religious leader who, on Jan. 14, 1951, became the first Ethiopian bishop to be consecrated abuna, or primate, of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. From the 4th century the Ethiopian Church was headed by Egyptian abunas appointed by the Alexandrian patriarch of the Coptic Church. As the result of reforms negotiated under Emperor Haile Selassie I, however, the Ethiopian Orthodox Church began in the late 1940s to gain independence. Following Basilios' consecration, the church achieved completely indigenous leadership by 1954. In 1959 it became an autocephalous (ecclesiastically independent) body, and Basilios was made its first patriarch.