BERMUDES, João. — Portuguese, false patriarch of Ethiopia. A strange figure of a 16th-century adventurer who, after returning from Ethiopia as a barber-surgeon, passed himself off as a patriarch and deceived many. Contemporary documents, partly published recently, have proven the falsity of B.'s claims. He died in Portugal in 1570.
BIBL.: S. Euringer, Der Pseudopatriarch J. B. (1539-55), in Theologie u. Glaube, 17 (1925), pp. 226-56.
Ignazio Ortiz de Urbina