The former Cathedral of Bom Jesus of the now-suppressed Diocese of Daman in Daman
Territory and statistics
The archdiocese consists of the State of Goa and the union territory of Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu in India.[4] As of 2014, it pastorally served 641,231 Catholics (31.0% of 2,067,200 total) on 4,194 km2 in 167 parishes and 124 missions with 715 priests (410 diocesan, 305 religious), 1,503 lay religious (538 brothers, 965 sisters) and 80 seminarians.
With the brief of 13 December 1572 Pope Gregory XIII granted the archbishop of Goa the title of Primate of the East.[10][11] This is because the diocese of Goa was the first diocese of the Padroado in Asia. By 1857, Goa had gained several suffragan dioceses in the Indian subcontinent but retained only Macau and Mozambique outside that geographical area.[12]
On 23 January 1886, Pope Leo XIII, through the bull Humanae Salutis Auctor, invested the archbishop of Goa with the honorary title of Patriarch of the East Indies. With the same bull, the diocese of Daman was established, to which was attached the title of the Archdiocese of Cranganore, that had been suppressed by the 24 April 1838 Multa praeclare decree of Pope Gregory XVI. These provisions had already been made in the concordat between the Holy See and Portugal on 23 June 1886.[13] The honorary title of patriarch recognised the primacy of honour of the archbishop of Goa among all the bishops of the East and the historical vastness of his jurisdiction, at a time when his jurisdiction was reduced. He also enjoyed the privilege of presiding over all the synods of the East Indies
When the diocese of Daman was dissolved on 1 May 1928 with Inter Apostolicam, the title of Cranganore was attached to the Goa archdiocese. Thus, the archbishop of Goa came to be the titular archbishop of Cranganore.
In 1940, Dili (in East Timor) was elevated to a diocese and placed as suffragan under Goa; Mozambique was in the same year spun off from the metropolitan archdiocese. In 1953 the archdiocese of Goa lost the suffragan dioceses of Cochin, Meliampor and Canara following the ecclesiastical territorial reorganisation of the new Indian state.
On 19 December 1961, the Indian Union annexed the territories of Goa, and Daman and Diu.[14] The following year the Patriarch Archbishop José Vieira Alvernaz left the territory. In 1965, the religious jurisdiction of Diu was entrusted to the Missionary Society of St Francis Xavier. The complexities of annexing Portuguese-ruled territories meant that the Vatican did not accept the resignation of the last patriarch until 1975.[citation needed] The dioceses of Dili and Macau were also de-linked from the ecclesiastical province and placed directly under the Holy See.
The Archdiocese of Goa and Daman remained—until 25 November 2006—as just an archdiocese, since the archdiocese had had no suffragan dioceses since 1 January 1975, when Macao and Dili were separated from it. On 25 November 2006, Pope Benedict XVI with Cum Christi Evangelii made the diocese of Sindhudurg a suffragan of Goa and Daman, together with which it formed a new ecclesiastical province.
The civil district of North Kanara (Uttara Kannada) was part of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Goa and Daman till 19 September 1953 when the New Roman Catholic Diocese of Belgaum was erected. Two civil districts, Belgaum and North Kanara, were separated from the Archdiocese of Goa and two other civil districts, Dharwad and Bijapur, were taken from the Diocese of Poona to form the Diocese of Belgaum.
31 January 1533: Archdiocese of Goa established from the Diocese of Funchal
4 February 1557: Diocese of Cochin established as a suffragan diocese
4 February 1558: Established suffragan diocese – Diocese of Malacca
4 February 1558: Promoted to Metropolitan Archdiocese of Goa
1 May 1928: Renamed Metropolitan Archdiocese of Goa and Daman
1 January 1976: Demoted to Archdiocese of Goa and Daman
25 November 2006: Promoted to Metropolitan Archdiocese of Goa and Daman
(in Portuguese)Aleixo de Menezes. id=UPEqJWspkDIC Synodo Diocesano da Igreia e Bispado de Angamale: dos antigos christaos de Sam Thome das Serras do Malauar das partes da India Oriental celebrado pello Reuerendissimo Senhor Dom Frey Aleixo de Menezes Arcebispo Metropolitano de Goa, Primaz da India et partes Orientaes, Coimbra: Officina de Diogo Gomez Loureyro, impressor da Universidade, 1606.