Azevedo, LUTZ DE, Ethiopic missionary and scholar, b., according to the more probable narration of Franco (Imogem da Vertude em o Noviciado de Coimbra, 359-61), at Carrazedo Montenegro, in the Diocese of Braga, Portugal, in 1573; d. in Ethiopia in 1634. He became a Jesuit in 1588, and sailed for the Indies in 1592. In 1605 he began his missionary labors in Ethiopia, where he remained until his death. Azevedo was called the Apostle of the Agaus, and is justly reckoned among the most illustrious of the Doctors of the Church of Ethiopia, to which he reclaimed many schismatics. He translated into Chaldaic the commentaries of Father Toletus on the Epistle of St. Paul to the Romans, and those of Francis Ribera on the Epistle of St. Paul to the Hebrews; the “Canonical Hours“, the “Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary”, and other works. He is the author of a grammar of the Ethiopic language, and translated into the same tongue the New Testament, a Portuguese catechism, instructions on the Apostles’ Creed, and other books of the same nature.
JOSEPH M. WOODS