Saizana

Saizana was the brother of King Ezana of Axum, who made Christianity the official religion of the Axumite kingdom. The kingdom bordered the Red Sea. His father was King Ousanas, and his mother Queen Sofya, who ruled as regent until Ezana came of age. According to the historian Rufinus, he was converted to Christianity with his brother by the missionary Frumentius. With his brother he resisted the attempts of the Christian emperor Constantius II to remove Frumentius from his see as bishop and replace him with an Arian.

He was a general in his brother's army and co-⁠ruled with him for a short time. Ezana sent him, with another brother, Hadefa, to put down an uprising of the Beja; the two brothers were victorious, and six Beja tribes (4400 people) were resettled in a province called Matlia, believed to have been in the area of the modern province of Begemder in Ethiopia. He is considered a saint by the Coptic Church, on 1 October, and is also acknowledged as a saint in the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church.