Ribandar

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Ribandar is an unincorporated town in Goa, India, in the district (conselho) of Ilhas or Tiswaddi, lying in between the cities of Pangim (or Nova Goa) and Old Goa.

It is separated from Pangim by the Rio de Ourem, River of Gold, whose junction with the Mandovi here forms a large, wide marshy estuary.

This estuary in traversed by an old causeway built in 1633 under the auspices of one of the Viceroys of Portuguese India, the Count of Linhares, after whom it is called the Ponte de Linhares. This causeway is the sole direct land access Ribandar has with Pangim.

The name Ribandar originates from "Rayachem Bandar" meaning the wharves, docks or portage of the Rayas or Kings.

It is unclear which kings are meant. Goa was ruled by a break-away branch of the Kadamba dynasty belonging to native Kannadiga language speakers of Karnataka. It was conquered by Sultan Allauddin Khilji's General Mahmud Ghawan for the Delhi Sultanate, became part of the breakaway Bahamani Sultanate, conquered by Vijayanagar, Yusuf Adil Shah I of the Sultanate of Bijapur before being conquered by Affonso de Albuquerque in 1510.

Presently, Ribandar, although far separated geographically from Pangim by the Rio de Ourem, has been made a part of the City Corporation of Pangim.

[edit] Historical places of Ribander

A Igreja da Nossa Senhora da Ajuda or The Church of Our Lady of Help (i.e., Auxiliatrix Christianorum or Perpetual Succor) was built on the banks of the Mandovi river in 1565. The ship bringing the body of St. Francis Xavier from Malacca was welcomed with canon salute at this church on the night of 14th March, 1554. The church has a peculiar architectural style, being built like a ship.

The Santa Casa da Misericórdia or The Holy House of Charity, also called The Royal Portuguese Hospital: Today it houses a management school, the Goa Institute of Management. It is a heritage structure and has been left unchanged despite the pressures of housing a college. Unconfirmed sources claim that this Hospital is Asia's first one.

[edit] Fr. Alvares / Bishop Mar Julious

Ribandar is associated with the later life of Fr. Antonio Francisco Xavier Alvares (1837-1923), the Goan Catholic priest who defected to Monophysitism or the Jacobite Orthodox Church based in Kerala or the Malabar Coast, and was made by it a bishop as Mar Julious I, "Archbishop-Metropolitan for the Archdiocese of Ceylon, Goa and the whole of India." Alvarez consecrated Joseph René Vilatte (1854-1929) and thus is the person from whom most Old Catholic bishops in the West claim apostolic succession. Fr. Alvares or Bishop Mar Julious died and is buried here, in a Jacobite church, which is still maintained by Jacobite priests from Kerala.

See Terence Boyle's page on Vilatte

[His surname is correctly spelt "Alvares", not "Alvarez". The first is the Portuguese form, the second is Spanish / Castillian.]