Pedro Páez

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Pedro Páez or Pedro Pais (1564 - May 3, 1622) was a Jesuit missionary in Ethiopia. He was born in modern-day Madrid during the union of the Spanish and the Portuguese Empires. He studied at Coimbra.

Sent from Goa to Ethiopia as a missionary, Páez was held captive in Yemen for three years, where he used his time to learn Arabic. He finally arrived at Massawa in 1603, and made his way to Fremona, which was the Jesuit base in that land. Unlike his predecessor, Andre de Oviedo, Paul B. Henze describes him as "gentle, learned, considerate of the feelings of others". When summoned to the court of the young [[Emperor of Ethiopia|Template:IPA]] Za Dengel, his knowledge of Amharic and Geez, as well as his knowledge of Ethiopian customs impressed the sovereign so much that Za Dengel decided to convert from the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahido Church to Catholicism -- although Paez warned him not to announce his declaration too quickly. However, when Za Dengel proclaimed changes in the observance of the Sabbath, Paez retired to Fremona, and waited out the ensuing civil war that ended with the emperor's death.

This caution benefited Páez when Susenyos assumed the throne in 1607. Sissinios invited him to his court, where the two became friends. Sissinios made a grant of land to Paez on the peninsula of Gorgora on the north side of Lake Tana, where he built a new center for his fellow Jesuits, starting with a stone church. Eventually Páez also converted Sissinios to Catholicism shortly before his own death in 1622.

Some of the Catholic churches he designed are still standing and were an influence on Ethiopian architecture.

He was the first European to visit Lake Tana, one of the sources of the Blue Nile, and to taste coffee.

Páez wrote an account of Ethiopia, História da Ethiópia in 1620, which has been printed as Volumes II and III of Beccari's Rerum Aethiopicarum Scriptores occidentales Inedtii (Rome, 1905-17). His work was published in 1945 at Porto in a new edition by Sanceau, Feio and Teixeira, Péro Pais: História da Etiópia.

In addition to translating the Catechism into Ge'ez, Paez is believed to be the author of the treatise De Abyssinorum erroribus. Páez's writings are one of the few works in Portuguese about Ethiopia that has not been translated into English.de:Pedro Páez es:Pedro Páez