António Francisco Cardim
| António Francisco Cardim | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1596 Viana do Alentejo, Portugal |
| Died | April 30, 1659 (aged 63) Macau |
| Occupation | Jesuit priest, missionary and historian |
António Francisco Cardim (Viana do Alentejo, 1596 - Macau, 1659) was a Portuguese Jesuit priest, missionary and historian who recorded the events of the fathers and brothers of the Jesuit missions in China, Japan, and other places in the Far East.
Cardim was born in 1596 in Viana do Alentejo, the son of Jorge Cardim Frocs and Catherina de Andrade. He entered the University of Évora, where he was admitted into the Society of Jesus on February 24, 1611 at 15 years of age. As a sign of his devotion to Saint Francis Xavier, Cardim added the name "Francisco" to his own last name.
After requesting to be sent to the Far East as a missionary, Cardim sailed to Portuguese India in 1618 in the company of Bishop Diogo Correia Valente (1568-1633). He completed his studies in theology at Goa, where he was ordained as a Jesuit priest on February 1, 1621.
In 1623, after entering the Chinese empire at Guangzhou, Cardim settled in Macau. From 1626 until 1629, he lived in the Ayutthaya Kingdom, where he learned enough of the Thai language to write a catechism and a small treatise on the Christian faith. Together with Pedro Morejón and Romão Nishi, Cardim founded the Jesuit mission in Ayutthaya in 1626. They built a church there, in which they administered the sacraments to hundreds of residents of that city. In 1629, he returned to Macau to inform the local authorities about problems at the mission in Ayutthaya.
...
Wikipedia