426 TRAVELS TO DISCOVER
banos, or the high church; while Hannes, his father, had done every thing in his power to instil into his son a prepossession in favour of those of Abba Eustathius.
To these opinions, therefore, so widely different, as well in religion as the things of the world, I attribute the young prince's disinclination to live with his father. This seems confirmed by the first step he took upon his mounting the throne, which was to make an alteration in the church government from what his father had left it at his deaths.
It was on the 7th of July 1680 he was proclaimed king; the next day he deposed the Acab Saat Constantius, and gave his place to Asera Christos. He then called a council of the clergy on the 27th of September, when he deposed Itchegué Tzaga Christos, and in his room named Cyriacus.
It was now the time that, according to custom, he was to make his profession in regard to the difference I have formerly mentioned that subsisted between the two parties about the incarnation of Christ. But this he refused to do in the present state of the church, as there was then no certain Abuna in Abyssinia. For Hannes, before he died, had written to the patriarch of Alexandria to depose both Abuna Christodulus and Marcus, who, in case of death, was to have succeeded him, and this under pretence that, he had varied in his faith between the two contending parties.
