Abhor and Mehraela

About Abhor and Mehraela

Abhor and Mehraela are remembered together in an Ethiopian Christian festival calendar. William Cornwallis Harris’s 1844 table names Mehraela as a martyr and Abhor as her brother. Their entry belongs to 14 Ter. The parallel civil-date column is expressly Julian, so its 9 January entry cannot be treated as a present Gregorian observance or as the date of their deaths.

Harris supplies no personal account of their upbringing, work or deaths. His table specifically calls Mehraela a martyr, but gives Abhor only the relationship of brother. Their shared entry preserves a family connection in received Christian remembrance; it does not establish how either person lived or whether they died together.

François Nau’s critical comparison also records the name Mehraela in Copto-Arabic calendars. His index places a martyr of that name on 8 Toubah in several manuscripts, while an appendix lists Mehraël on 14 Toubah with other names. These differing entries show why similarly spelled names and calendar dates need careful comparison. Nau’s notices do not supply an explicit brother named Abhor or resolve every later identification.