Antonio Francisco Xavier Alvares

Antonio Francisco Xavier Alvares (Alvares Mar Julius, Julius Mar Alvarez) (April 29 1836-September 23 1923) was a Roman Catholic priest in Goa and British India, and later Archbishop-Metropolitan for the Indian Orthodox Church.

Early life

Alvares was born in Verna, Goa, India.

Career as a Priest

Alvares was appointed by the Archbishop of Goa to minister to Catholics in territories of British India. The Portuguese Crown claimed these territories by virtue of ancient privileges (Papal Privilege of Royal Patronage granted by popes beginning in the 14th century, called Padroado in Portuguese). However, these ancient privileges were in sharp contrast to the orders and demands of the more modern Popes and the Congregation of Propaganda Fide which had separated these areas and re-organized them as Vicariates Apostolic ruled by non-Portuguese bishops, since the English rulers wished to have non-Portuguese bishops.

Successive Portuguese governments fought against this, terming this as unjustified aggression by latter Popes against the irrevocable grant of Royal Patronage to the Portuguese Crown, an agitation that spread to the Goan patriots, subjects of the Portuguese Crown.

When, under Pope Pius IX and Pope Leo XIII, the hierarchy in British India was formally re-organized independently of Portugal but with Portuguese consent, a group of pro-Padroado Goan Catholics in Bombay united under the leadership of the scholar Dr. Lisboa e Pinto and Fr. Alvares as the Society for the Defense of the Royal Patronage and agitated with the Holy See, the British India government and the Portuguese government against these changes.

Schism

However, their agitation failed to reverse these changes. Angry with the Portuguese government, the group broke away from the Catholic Church and created a schismatic church confederated with, and subject to, the Malankara Orthodox Church

Alvares was consecrated as Mar Julious I on July 28, 1889, by the Orthodox Bishop of Kottayam, Paulose Mar Athanasious, with the permission of the Syrian Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch Ignatious Boutrous III to be Archbishop of Alvares' autocephalous Latin Rite Independent Orthodox Church of Ceylon, Goa and India.

Alvares and Lisboa e Pinto hoped to draw many Goans away from the Catholic Church and to their newly founded sect in order to register their protest against Papal opposition to the Padroado. However, the Orthodox Church of Goa was a failure, for outside this group, very few Goans acceded to this sect.

When Joseph Rene Vilatte was searching for a bishop with orders recognized by the Catholic Church, in order to solicit consecration, he was guided to Alvares, who, jointly with Paulose Mar Athanasious, and with the permission of the Syrian Orthodox Patriarch, consecrated him in 1892 in Colombo, Sri Lanka. This became Alvares' seat.

As Mar Julious I, Alvares lived at Colombo and Brahmavar-Calianpur (Kalyanpur), a village near the town of Udipi in the Canara Coast, and finally in the town of Ribandar in Goa, where he died of dysentery and was buried.

Dr. Lisboa e Pinto, acting in his capacity as the U.S. Consul, witnessed Alvares' and Vilatte's consecrations.

Legacy

The Orthodox Church in Ribandar still exists, and has been renovated. Although congregation is small, the "Orthodox Church of Goa" has survived almost a century after the death of Bishop Alvares. This St Mary's Jacobite Church conducts services catering to the Jacobite Keralite settlers in Goa.