António Sebastião Valente


Dom Sebastião António Valente was a Catholic archbishop and Portuguese colonial administrator, the first Patriarch of the East Indies.

Biography

Born in El Puerto de Santa María, province of Cadiz, he was the son of Maria João Valente and Bridget Medeiros, a native of Mértola, Portugal. He attended primary school in Beja, graduated in Coimbra and taught in the Seminaries of Viseu and Santarém. He was ordained a deacon on September 23, 1871, and on May 25, 1872 ordained a priest.

Consecrated Archbishop

His consecration as the Archbishop of Goa and the Primate of the East was by Cardinal Gaetano Aloisi Masella, Titular Archbishop of Neocaesarea in Ponto. The Principal Co-Consecrators were Archbishop António José de Freitas Honorato, Titular Archbishop of Mitylene and Bishop José Dias Correia de Carvalho, Bishop of Santiago de Cabo Verde.
In 1886, with the elevation of the Goan archdiocese to the position of the Patriarchate of the East Indies, he became the first Patriarch of the East.

Chairman of the Governing Council

He exercised, in addition, for seven terms, the functions of the Chairman of the Government of Portuguese India—Presidente do Conselho de Governo do Estado Português da Índia .
He died while in office as Patriarch, on January 25, 1908.
NewAdvent.org says: "In recent times one provincial council was held by Dom Antonio S. Valente, in which seventy-nine decrees were framed."