On 15 August 1534, seven students met in a crypt beneath the Church of Saint Denis (now
Saint Pierre de Montmartre), on the hill of
Montmartre, overlooking Paris. They were Francis,
Ignatius of Loyola,
Alfonso Salmeron,
Diego Laínez,
Nicolás Bobadilla from
Spain,
Peter Faber from
Savoy, and
Simão Rodrigues from
Portugal. They made private vows of
poverty, chastity, and obedience to the Pope, and also vowed to go to the Holy Land to convert infidels. Francis began his study of theology in 1534 and was ordained on 24 June 1537. In 1539, after long discussions, Ignatius drew up a formula for a new religious order, the
Society of Jesus (the Jesuits). Ignatius's plan for the order was approved by
Pope Paul III in 1540. In 1540, King
John III of Portugal had
Pedro Mascarenhas, Portuguese ambassador to the
Holy See, request Jesuit missionaries to spread the faith in his new
possessions in India, where the king believed that Christian values were eroding among the Portuguese. After successive appeals to the Pope asking for missionaries for the
East Indies under the
Padroado agreement, John III was encouraged by
Diogo de Gouveia, rector of the
Collège Sainte-Barbe, to recruit the newly graduated students who had established the Society of Jesus. for an expedition Ignatius promptly appointed
Nicholas Bobadilla and
Simão Rodrigues. At the last moment, however, Bobadilla became seriously ill. With some hesitance and uneasiness, Ignatius asked Francis to go in Bobadilla's place. Thus, Francis Xavier began his life as the first Jesuit missionary almost accidentally. Leaving Rome on 15 March 1540, in the Ambassador's train, Francis took with him a
breviary, a
catechism, and (Instructions for a Virtuous Life According to the Examples of the Saints) by
Croatian humanist
Marko Marulić, a Latin book that had become popular in the
Counter-Reformation. According to a 1549 letter of F. Balthasar Gago from Goa, it was the only book that Francis read or studied. Francis reached Lisbon in June 1540 and, four days after his arrival, he and Rodrigues were summoned to a private audience with King John and Queen
Catherine. Francis Xavier devoted much of his life to missions in Asia, mainly in four centres: Malacca, Amboina and Ternate (in the Maluku Islands of Indonesia), Japan, and off-shore China. His growing information about new places indicated to him that he had to go to what he understood were centres of influence for the whole region.
China loomed large from his days in India. Japan was particularly attractive because of its culture. For him, these areas were interconnected; they could not be evangelised separately.
In India Francis Xavier left
Lisbon on 7 April 1541, his thirty-fifth birthday, along with two other Jesuits and the new
viceroy Martim Afonso de Sousa, on board the
Santiago. As he departed, Francis was given a brief from the pope appointing him
apostolic nuncio to the East. From August until March 1542 he remained in
Portuguese Mozambique, and arrived in
Goa, then the capital of
Portuguese India, on 6 May 1542, thirteen months after leaving Lisbon. The Portuguese, following quickly on
the great voyages of discovery, had established themselves at Goa thirty years earlier. Francis's primary mission, as ordered by King John III, was to restore Christianity among the Portuguese settlers. According to Teotonio R. DeSouza, recent critical accounts indicate that apart from the posted civil servants, "the great majority of those who were dispatched as 'discoverers' were the riff-raff of Portuguese society, picked up from Portuguese jails." Nor did the soldiers, sailors, or merchants come to do missionary work, and Imperial policy permitted the outflow of disaffected nobility. Many of the arrivals formed liaisons with local women and adopted Indian culture. Missionaries often wrote against the "scandalous and undisciplined" behaviour of their fellow Christians. The Christian population had churches, clergy, and a bishop, but there were few preachers and no priests beyond the walls of Goa. Xavier decided that he must begin by instructing the Portuguese themselves, and gave much of his time to the teaching of children. The first five months he spent in preaching and ministering to the sick in the hospitals. After that, he walked through the streets ringing a bell to summon the children and servants to catechism.
Conversion efforts s by Francis Xavier in
South India, in a 19th-century coloured lithograph Xavier soon learned that along the Pearl Fishery Coast, which extends from
Cape Comorin on the southern tip of India to the island of
Mannar, off Ceylon (
Sri Lanka), there was a
Jāti of people called
Paravas. Many of them had been baptised ten years before, merely to please the Portuguese who had helped them against the Moors, but remained uninstructed in the faith. Accompanied by several native clerics from the seminary at Goa, he set sail for Cape Comorin in October 1542. He devoted almost three years to the work of preaching to the people of southern India and Ceylon, converting many. He built nearly 40 churches along the coast, including
St. Stephen's Church, Kombuthurai, mentioned in his letters dated 1544. During this time, he visited the tomb of
Thomas the Apostle in
Mylapore, now part of Madras/
Chennai then in Portuguese India. He set his sights eastward in 1545 and planned a missionary journey to
Makassar on the island of
Celebes, today's
Indonesia. As the first Jesuit in India, Francis had difficulty achieving much success in his missionary trips. His successors, such as
Roberto de Nobili,
Matteo Ricci, and
Constanzo Beschi, attempted to convert the noblemen first as a means to influence more people, while Francis had initially interacted most with the lower classes. Later in Japan, Francis changed tack by paying tribute to the Emperor and seeking an audience with him.
Southeast Asia (1619) Arrived of
Cavite in the spring of 1545, Xavier started for
Portuguese Malacca. He laboured there for the last months of that year. About January 1546, Xavier left Malacca for the
Maluku Islands, where the Portuguese had some settlements. For a year and a half, he preached the Gospel there. He went first to
Ambon Island, where he stayed until mid-June. He then visited the other Maluku Islands, including
Ternate, Baranura, and
Morotai. Shortly after Easter 1547, he returned to Ambon Island. A few months later he returned to Malacca. While there, Malacca was attacked by the
Acehnese from
Sumatra. Through preaching, Xavier inspired the Portuguese to seek battle, achieving a victory at the
Battle of Perlis River, despite being heavily outnumbered.
Japan In Malacca in December 1547, Francis Xavier met a Japanese man named
Anjirō. Anjirō had heard of Francis in 1545 and had travelled from
Kagoshima to Malacca to meet him. Having been charged with murder, Anjirō had fled Japan. He told Francis extensively about his former life, and the customs and culture of his homeland. Anjirō became the first Japanese Christian and adopted the name 'Paulo de Santa Fe'. He later helped Xavier as a mediator and interpreter for the mission to Japan that now seemed much more possible. In January 1548 Francis returned to Goa to attend to his responsibilities as superior of the mission there. The next 15 months were occupied with various journeys and administrative measures. He left Goa on 15 April 1549, stopped at Malacca, and visited
Canton. He was accompanied by Anjirō, two other Japanese men, Father
Cosme de Torres and Brother
Juan Fernández. He had taken with him presents for the "
King of Japan" since he intended to introduce himself as the
Apostolic Nuncio. Europeans
had already visited Japan. The
Portuguese first landed in 1543 on the island of
Tanegashima, where they introduced
matchlock firearms to Japan. From Amboina, he wrote to his companions in Europe: "I asked a Portuguese merchant, ... who had been for many days in Anjirō's country of Japan, to give me ... some information on that land and its people from what he had seen and heard. ...All the Portuguese merchants coming from Japan tell me that if I go there I shall do great service for God our Lord, more than with the pagans of India, for they are a very reasonable people." (To His Companions Residing in Rome, From Cochin, 20 January 1548, no. 18, p. 178). Francis Xavier reached Japan on 27 July 1549, with Anjirō and three other Jesuits, but he was not permitted to enter any port his ship arrived at until 15 August, when he went ashore at
Kagoshima, the principal port of
Satsuma Province on the island of
Kyūshū. As a representative of the Portuguese king, he was received in a friendly manner.
Shimazu Takahisa (1514–1571),
daimyō of Satsuma, gave a friendly reception to Francis on 29 September 1549, but in the following year he forbade the conversion of his subjects to Christianity under penalty of death; Christians in Kagoshima could not be given any catechism in the following years. The Portuguese missionary Pedro de Alcáçova would later write in 1554: &
Bernardo in Kagoshima in Xavier Park,
Kagoshima Francis was the first Jesuit to go to Japan as a missionary. He brought with him paintings of the
Madonna and the Madonna and Child. These paintings were used to help teach the Japanese about Christianity. There was a huge language barrier as
Japanese was unlike other languages the missionaries had previously encountered. For a long time, Francis struggled to learn the language. He was hosted by Anjirō's family until October 1550. From October to December 1550, he resided in
Yamaguchi. Shortly before Christmas, he left for
Kyoto but failed to meet with
Emperor Go-Nara. He returned to Yamaguchi in March 1551, where the daimyō of the province gave him permission to preach. Having learned that evangelical poverty did not have the appeal in Japan that it had in Europe and in India, he decided to change his approach. Hearing after a time that a Portuguese ship had arrived at a port in the province of Bungo in Kyushu and that the prince there would like to see him, Xavier now set out southward. The Jesuit, in a fine cassock, surplice, and stole, was attended by thirty gentlemen and as many servants, all in their best clothes. Xavier was welcomed by the
Shingon monks since he used the word
Dainichi for the Christian God; attempting to adapt the concept to local traditions. As Xavier learned more about the religious nuances of the word, he changed to
Deusu from the Latin and Portuguese
Deus. The monks later realised that Xavier was preaching a rival religion and grew more resistant towards his attempts at conversion. , Philippines. Saint Francis is the principal patron of the town, together with
Our Lady of Escalera. With the passage of time, his sojourn in Japan could be considered somewhat fruitful as attested by congregations established in
Hirado, Yamaguchi, and
Bungo. Xavier worked for more than two years in Japan and saw his successor-Jesuits established. He then decided to return to India. Historians debate the exact path by which he returned, but from evidence attributed to the captain of his ship, he may have travelled through Tanegeshima and Minato, and avoided Kagoshima because of the hostility of the daimyo.
China During his trip from Japan back to India, a tempest forced him to stop on an island near
Guangzhou,
Guangdong, China, where he met Diogo Pereira, a rich merchant and an old friend from
Cochin. Pereira showed him a letter from Portuguese prisoners in Guangzhou, asking for a Portuguese ambassador to speak to the
Jiajing Emperor on their behalf. He arrived back in Goa by early 1552 and planned to travel on to China. On 17 April he set sail with Diogo Pereira on the
Santa Cruz for China, planning to introduce himself as Apostolic Nuncio, and Pereira as the ambassador of the king of Portugal - but then realized that he had forgotten his testimonial letters as an Apostolic Nuncio. Back in Malacca, he was confronted by the captain Álvaro de Ataíde da Gama who refused to recognize his title of Nuncio, asked Pereira to resign from his title of ambassador, named a new crew for the ship, and demanded the gifts for the Chinese Emperor be left in Malacca. In late August 1552, the
Santa Cruz reached the Chinese island of
Shangchuan, 14 km away from the southern coast of mainland China, near
Taishan, Guangdong. He was accompanied only by a Jesuit student called Álvaro Ferreira, a Chinese man called António, and a
Malabar servant called Christopher. Around mid-November, he sent a letter saying that a man had agreed to take him to the mainland in exchange for a large sum of money, and that he was waiting for the man. He had sent back Álvaro Ferreira and was staying in a small hut when he fell ill. He died, with only António as company, early in December 1552. His feast is celebrated on December 3, but it is not clear that this is the day he actually died. ==Burials and relics==