Venerable Justin de Jacobis

Giustino Sebastiano Pasquale de Jacobis, CM (9 October 1800 – 31 July 1860) was an Italian Catholic bishop and member of the Congregation of the Mission who served as Apostolic Vicar of Abyssinia and the Titular Bishop of Nilopolis. He is often known in English-speaking countries as Justin de Jacobis. Giustino Sebastiano Pasquale de Jacobis was born on 9 October 1800 at San Fele in the Province of Potenza. On 17 October 1818, he entered the Congregation of the Mission at Naples and made his religious vows there on 18 October 1820. He was ordained to the priesthood at Brindisi on 12 June 1824. After spending some time in the care of souls at Oria and Monopoli he became superior first at Lecce and then at Naples. He was among the priests who ministered during the cholera epidemic in Naples in 1836-1837. In 1839, he was appointed as the first Prefect Apostolic of Ethiopia and entrusted with the foundation of Catholic missions there, a jurisdiction that included what is now Eritrea. He worked first in Adwa, celebrating the liturgy in the local language following the Alexandrian Rite. After laboring with great success in Ethiopia for almost a decade he was appointed as the Titular Bishop of Nilopolis in 1847 and not long afterwards the Vicar Apostolic. However he declined the episcopal honor until 1849 when he was prevailed upon to accept it and receive episcopal consecration in secret. Jacobis built schools in Agame and Akele Guzay for the training of a native priesthood and in the process founding the beginnings of the Ethiopian Catholic Church and the Eritrean Catholic Church. His missionary efforts aroused opposition on the part of Ethiopian Orthodox Patriarch Abuna Salama III and Emperor Tewodros II which resulted in imprisonment and exile. Despite various other kinds of persecution, he founded numerous Catholic missions.