Father Afonso Mendes was a Portuguese Jesuit theologian, and Patriarch of Ethiopia from 1622 to 1634.
11 Facts About Afonso Mendes
1.
2.
The writings of Mendes include Expeditionis Aethiopicae, which describes the customs and conditions of Ethiopia.
3.
Afonso Mendes entered the Society of Jesus, where he was ordained priest, he received his doctorate in theology at the University of Coimbra, where he subsequently taught at the College of Arts.
4.
Afonso Mendes condemned a number of local practices, which included Saturday Sabbath and frequent fasts.
5.
Afonso Mendes told women that their children were in hell because they had been baptized in the Ethiopian Orthodox Church.
6.
Afonso Mendes ordained many Catholic priests and had Latin texts, including the mass, translated into the local language.
7.
Patriarch Afonso Mendes confirmed that this was, indeed, the actual will of the Emperor, his protector.
8.
Afonso Mendes appears to have spent the rest of his life in Goa, where he wrote his book on Ethiopian history and geography and the Jesuit mission in Ethiopia, Expeditionis Aethiopicae.
9.
Afonso Mendes is frequently blamed for the failure of the Jesuit mission in Ethiopia.
10.
However, some have argued that the Jesuit organization blamed Afonso Mendes, who was only carrying out their orders, to avoid the failure being laid at their feet.
11.
Decades later, Merid Wolde Aregay suggested that Afonso Mendes feared appearing lax and weak in the eyes of his superiors in Rome and behaved accordingly.