[16] Upon succeeding Eggipus, Ethiopia's new king, Hirtacus, promised Matthew the apostle half of his kingdom if he could persuade Ephigenia to marry him.

After Hiraticus's death, the people chose Ephigenia's brother as their king, who reigned for seventy years, leaving his kingdom to his son who filled Egypt with Christian churches.

[1][2][3] The oldest textual source of her Life seems to be the Legenda Aurea (Golden Legend, also known as the Historia Longobardica or Flos Sanctorum) of Italian chronicler Jacobus de Voragine, compiled around 1275 AD.

[8][17] This was an influential book on Renaissance spirituality and the understanding of sanctity which was read not only as a hagiography - a collection of lives of the saints - but as a vade mecum, a manual of asceticism.

"[3]The Anglican Catholic Church records the memory of Saint Ephigenia, contained within the Life of Saint Matthew, citing The Anglican Breviary (1955): "Although many parts of Christendom have delighted to claim this Apostle as the founder of their Churches, the usual tradition is that he went into the regions south of the Caspian Sea, (which same are in this instance called Ethiopia) where he preached the Gospel and confirmed the same by many wondrous deeds.

The greatest of these is told on this wise: that he raised to life the king's daughter, Iphigenia, whereby the royal family was converted to Christ; that after the king died Hirtacus his successor demanded Iphigenia to wife; and that she (who through Matthew's teaching had vowed herself to God) rejected Hirtacus in pursuance of her vow; for which reason Matthew was by royal order put to death whilst celebrating the holy Mysteries, whereby he fulfilled his apostleship in martyrdom.

The Orthodox Synaxarion according to the tradition of Nikephoros Kallistos Xanthopoulos (c. 1320), states that after being cruelly treated by the Parthians and Medes, St. Matthew then went to spread the Gospel to a certain city called "Mirmena / Myrmena,"[31][32][33][note 6] supposedly in Ethiopia, described as a land that was inhabited by tribes of cannibals:[33] "After departing from Jerusalem, the holy Apostle Matthew preached the glad tidings of the Gospel in many lands.

Proclaiming the good news of Christ, he passed through Macedonia, Syria, Persia, Parthia and Media, establishing Churches there and in other places...He travelled all about Ethiopia, which had fallen to him by lot, and enlightened it with the light of the knowledge of the Gospel.

[38] The Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America does include St. Ephigenia of Ethiopia on its calendar of Saints, along with her traditional Latin biography, "commemorated on November 16 (also on September 21)".

[42] The Brazilian-born priest José Pereira de Santana devoted a definitive, two-volume work to Elesbaan and Ephigenia, published respectively in 1735 and 1738 at Lisbon.

[46] Elesbaan represented the triumph of Christianity over Judaism in the person of Dunaan, while Ephigenia stood for the early, voluntary acceptance of the Gospel in Africa.

According to Brazilian sociologist and anthropologist Gilberto Freyre, writing in 1922, "the festival of Saint Ephigenia, a sort of black Madonna, was enjoyed to the utmost by the colored folks, whose "consciousness of kind" was ably aroused by the priests.

[note 12] These artistic representations located in a private chapel on the hacienda La Quebrada in San Luis de Cañete were presented as legitimate artifacts of Santa Efigenia’s status as a folk or popular saint central to their construction of an Afro-Peruvian black identity and culture of devotion.

[58][59] The Association produces a program flyer that introduces a brief history of the patron saint and focuses on her diffusion and popularity in Brazil, Cuba, and Peru.

[52] The festival has grown in popularity as the Afro-Peruvian community of artists, musicians, writers, sports figures, and admirers have converged on Cañete each September in growing numbers.