This history of missions continues our other lessons through the late middle ages into the time of the Protestant reformation. We also include some brief slide materials from the Orthodox church.

1. Missions
History of Missions
Dr. Robert Patton
Missionary to Suriname,
South America

2. Calvin
 John Calvin developed his religious
views and left the Catholic church. He
was forced to leave France and
relocated in Geneva, which he set up as
a sort of model community. He sent
many men back to France. Calvinism
ended up being strong in Holland,
Northern Ireland and Scotland

3. John Calvin

4. Anglican church
 There was a struggle between the
Catholics and Protestants resulting in
many deaths; they killed a number of
Protestants as heretics. The battle
became especially fierce from the
children of Henry VIII – Protestant
Eduard VI, Catholic Mary, and then
Anglican Elizabeth

5. King Edward VI
Mary, queen of Scots

6. Queen Elizabeth I

7. Anglican Church
 When the Anglican church won, there
was a reformed movement, the
Puritans. Many went to America and
Holland to avoid persecution, and later
formed the Congregational church.
Some became baptists.

8. Summary of the Protestant
reformation
 The Protestants dominated most of
northern Europe, but not the south –
particularly Spain, France and Italy
 Protestantism was characterized by
individual freedom, salvation by faith,
the priesthood of the believer, and the
authority of the Bible

9. Roman Catholic counter-
reformation
 The Catholics won some territory
 Spain had strong Catholic leaders as
kings
 The popes regained more strength and
reformed spiritually
 The church stopped some of the worst
abuses of the priests

10. The Portuguese and Spanish
inquisition

11. Priests asking a “heretic” to
repent

12. Counter-reformation
 The Jesuits rose as a powerful group to
help the pope
 The inquisition intimidated many
 The “ban” prevented the faithful
Catholic from reading controversial
books as well as the Bible.

13. Galileo & the inquisition

14. The life of Raymond Lull

15. Francis of Assisi
 He was born wealthy, but was
impressed to live a life of poverty and
abandoned his former friends
 He established a very simple order of
the Franciscans, which was eventually
recognized by Pope Innocent.

16. Francis and the Sultan
challenged to trial by fire

17. Painting of Francis

18. Exploration of the 16th century
 First Venice and Genoa were the great
explorers
 Then Portugal and Spain explored along
the African coast and around the Cape
of Good Hope
 The pope divided the “New World”
between both countries, dividing so
Brazil was Portuguese

19. Settlement of Americas
astonishing
 The West Indies, and then Mexico and
South America were explored,
conquered and “Christianized” in the
16th century with astonishing speed
 Natives were not really resistant.
Aztecs fell to Cortez; the Incas to
Pizarro

20. Cortez

21. Pizarro

22. Emperor Charles V

23. Las Casas
 Joined the Dominicans while a priest in
Cuba. Became aware of his
responsibility, and became the voice for
the Indians
 Las Casas defended the Indians (Mexico
& south) from exploitation when Spain
aggressively took over these areas.

24. Las Casas
 Opposed by colonists & some of his
own priests when age 70 he was
appointed Bishop of Chiapa.
 He refused absolution of those who
were abusing the Indians.

25. Portrait of Las Casas

26. Las Casas
 After 3 years, he resigned but worked
in Spain till about 90 years of age for
betterment of the Indians.
 Emperor Charles V changed some laws
to provide basic human rights for the
Indians
 However, many Dominicans and
Franciscans were involved in the
Inquisition

27. St. Peter Claver
 A Jesuit priest who was much
concerned about the miserable situation
of the slaves. He not only instructed
and baptized them, but did his best, as
did Las Casas with the Indians, to
insure that they were not misused

28. St. Peter Claver

29. Catholic missions to China
 There were several effective
missionaries
 John of Montecorvino 13th century
Franciscan monk
 Matthew Ricci
 Francis Xavier

30. John of Montecorvino
 Effective Franciscan monk sent by Pope
Nicholas VI to open Asia. About the
same time Marco Polo had come to
China, and said that the Mongol Kublai
Khan was open to Christianity
 The trip took several years, stopping in
India for a year. When he arrived,
Kublai Khan had just died

31. John of Montecorvino
 He was opposed by the Nestorians who
were already there, but built an
effective organization with more monks
coming. He saw over 100,000 persons
come into the church.
 He was made archbishop – trained
young men,

32. John of Montecorvino – first
archbishop of Peking

33. Jesuits
 Ignatius of Loyola formed the Jesuits -
aggressive and well organized loyal to the
pope. His best known follower was
Francis Xavier.
 The Jesuits have been totally committed
to the pope, and very aggressive – the
end justifies the means
 Grew rapidly to 15,000 members

34. Ignatius of Loyola

35. Frances Xavier
 One of original 6 inner circle of Jesuits
 Born 1506 of noble family. Originally
interested in Paris in the Protestants, he
came under the influence of Loyola.
 Made a vow of poverty and celibacy to
promote the Catholic church
 Originally assigned India when another was
sick

36. Frances Xavier
 He started in Goa; disturbed by worldliness
 Started working with children
 He went to India, taught prayers and
baptized them by the thousands
 He worked among poor pearl fisherman.
Taught children to break idols and teach
others prayers

37. Frances Xavier
 Others replaced him as he went to the far
east – Malacca
 Eventually went to Japan, having been
encouraged by Anjiro, a Japanese man. He
was hindered by Anjiro’s poor translations
 He left 100 converts. He arrived at a time
that Japan was open, but had to leave after
the Japanese minister, who had been
favorable to the Catholics, was assassinated

38. Travels of Francis Xavier

39. Frances Xavier
 In 10 years, he planted missions in 52
kingdoms, traveled 9000 miles, and
“baptized” 1,000,000 persons.
 Robert Glover states: we have an example of
that strange and paradoxical combination of
genuine love and devotion for Christ and holy
passion for souls, along with doctrines wholly
unsound and policies of work utterly
unworthy….

40. St. Francis Xavier

41. Francis Xavier followed byThe Visitor
of the Catholic church, Valignano
 Many local leaders were converted. They
started a seminary to train Japanese pastors,
and eventually they were consecrated by a
bishop
 The Japanese Islands were consolidated under
Hideyoshi in 1590. His children persecuted the
foreigners – competition with the Franciscans,
and also the arrival of English and Dutch

42. Catholicism eliminated
 1900 Japanese Christians were tortured
and killed – usually by crucifixion, and
62 foreign missionaries. Often they
tried to get apostacy by torturing till
near death

43. Matthew Ricci
 Preceded by Friar John, who was
protected by the Mongols ruling in China
 Born in 1522, brilliant student
 Joined the Jesuits
 Initially went to Goa, then Macao, off
China

44. Matteo Ricci – missionary to
China

45. Matthew Ricci
 His expertise in mathematics, astronomy, en various
gadgets and maps allowed him to influence the
intellectuals.
 He and another Jesuit shaved their heads & dressed
like Buddhist monks
 He learned to speak, and read and write in classic
Chinese – made a dictionary of Chinese and
Portuguese – lost, found in 1934
 After his fellow was falsely accused of immorality,
he adopted the garb of a Confucian scholar

46. Matthew Ricci
 He encouraged a syncretism with Confucianism,
and adopted the Confucian scholar attire. He
allowed ancestor worship though the Roman
church opposed that practice. Some were
apparently genuinely converted
 He studied and respected Confucian classics,
and rejected that belief must begin on a tabula
rasa (clean slate)… thus syncretism. He
translated some Confuician classics
 Roberto de Nobile joined the Brahmins in India
to do the same

47. Matthew Ricci
 He was eventually brought to Peking under the
protection of the emperor. He had favor for his
skill in repairing clocks and making maps. He
saw about 2000 saved. He tried to permit as
many Chinese customs as possible
 There was great conflict between the Jesuits
(contextualizing) and Dominicans and
Franciscans
 Some were genuinely saved, and the church
grew over the next 200 years – 100 fold

48. Roman Catholic missions
 Vietnam - Alexander de Rhodes (1591-1660)
 He was a Jesuit priest, made a Portuguese-
Latin-Vietnamese dictionary. Apparently many
baptized
 Twice he was thrown out of the country but
returned
 After his third time, he went to Persia and died
there. But others followed with more success

49. Alexander de Rhodes

50. S. India - Robert de Nobili -
 Italian Jesuit missionary
 Adopted local dress customs and diet
 Fluent in Tamil and Sanscrit, and did
some translation
 He separated himself from the
Portuguese bishop
 Apparently many Catholics date from
his arrival

51. S. India - Robert de Nobili -
 He was able to penetrate into the upper
classes and saw even Brahmins baptized.
However his syncretism brought much protest
which went back to Rome. In 37 years, he
saw about 6- high caste converts, but many of
the lower caste. Most missionaries could not
take the country and climate
 Apparently many Catholics date from his
arrival

52. Further work
 Britto went as a priest, was tortured,
released, went back, but later was
publically beheaded as a martyr
 Father Beschi mastered Tamil and
wrote in classic form
 There was a big debate as to how much
contextualization could occur. The
church finally limited it severely

53. Roberto de Nobili

54. Roman Catholic missions
 Philippines - Father Legaspi effective -
2,000,000 converts baptized in 100 years. It
was difficult to find if he was really a father or
an administrator
 Virtually all the major Catholic groups were
present in the Philippines by the next century
 They built schools, hospitals, etc – and
converted the animistic people to Catholicism

55. Philippines – under Spain
 The Pope put the bishop under Mexico,
considering the normal way to go from
Mexico across the Pacific
 All orders were there. No attraction of
gold. No older religion. Catholic
schools and university were established
 The understanding of of the people was
superficial -

56. “Propaganda” Catholic
program
 The Catholics began to see the need for
nationalization. It became obvious that
Portugal and Spain could not handle all
the New World. France began to
contribute
 There was more contextualization as
well as training of nationals, but with a
lot of contention in the ranks

57. Summary: Roman Catholic
Missions
 Operating with a strong base, Roman
Catholics did what Protestants had not done
 The orders were significantly effective
 Millions were baptized with only a dim view of
Roman Catholicism, and even less of the true
gospel
 There was frequent compromise with
animistic religion
 There was lack of permanence in many
places

58. Summary of Roman Catholic
missions
 There was little attempt to develop a
national priesthood, especially in more
primitive societies. In fact, there was
little emphasis on learning the language
and culture.
 The Jesuits were closed in 1742, with
the collapse of many missions

59. Orthodox church expansion
 The fall of Constantinople 1453 was the
end of the old Eastern Orthodox church
 The patriarchs of Antioch, Jerusalem,
Constantinople, and Alexandria were
not aggressive
 The original Tartars became Muslim,
but not aggressive. The later Khans
were more aggressive

60. Orthodox church
 Moscow became the new center
 Gradual expansion eastward till finally
all of Russia and Siberia were reached
 Tibet was under shamanistic Lamaism
of Buddhism
 Stefan Charp was a very effective
missonary with modern methods (14th
century)

61. Orthodox church
 Ivan III was Christian, and Ivan IV, or Ivan
the terrible, was aggressively Christian.
 Peter asked for help setting up the
Metropolitan of Tobolsk to Christianize Siberia
& Russia. The initial bishop was aggressive
but also forgave taxes for those baptized.
Later men had problems

62. Ivan IV – the great (and the
terrible)

63. Mission orthodox church
 Volga region – finally in mid 17th
century, nearly 500,000 persons were
baptized as they were made free from
service in the Russian army. The
Tartars resisted, and later Russia pulled
out the priest and sent him to Russia

64. Mission to China
 When the emperor recognized China
over Mongolia, they were allowed to
bring 4 priests to China, and only a
handful Chinese were in the church
 Kalmucks, a nomadic people, were
really not reached

65. East Siberia – Cossacks
 They purchased slaves and set them
free and set them free to work on their
grounds – but lasted only while the
missionaries were there and then
ceased
 Cyril Suchanov was a godly layman,
later priest, who lived simply among the
nomads and eventually started a church

66. Orthodox – Kamschatka
 Peninsula incredibly cold with high
volcanos
 Martinian arrived in 1705, baptized
some, but was murdured.
 Ioasuf Chotkunshevsky organized the
entire area with several workers and
baptized over 10,000 by 1748, and the
area was settled and Christianized

67. Orthodox – Aleutian islands
 Islands were annexed by Russia, and
then sent missionaries with
considerable success – 10,000 baptized.
The man who organized it was made a
bishop but all hands on a ship were lost
at sea, and the people destroyed by
liquor and disease

68. Summary of Russian
expansion
 Strange combination
 Statesmanship
 Zeal
 Coercion
 Apostolic simplicity
 Willingness to suffer and die
 Somewhat limited long term effects