Encontros e desencontros na Índia do século XVI (1502-1599): a redescoberta dos cristãos de São Tomé pelos portugueses e a tentativa de latinização do rito siro-malabar até ao Sínodo de Diamper

Abstract

With the arrival of the Portuguese in the Malabar region of India, two distinct Christian cultures were found: one linked to the Roman Catholic Church and the other under the authority of the Caldaic Church, considered nestorian and with gentile habits by the Portuguese. From a tolerant initial relationship, there is a growing attempt to latinize and subject the Christians of St. Thomas to the Roman See. This path will be analyzed from the uses of memory and how one group tries to impose itself on the other by manipulating memory and its blakcouts, not before showing the emergence of this community of Christians in India as old as that of Rome, as well as analyzing the document produced from the Synod of Diamper in 1599, the ultimate attempt of the Portuguese not only to Latinize the Church of St. Thomas, but also to subject the Malabar region to Padroado. In the source analysis, semiotic theory will be used in its generative process of meaning. The objective is to understand the religious relationship between Portuguese and Indians in the sixteenth century and how the manipulation of memory and religious discourse are used as a tool for mastery of the other