DE JACOBIS, GIUSTINO, blessed. - Titular bishop of Nilopolis and first apostolic vicar of Abyssinia, b. at S. Fele (Potenza) on 9 Oct. 1800, d. at Eidale, near the Alighedé valley, on 31 July 1860. He entered the Congregation of the Mission of S. Vincent de Paul and, ordained priest at Brindisi on 12 June 1824, immediately proved himself a most zealous missionary; he was a true angel of charity during the cholera that decimated Naples in 1836–37.
At the invitation of Propaganda Fide he left for Abyssinia in 1839 as apostolic prefect, and there he laboured tirelessly for 21 years for the conversion of the heretics, thousands of whom he brought back into the bosom of the Catholic Church. He established in Abyssinia the first institute for the training of the native clergy, calling it the College of the Immaculate Conception. Having overcome much resistance, he was consecrated bishop on 7 Jan. 1849 by Massasia; and the first person ordained was a hero of the faith, the native blessed Gebre Mikiël. In Abyssinia he endured labours, privations, sacrifices, and persecutions of every kind. The wicked Salama wrote of him to King Teodoro: « Drive away Abuna Jacob . . . but do not kill him: he is a saint, and no one observes the law of the Lord better than he does ». On 31 July 1860 he peacefully expired. “Thus died,” wrote Massasia, “the founder of the Abyssinian Mission, the tireless apostle of East Africa, the Teacher of missionaries, the model of courage and self-denial indispensable to the successful fulfilment of the sacred ministry among those people.” On 25 June 1939, the first centenary of the foundation of his mission in Ethiopia, he was beatified by Pius XII.