NUNEZ BARRETO, JOÃO. - Jesuit, first patriarch of Abyssinia, b. at Porto, d. at Goa (India) on 22 Dec. 1562.
Having entered the Society of Jesus as a priest (1544), he initially devoted himself at Tetuan in Morocco, above all to the ransom of Christian slaves, until on 24 Jan. 1554 he was chosen by Giovanni III of Portugal, upon the recommendation of St. Ignazio himself, as patriarch of Ethiopia. In 1555 he left Rome with Melchiorre Carneiro and Andrea Oviedo, designated as his coadjutors, and with nine other companions for Lisbon, where he and his coadjutors were consecrated; he then sailed for Goa. He had already been preceded from there into Ethiopia by Fr. Gonzalo Rodriguez, who, having found that the emperor Claudio (Galšwdewos) had changed his previously favourable attitude toward union with Rome, had been obliged to return. N. then remained at Goa awaiting better times, which he did not, however, see. Meanwhile he had sent his coadjutor Oviedo to Ethiopia (1557), where he preached amid hardships and dangers, but with little result, ending his life in utter abandonment among the Amba of Abyssinia (1577).