JOAO NUNES BARRETO. — Jesuit, first Patriarch of Abyssinia, b. at Porto, d. at Goa (India) Dec. 22, 1562.
Having been ordained priest in the Society of Jesus (1544), he first devoted himself at Tetuan in Morocco, especially to the redemption of Christian slaves, until Jan. 24, 1554, when he was chosen by John III of Portugal, upon the presentation of St. Ignatius himself, to be Patriarch of Ethiopia. In 1555 he left Rome with Melchior Carneiro and Andrea Oviedo, destined to be his coadjutors, and with nine other companions, for Lisbon, where his consecration and that of his coadjutors took place; thence he sailed for Goa. From there Father Gonzalo Rodriguez had already preceded him into Ethiopia, but having found the dispositions of Emperor Claudius (Galaudewos), previously favorable to union with Rome, changed, he had been obliged to return. Nuniz Barreto then remained at Goa awaiting better times, which, however, he did not see. Meanwhile he had sent his coadjutor Oviedo into Ethiopia (1557), who preached there amid hardships and dangers, but with little fruit, ending his life in extreme abandonment among the Amhara of Abyssinia (1577).