JOHN DE BRITTO, Saint. - Missionary and martyr of the Society of Jesus. Born in Lisbon on 1 March 1647 to a noble family, as a boy he was a page and companion of Prince Peter of Braganza, the future King Peter II.
Having entered the novitiate in 1662 and been ordained a priest in 1673, he embarked that same year for the East Indies, where he was assigned to the mission of Madura.
He worked first in its northern part, in the kingdoms of Gingi and Tanjore, amid great dangers due to civil wars and persecutions. Superior of the mission in 1685, the following year he went further south, into the kingdom of Marava, but there he was arrested, tortured, condemned to death, and owed his release to a palace revolution. At the end of that same year (1686), he was sent to Europe as procurator of the province of Malabar, but, prevented by the Portuguese court from going to Rome, he set sail again from Lisbon for the East in 1690, despite the desire of King Peter II to keep him as a member of the Council of the Indies and tutor to his son. In India, after having made the canonical visitation of the mission of Madura, he resumed his work in Marava. But, because of one of the illegitimate wives dismissed by a converted royal prince, the Brahmins stirred up the King against the missionary. Arrested and taken to the court, G. de B. was beheaded at Oreyur on 4 February 1693. He was beatified on 17 February 1852 and canonized by Pius XII on 22 June 1947. Feast on 4 February.
Bibliography9 worksJ. Bertrand, Histoire de la Mission du Maduré, III, Paris 1850, with letters of the Saint; G. Boero, Vita del b. G. di B., Rome 1853; Sommer
BIBL.: J. Bertrand, Histoire de la Mission du Maduré, III, Paris 1850, with letters of the Saint; G. Boero, Vita del b. G. di B., Rome 1853; Sommervogel, II, coll. 191-92; Streit, Bibl., V, p. 168 and passim; H. Döring, Vom Edelfonaben zum Märtyrer: der Selige Johannes de B., Freiburg 1920 (in English, Bombay 1933; Portuguese trans. by J. Marinho, S. João de Brito, da pagem a Mártir, 2nd ed., updated, Porto 1948); C. Moreschini, S. G. de B. missionario e martire, Florence 1943; A. Bessières, Le nouveau François-Xavier, et Jean de B. martyr, Toulouse 1947; A. de Bil, Britto (Jean de), in DHG, X, pp. 771-72.
Lamalle, Edmondo. “Giovanni de Britto, santo.” In Enciclopedia Cattolica, vol. VI, col. 623. Città del Vaticano: Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico, 1951. https://azioneromana.com/article/giovanni-de-britto-santo.
MLA
Lamalle, Edmondo. “Giovanni de Britto, santo.” Enciclopedia Cattolica, vol. VI, Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico, 1951, col. 623. Azione Romana, https://azioneromana.com/article/giovanni-de-britto-santo.
BibTeX
@incollection{ec6_giovanni_de_britto_santo,
author = {Lamalle, Edmondo},
title = {Giovanni de Britto, santo},
booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica},
volume = {VI},
pages = {623},
note = {Cited by column},
publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico},
address = {Città del Vaticano},
year = {1951},
url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/giovanni-de-britto-santo}
}
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