Debre Bizen

Debre Bizen crowns a mountain near Nefasit, its monastery standing high above the road between the Red Sea coast and the Ethiopian highlands. Founded in the 1350s by Filipos, a disciple of Absadi, it became a home of the monastic tradition of Ewostatewos. Its library holds important manuscripts in Ge'ez, among them works of the religious culture sustained by the community.

By 1400 the monks followed the rule of the House of Ewostatewos, and later composed a life of their saint. Emperor Zara Yaqob granted lands to the monastery, a gift recorded in a surviving charter. In the sixteenth century Ottoman campaigns to establish Habesh Eyalet damaged Debre Bizen and other religious houses. The monastery's abbot later helped Abuna Yohannes XIV escape after the church leader was held for ransom by the naib at Arkiko.