Jordanus Catalanus de Severac

Jordanus Catalanus de Severac , often also Jordanus Catalani , (* around 1290 probably in Sévérac-le-Château , Southern France; † 1336 in Bombay , India) was a Dominican priest, missionary and from 1329 first diocesan bishop of the Roman Catholic diocese of Quilon in Kerala. He was also the first Catholic bishop of the Latin rite in India.

Live and act

The Provencal Jordanus Catalanus de Severac probably came from Sévérac-le-Château. He entered the Dominican order and became a priest .

Pope John XXII. († 1334) founded a new church province in the east in 1318, the Archdiocese of Sultaniya in Persia, today Soltaniyeh , in the Iranian province of Zanjan ; at that time the capital of the Ilkhan dynasty, which was open to Christianity . The khans Arghun († 1291) and his son Öldscheitü († 1316) sought long-term contact with Christian Europe - also for political reasons, the latter was even baptized Christian.

Jordanus Catalanus reached the Persian Gulf via Tabriz and Sultaniya in 1320 with four Franciscans - including Thomas of Tolentino , who was beatified at the end of the 19th century . There they set sail and originally wanted to go to China. The group landed at the end of the year in Thane near Bombay, where there was already a Franciscan convent, and was warmly welcomed by the local Thomas Christians.

While Jordanus was on a missionary trip, his four companions were publicly beheaded on April 9, 1321 on the island of Salsette after they had offered wild insults against the faith of the Muslims in a dispute with a local judge. In addition to Thomas of Tolentino, Peter of Siena, Jacob of Padua and Demetrius of Tbilisi, an Armenian interpreter, died . All four were in 1894 by Pope Leo XIII. declared martyrs and blessed .

After his return, Jordanus Catalanus buried the dead Franciscans and went on alone to the south of the subcontinent . On October 12, 1321, the Dominican reported in a letter to his confreres in Tabriz about the martyrdom of his companions and asked for staff to be sent for his mission. He wrote a second letter from Thane on January 20, 1323.

From around 1323, Jordanus stayed in Quilon (= Kollam ) on the Malabar coast , in today's Kerala , an early Christian center of India, which, according to legend, belongs to the seven Christian communities founded by the Apostle Thomas . The Dominican performed numerous baptisms there, but also seems to have undertaken further missionary trips in the country from here. In 1328 he traveled to Avignon and reported to Pope John XXII. about his Christian community in Quilon, whereupon the latter issued the Bull Romanus Pontifex on August 9, 1329 and thus established the diocese of Quilon as the first Roman Catholic diocese in India . On August 21 of the same year the bull Venerabili Fratri Jordano followed , with which Pope Jordanus Catalanus appointed the first bishop . As a suffragan diocese, Quilon was under the Latin Archdiocese of Sultaniya in Persia.

In 1330 Jordanus Catalanus returned to Quilon as bishop and was received with great jubilation by the Christians. He had received the order from the Pope to hand over the pallium to the new Archbishop Johannes de Cori on the way to Sultaniya . He also brought greetings from the pontiff to the local rulers in Malabar . The letters to the regents of South India were issued on April 8, 1330 in Avignon; A letter from the Pope to the newly appointed Archbishop John in Sultaniya dated February 4th, in which he announced that Jordanus or his episcopal confrater Thomas (later active in Uzbekistan ) would bring him the pallium and recommends that one of the two bishops should also to have the necessary ordination granted. The return of Jordanus Catalanus to Quilon should therefore have taken place towards the end of 1330 at the earliest.

According to local Indian tradition, Bishop Jordanus was stoned to death by Muslims near Bombay in 1336 . He left a detailed description of India and the conditions it encountered, which has been preserved under the title Mirabilia Descripta and was published in English in 1863 by Henry Yule, among others .

When the missionary and papal legate Giovanni de Marignolli came to Quilon in 1348, he did not meet Bishop Jordanus, but found a Latin Christian community there, which he looked after for a year and four months and whose church he decorated with paintings before he traveled on.

literature

Jordanus Catalanus: Mirabilia Descripta , 1330; English by Henry Yule , 1863 ( digitized )
Wilhelm Baum : Jordanus Catalanus by Severac. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 15, Bautz, Herzberg 1999, ISBN 3-88309-077-8 , Sp. 773-774.
EP Antony: The Latin Catholics of Kerala . Pellissery Publications, Kottayam 1993
Christine Gadrat: Une image de l'Orient au XIV siècle. Les Mirabilia descripta de Jordan Catala de Sévérac , École nationale des chartes, Paris 2005.

Individual evidence

^ Wilhelm Baum , Raimund Senoner (Ed.): India and Europe in the Middle Ages. The incorporation of the continent into European consciousness up to the 15th century. Kitab Verlag, Klagenfurt 2000, p. 212, note 114.
↑ Hagiography on Thomas von Tolentino: Article in the ÖHL ; Calendar sheet in Katholisch.de ; both accessed in April 2019.
↑ Guido Görres , Georg Phillips (ed.): The missions in India and China in the fourteenth century (part 1). In: Historical-political sheets for Catholic Germany , Volume 37, Munich 1856, pp. 25–38 (here: pp. 36f.).
↑ The Missions in India and China in the Fourteenth Century (Part 2). In: Historical-political sheets for Catholic Germany , Volume 37, Munich 1856, pp. 135–152 (on the two mission letters from India: p. 141).
↑ The Missions in India and China in the Fourteenth Century (Part 2). Munich 1856 (on the letter to the South Indian princes: p. 136; on the papal letter to Archbishop Johannes de Cori in Sultaniya: p. 139).
↑ Report of the missionary Giovanni de Marignolli on his visit to Quilon in 1348 , in: Henry Yule (Ed.): Recollections of Travels in the East. In: id: Cathay and the Way Thither , Volume 2, London 1866, pp. 335–394 (here: p. 342).

personal data
SURNAME	Jordanus Catalanus de Severac
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Jordanus Catalanus; Jordanus Catalani
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	Catholic Indian missionary and diocesan bishop
DATE OF BIRTH	around 1290
PLACE OF BIRTH	uncertain: Sévérac-le-Château
DATE OF DEATH	1336
Place of death	Bombay

[1] Wilhelm Baum , Raimund Senoner (Ed.): India and Europe in the Middle Ages. The incorporation of the continent into European consciousness up to the 15th century. Kitab Verlag, Klagenfurt 2000, p. 212, note 114.

[2] Hagiography on Thomas von Tolentino: Article in the ÖHL ; Calendar sheet in Katholisch.de ; both accessed in April 2019.

[3] Guido Görres , Georg Phillips (ed.): The missions in India and China in the fourteenth century (part 1). In: Historical-political sheets for Catholic Germany , Volume 37, Munich 1856, pp. 25–38 (here: pp. 36f.).

[4] The Missions in India and China in the Fourteenth Century (Part 2). In: Historical-political sheets for Catholic Germany , Volume 37, Munich 1856, pp. 135–152 (on the two mission letters from India: p. 141).

[5] The Missions in India and China in the Fourteenth Century (Part 2). Munich 1856 (on the letter to the South Indian princes: p. 136; on the papal letter to Archbishop Johannes de Cori in Sultaniya: p. 139).

[6] Report of the missionary Giovanni de Marignolli on his visit to Quilon in 1348 , in: Henry Yule (Ed.): Recollections of Travels in the East. In: id: Cathay and the Way Thither , Volume 2, London 1866, pp. 335–394 (here: p. 342).