In December of 1841, the Coptic Orthodox Patriarch of Alexandria elevated a monk by the name of Andra'us to serve as the new metropolitan for the archdiocese of al-Habashah (Ethiopia.) This was in keeping with a centuries-old convention whereby "Egyptian" church officials nominated Ethiopia's ecclesiastical hierarch from among a pool of "Egyptian" monks who inhabited the monastic settlements of the Eastern Desert. Andra'us, who was now to be known as "Abuna Salama II," would spend the next 25 years of his life attempting to navigate the intricacies of nineteenth century Ethiopian politics. His efforts were only further complicated by mounting tensions between the Egyptian and Ethiopian states, and the ever expanding influences of European powers in Northeast Africa. From his "modern" education in Church Missionary Society schools to his final years of imprisonment on charges of disloyalty to the Ethiopian kingdom, the life and career of Andra'us/Salama II offer a unique window into the renting changes taking place during the middle decades of the nineteenth century. Drawing upon archival materials of the Church Missionary Society, in addition to Abuna Salama's official Ethiopian chronicle, official Coptic ecclesiastical documents, and other Arabic, European and Ethiopian sources, I will examine the early stages of a process that would ultimately lead to the sundering of the ancient bonds that had linked "Egyptian," "Ethiopian" and other Christians of the Nile Valley in shared communion. I will also explore the distinctive geography of Abuna Salama's "world," one that transcended not only modern national boundaries but also the sweeping "world regions" of Africa and the Middle East. In the course of this, I will argue that it is not possible to restore the integrity or to grasp the complexity of his biography without challenging and addressing a host of stubborn conceptual frames that have effectively dismembered it.