After the
Portuguese conquest of Goa by
Afonso de Albuquerque in 1510, King
Manuel I built a chapel there in honour of
St. Catherine, named patron of the city in 1518. Christians in the region were given into the charge of OP, the
Franciscan bishop of the
titular see of Laodicea. He governed until 1527 when he was succeeded by Dom OFM, the
Franciscan titular bishop of Aureopolis, from 1529 to 1535. King
John III of Portugal commissioned the construction of a
cathedral in Goa and
Pope Clement VII founded the Diocese of Goa on 31 January 1533, with the
papal bull titled
Romani Pontificis Circumspectio. The jurisdiction of the new diocese at the time stretched from the
Cape of Good Hope to
China and
Japan. On 3 November 1534 the creation of the diocese was confirmed by the '''' bull of
Pope Paul III, since
Clement VII's death had prevented the publication of its establishment. The diocese was originally a
suffragan of the
diocese of Funchal. At the request of King
Sebastian, on 4 February 1558
Pope Paul IV separated the Goan diocese from the
ecclesiastical province of
Lisbon and raised it to a metropolitan archdiocese, with the suffragan dioceses of
Cochin and
Malacca. In the course of time other dioceses were included in the metropolitan area of Goa:
Macau,
Funai in
Japan,
Cranganore and
Meliapor in India,
Nanjing and
Beijing in
China, and
Mozambique in Africa. Daman in India is still included in Goa. With the brief of 13 December 1572 Pope
Gregory XIII granted the archbishop of Goa the title of Primate of the East. 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. 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. 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. 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. The dioceses of Dili and Macau were also de-linked from the ecclesiastical province and placed directly under the Holy See. With the
Quoniam Archdioecesi bull of 30 January 1978, Pope Paul VI appointed Bishop
Raul Nicolau Gonçalves as Archbishop of Goa and Daman, also titled
ad honorem Patriarch of the East Indies. By
Inter Capital of 12 December 2003,
Pope John Paul II appointed Rev.
Filipe Neri Ferrao Archbishop of Goa and Daman, also granting him the honorary patriarch title. 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 ==Episcopal ordinaries==