Joseph Sulaqa

Joseph was sent to India with letters of introduction from the pope to the Portuguese authorities; he was besides accompanied by Bishop Ambrose, a Dominican and papal commissary to the first patriarch, by his socius Father Anthony, and by Mar Elias Hormaz, Archbishop of Diarbekir.

Proceeding to Cochin they lost Bishop Ambrose; the others travelled through Malabar for two and a half years on foot, visiting every church and detached settlement.

[1] By 1567, Latin authorities asked him to make inquiries into the conduct and doctrine of the prelate suspected again for propagating Nestorian error; in consequence of this the first provincial council was held and finally, Mar Joseph, who was forced to leave India in 1568 died in Rome in 1569, where his brother Sulaqa was consecrated as patriarch 16 years earlier.

[1] Eugene Tisserant in his book Eastern Christianity in India comments on the pathetic end of Mar Joseph Sulaqa.

Yet the measure of suffering was full, and Mar Joseph received, near the tomb of the Apostles, the crown which he had merited , through his long and slow martyrdom which was perhaps a more painful one than that of his heroic brother (Shimun VIII Yohannan Sulaqa).