Antonio Fernandes (Jesuit)

:"For the U.S. Representative from New Mexico, see Antonio M. Fernández."Antonio Fernandes (Fernández) (b. at Lisbon, c. 1569; d. at Goa, 12 November 1642) was a Portuguese Jesuit missionary.

Life

About 1602 he was sent to India, whence two years later he went to Abyssinia, where he soon won favour with King Melek Seghed III (Susenyos).

Sent on missions for the king, Fernandes in 1613 headed towards Malindi, but had to turn back on encountering the Oromo [Paul B. Henze, "Layers of Time: A History of Ethiopia" (2000), p. 96.] . He translated various liturgical books into Ethiopian, and was the author of ascetical and polemical works against the other faiths prevalent in Ethiopia.

Susenyos, years later, converted to Catholicism in 1622, after the arrival of the Latin Patriarch of Ethiopia, for whom he had petitioned the Holy See. Fernandes at this time became superior of the mission to Ethiopia, though his advice wasn't always heeded [Adrian Hastings, "The Church in Africa, 1450-1950" (1996), p. 154.] .

Susenyos publicly acknowledged the primacy of the Roman See and constituted Catholicism the State religion (1626). For a time conversions were made, the monarc resorting to compulsion. The emperor's son, however, took sides with the schismatics, headed a rebellion, seized his father's throne, and reinstalled the former faith proscribing the Catholic religion under the penalty of death.

The missionaries, on their expulsion, found a temporary protector in one of the petty princes of the country, by whom, however, they were soon abandoned. Those who reached the port of Massowah were held for a ransom. Father Fernandes, then over eighty years of age, was one of those detained as hostage, but a younger companion persuaded the pasha to substitute him, and Fernandes was allowed to return to India, where he ended his days.

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