page_title: Francis Xavier
section_title: Goa and India
hierarchical_section_title: Francis Xavier / Missionary work / Goa and India
caption_attribution_description: Conversion of Paravas by Francis Xavier in 1542 19th-century colored lithograph, copyright expired This work is in the public domain in its country of origin and other countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 70 years or less. You must also include a United States public domain tag to indicate why this work is in the public domain in the United States.&#160;Note that a few countries have copyright terms longer than 70 years: Mexico has 100 years, Jamaica has 95 years, Colombia has 80 years, and Guatemala and Samoa have 75 years. This image may not be in the public domain in these countries, which moreover do not implement the rule of the shorter term. Côte d'Ivoire has a general copyright term of 99 years and Honduras has 75 years, but they do implement the rule of the shorter term. Copyright may extend on works created by French who died for France in World War II (more information), Russians who served in the Eastern Front of World War II (known as the Great Patriotic War in Russia) and posthumously rehabilitated victims of Soviet repressions (more information). This file has been identified as being free of known restrictions under copyright law, including all related and neighboring rights. Removed from the following pages: en:Christianization en:Paravas --OrphanBot 06:13, 10 February 2006 (UTC) Added source, returned image to the pages. --Wetman 17:22, 10 February 2006 (UTC) 20:29, 26 May 2005 Rxasgomez 306x397 (23441 bytes) (Conversion of Paravas by Francis Xavier in 1542 )
context_page_description: Francis Xavier, venerated as Saint Francis Xavier, was a Navarrese Catholic priest, missionary and saint who was the co-founder of the Society of Jesus.
  Born in Javier, Kingdom of Navarre, he was a companion of Ignatius of Loyola and one of the first seven Jesuits who took vows of poverty and chastity at Montmartre, Paris, in 1534. He led an extensive mission into Asia, mainly in the Portuguese Empire of the time and was influential in evangelization work, most notably in India. Although some sources claim that the Goa Inquisition was proposed by Francis Xavier, his letter to the king of Portugal, John III, asked for a special minister whose sole office would be to further Christianity in Goa. He also was the first Christian missionary to venture into Japan, Borneo, the Maluku Islands, and other areas. In those areas, struggling to learn the local languages and in the face of opposition, he had less success than he had enjoyed in India. Xavier was about to extend his missionary preaching to China when he died on Shangchuan Island.
  He was beatified by Pope Paul V on 25 October 1619 and canonized by Pope Gregory XV on 12 March 1622. In 1624 he was made co-patron of Navarre.
context_section_description: Francis Xavier left Lisbon on 7 April 1541, his thirty-fifth birthday, along with two other Jesuits and the new viceroy Martim Afonso de Sousa, on board the Santiago. As he departed, Francis was given a brief from the pope appointing him apostolic nuncio to the East. From August until March 1542 he remained in Portuguese Mozambique, and arrived in Goa, then capital of Portuguese India, on 6 May 1542, thirteen months after leaving Lisbon.
  The Portuguese, following quickly on the great voyages of discovery, had established themselves at Goa thirty years earlier. Francis's primary mission, as ordered by King John III, was to restore Christianity among the Portuguese settlers. According to Teotonio R. DeSouza, recent critical accounts indicate that apart from the posted civil servants, "the great majority of those who were dispatched as 'discoverers' were the riff-raff of Portuguese society, picked up from Portuguese jails." Nor did the soldiers, sailors, or merchants come to do missionary work, and Imperial policy permitted the outflow of disaffected nobility. Many of the arrivals formed liaisons with local women and adopted Indian culture. Missionaries often wrote against the "scandalous and undisciplined" behaviour of their fellow Christians.
  The Christian population had churches, clergy, and a bishop, but there were few preachers and no priests beyond the walls of Goa. The Velliapura family of Velim, Goa, of the St Thomas Christians sect, welcomed the missionaries. Xavier decided that he must begin by instructing the Portuguese themselves, and gave much of his time to the teaching of children. The first five months he spent in preaching and ministering to the sick in the hospitals. After that, he walked through the streets ringing a bell to summon the children and servants to catechism. He was invited to head Saint Paul's College, a pioneer seminary for the education of secular priests, which became the first Jesuit headquarters in Asia.
  Xavier soon learned that along the Pearl Fishery Coast, which extends from Cape Comorin on the southern tip of India to the island of Mannar, off Ceylon (Sri Lanka), there was a Jāti of people called Paravas. Many of them had been baptised ten years before, merely to please the Portuguese who had helped them against the Moors, but remained uninstructed in the faith. Accompanied by several native clerics from the seminary at Goa, he set sail for Cape Comorin in October 1542. He taught those who had already been baptised, and preached to those who weren't. His efforts with the high-caste Brahmins remained unavailing.
  He devoted almost three years to the work of preaching to the people of southern India and Ceylon, converting many. He built nearly 40 churches along the coast, including St. Stephen's Church, Kombuthurai, mentioned in his letters dated 1544.
  During this time, he was able to visit the tomb of Thomas the Apostle in Mylapore (now part of Madras/Chennai then in Portuguese India). He set his sights eastward in 1545 and planned a missionary journey to Makassar on the island of Celebes (today's Indonesia).
  As the first Jesuit in India, Francis had difficulty achieving much success in his missionary trips. His successors, such as de Nobili, Matteo Ricci, and Beschi, attempted to convert the noblemen first as a means to influence more people, while Francis had initially interacted most with the lower classes; (later though, in Japan, Francis changed tack by paying tribute to the Emperor and seeking an audience with him).
caption: Conversion of the Paravars by Francis Xavier in South India, in a 19th-century colored lithograph
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