nonviolent movement against Portuguese Jesuits, and the prominent men of her country who supported this religious incursion – including their own king.
While the first wave of Jesuits, who arrived in 1557, had been ineffective, their successors were not. In the early 1600s, they converted the Ḥabäša king Susənyos, who rejected the Ethiopian Orthodox Täwaḥədo Church and declared Catholicism the people’s new religion, with many high-ranking men following his lead.
“Nevertheless, a significant portion of the population, including many lowerlevel ecclesiastics, the people in the countryside, and women of the court, did not,” as one scholar notes. Even within the king’s own family, she writes, “His mother rebuked him, his wife left him due to his conversion, his beloved niece gave land to shelter anti-Catholic resistors, and two of his daughters participated in anti-Catholic rebellions against him.” Petros and other high-ranking women, when faced with pressure from the priests, “argued with them, defeated them and embarrassed them.” In the end, the women were successful, and the Jesuits were repelled. It would be another 250 years before Europeans attempted to colonize Ethiopia again. On a personal level, Petros also left her husband to become a nun, later elevated to sainthood.
Depending on the interpretation, Walatta Petros could be understood as a lesbian, bisexual or asexual through a modern lens. Upon meeting Ǝḫətä Krəstos, another divorced woman who would become her life partner, the scene is described:
As soon as our holy mother Walatta Petros and Eheta Kristos saw each other from afar, love was infused into both their hearts, love for one another, and… they were like people who had known each other beforehand because the Holy Spirit united them.
Her previous marriage to a man could be an indicator of bisexuality, or simply adherence to the cultural norms of the time. But while it certainly sounds like a romantic relationship, it seems unlikely it was a sexual one. The two women were committed to celibacy, and there is even a scene in the biography describing Petros’s anger upon seeing other nuns acting lustfully with each other – like her marriage, this could be an indicator of social norms of the time, or her own sexuality (or rather, asexuality). However, given the phrasing, her response can also be interpreted as excitement or desire rather than anger.
In other words, we can never know Petros’s exact feelings or how she would identify herself today, but there is certainly enough evidence to consider her a queer icon, as well as a religious one.