Aleixo de Menezes
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Aleixo de Menezes (January 25, 1559—May 3, 1617) was Archbishop of Goa, Archbishop of Braga, Portugal, and Spanish viceroy of Portugal.
Aleixo was born in 1559. It is known that he joined the Augustinians. He was consecrated Archbishop of Goa in 1595.
In 1599 under his leadership, the Synod of Diamper reunited the Saint Thomas Christians with the Roman Catholic Church. Following the Synod of Diamper Aleixo de Menezes he served as the Principal Consecrator of Francisco Rodríguez, S.J. as Archbishop of the Archdiocese of Angamalé for the Saint Thomas Christians.Though this is the official view among Syrian Christians who fall under Roman jurisdiction, the Syrian Christians of Eastern rites, independent of Rome, view Menezes as the harbinger of the darkest era in their history. Indeed Menezes and Vasco Da Gama are still seen as foreign villains who imposed Roman authority on a church with apostolic foundations and in ecclesiastical communion with Middle Eastern Christianity.The Synod of Diamper is viewed as the death knell of Nasrani independence.
The result of the synod was unfortunate. As the Catholic Encyclopedia (1913) says:
The only case in which an ancient Eastern rite has been wilfully romanized is that of the Uniat Malabar Christians, where it was not Roman authority but the misguided zeal of Alexius de Menezes, Archbishop of Goa, and his Portuguese advisers at the Synod of Diamper (1599) which spoiled the old Malabar Rite.
In 1612 Aleixo de Menezes was appointed Archbishop of Braga, Portugal. He was Spanish viceroy of Portugal from 1612 to 1615. He died in 1617.
