Gorgora
Place on Lake Tana in Ethiopia. Emperor Susenyos made his residence there, the Jesuit Pedro Páez died there in 1622, and the missionaries met there with the emperor.
The Ethiopian chronicle says that Susenyos established his residence at Gorgora in the sixth year of his reign (Ethiopian Chronicle (trans. Basset) p. 122). The Jesuit Pedro Páez died there in 1622 (Tellez, Travels of the Jesuits in Ethiopia p. 212), the patriarch Afonso Mendes conferred ordinations there on his way to the court (Tellez, Travels of the Jesuits in Ethiopia p. 232), and Jerónimo Lobo tells of coming to Gorgora for the missionaries’ yearly meeting and finding the emperor with them (Lobo, Voyage to Abyssinia part 2, chapter 11). The coordinates are those of the present town of Gorgora on the north shore of Lake Tana; the sources cited do not fix the site of the seventeenth-century residence more closely. See Susenyos, the Jesuits and the Ethiopian Church.
What happened here
- 1622 to 1632, firm dateSusenyos, the Jesuits and the Ethiopian Church
Emperor Susenyos of Ethiopia professes the Roman faith under Jesuit guidance and in 1626 swears obedience to the pope. After years of revolt he restores the faith of Alexandria in 1632, and under his son Fasilides the Jesuits are sent out of the country.