Learned Jesuit priest who in the tradition of Frumentius -founder of the Ethiopian Church- went as a missionary to Ethiopia where he became known as the second apostle of Ethiopia.
Páez entered the Society of Jesus in 1582 and sailed for Goa in India in 1588.
En route to Ethiopia in 1589 he was captured by Turkish pirates and enslaved until 1596 when he returned to Goa.
He finally reached Ethiopia in 1603. There he learned two of the main languages, translated a catechism and wrote a treatise on the theological errors of the Ethiopian Church.
He also wrote a history of the country included in the Portuguese work Biblioteca Historica de Portugal e Brasil.
Páez succeeded in converting the formely Monophysite King Susenyos of Ethiopia to orthodoxy and for a while most of Ethiopia was Roman Catholic.
Páez was the first European to visit Lake Tana, the source of the Blue Nile in northwestern Ethiopia where he died of fever.
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