Fremona

Fremona was a settlement in northern Ethiopia, in today's region of Tigray. There was in the 16th and 17th century a branch of Catholic missionaries.

This the Jesuit missionaries of Negus ( Emperor ) Minas assigned place was because of the two stony streams that ran through this settlement, actually Maigoga: appointed ( from Tigrinya mai " village" and Guagua " water"). The missionaries named the branch to enable the Holy Frumentius, who had converted the kings of Axum to Christianity. Bishop Andre Oviedo died here since 1577. His grave became a place of pilgrimage for Catholics in this region.

After Emperor Fasilides itself had turned away from Catholicism in 1634 and restored the official status of traditional Ethiopian church, he banished the Catholic priests, patriarchs and bishops to Fremona, which at that time, according to Jeronimo Lobo had 400 inhabitants.

Finally Fremona was abandoned by the Catholic missionaries throughout. The historian Richard Pankhurst refers to a tax report from 1697 in which Fremona appears under its old name Maigoga. The Egyptologist Henry Salt (1780-1827), who came in 1800 through this area, however, reported that he could find no one who could give him information on this name.

• History ( Ethiopia)