The Titular Patriarch of the East Indies ( la, Patriarcha Indiarum Orientalium; for Titular Patriarchate of the East Indies) in the Catholic

hierarchy A hierarchy (from Greek: , from , 'president of sacred rites') is an arrangement of items (objects, names, values, categories, etc.) that are represented as being "above", "below", or "at the same level as" one another. Hierarchy is an important ...

is the title of the Archbishop of Goa and Daman in India; another of his titles is the Primate of the East. Unlike the patriarchs and the major archbishops of the Eastern Catholic Churches '' sui juris'', the Patriarch of the East Indies is within the Latin Church similar to the residential Latin Patriarchs of Venice,

Lisbon Lisbon (; pt, Lisboa ) is the capital and largest city of Portugal, with an estimated population of 544,851 within its administrative limits in an area of 100.05 km2. Grande Lisboa, Lisbon's urban area extends beyond the city's administr ...

and Jerusalem, enjoying only an honorary position. Like the Patriarch of the West Indies, the Patriarch of the East Indies is a titular patriarchate unlike the residential Latin Catholic Patriarchs. The title is attached to the Archbishop of Goa and Daman, the diocesan

ordinary Ordinary or The Ordinary often refer to: Music * ''Ordinary'' (EP) (2015), by South Korean group Beast * ''Ordinary'' (Every Little Thing album) (2011) * "Ordinary" (Two Door Cinema Club song) (2016) * "Ordinary" (Wayne Brady song) (2008) * ...

of the Archdiocese of Goa and Daman and the metropolitan archbishop of the Province of Goa and Daman. This title of Patriarch or Primate of the East Indies was conferred upon the Archbishop of Goa as a result of a concordat between the Holy See and the Crown of Portugal; concerning the link between religious and political aspects of

Portuguese India The State of India ( pt, Estado da Índia), also referred as the Portuguese State of India (''Estado Português da Índia'', EPI) or simply Portuguese India (), was a state of the Portuguese Empire founded six years after the discovery of a se ...

, known as the '' Padroado'' system. Later, with Portugal's decline as a colonial power, a difficult period resulted that was resolved by a further agreement by which Portugal renounced its rights of patronage. In this way the episcopal appointments in actual or former Portuguese colonial territory reverted to the common provisions of Latin ecclesiological law, with no intermediary between them and the Holy See. As regards India, this meant that the Holy See was free to make appointments to the episcopate in regions such as British Bombay. The later isolation of the territory of Goa and Damaon as enclaves in India prior to the invasion of Indian forces in 1961 accounts for the fact that the Archbishop of Goa for a number of decades was immediately subject to the Holy See and had no

suffragan A suffragan bishop is a type of bishop in some Christian denominations. In the Anglican Communion, a suffragan bishop is a bishop who is subordinate to a metropolitan bishop or diocesan bishop (bishop ordinary) and so is not normally jurisdictiona ...

dioceses. In the more distant past the archbishop did have a true

metropolitan Metropolitan may refer to: * Metropolitan area, a region consisting of a densely populated urban core and its less-populated surrounding territories * Metropolitan borough, a form of local government district in England * Metropolitan county, a typ ...

jurisdiction, with suffragan dioceses. These, however, were progressively stripped away or suppressed, the final suffragan diocese in India was the Diocese of Damaon, which was merged with the Bishopric of Goa on May 1, 1928, to form the present

archdiocese In church governance, a diocese or bishopric is the ecclesiastical district under the jurisdiction of a bishop. History In the later organization of the Roman Empire, the increasingly subdivided provinces were administratively associate ...

. The archdiocese formally lost its status as a metropolitan see on January 1, 1975, when the Dioceses of Macao and

Dili Dili (Portuguese/Tetum: ''Díli'') is the capital, largest city of East Timor and the second largest city in Timor islands after Kupang (Indonesia). It lies on the northern coast of the island of Timor, in a small area of flat land hemmed in ...

were transferred from the province of Goa. On November 25, 2006 Pope Benedict XVI elevated it again to a metropolitan archdiocese, with the Diocese of Sindhudurg as its suffragan.

Patriarchs of the East Indies

Sources

* * * *

External links

Konkani Catholics - Goa, Karwar, Mangalore

Goan and Mangalorean Konkani Catholics Blog
{{Patriarchates in Christianity Latin patriarchates