Ernst Jakob Christoffel

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Ernst Jakob Christoffel

Ernst Jakob Christoffel (born September 4, 1876 in Rheydt , today Mönchengladbach , † April 23, 1955 in Isfahan , Iran ) was a German Protestant pastor . He was the founder and longtime leader of the Christian Mission in the Orient . The mission society was renamed Christoffel-Blindenmission after his death .

Career and life's work

Ernst Jakob Christoffel was born into a craft family in Rheydt on the Lower Rhine. After studying theology at the Basel Preacher School , he went to the Orient as a missionary in 1904 . In Sebaste (now Sivas ), a city in northeastern Turkey , he and his sister Hedwig took over the management of two orphanages of the Swiss Aid Committee for Armenia . There they stayed and ran these institutions for victims of the massacres of 1894 and 1896 for three years .

Christoffel described the misery of the oriental blind as follows: “The material, moral and religious situation of the blind is terrible. The largest percentage begs. Blind girls and women often become prostitutes ”. In 1906 Christoffel and his sister decided to dedicate their future work entirely to the service of these handicapped people, after they saw no help for the blind from either Christian or Islamic sides.

Christoffel tried in vain to win church institutions in Europe for an aid organization in the then Ottoman Empire . His disappointing experiences with the Aid Association prompted him to leave the country on his own initiative in 1908 and to establish the Bethesda Mission for the Blind in Malatya for blind, deaf and other severely disabled people. He was supported by a small, steadily growing circle of friends in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. On July 3, 1914, he returned from Malatya to Switzerland, where he was immediately drafted into the military. He tried to get an exemption from military service and the necessary permits for a return trip to Turkey. When this was successful, he returned to Malatya in early 1916.

In the course of the Armenian genocide , the Turkish governor confiscated Bethesda and turned it into a military hospital. Christoffel managed to get part of the building back. He was now looking after Armenian orphans who had survived the genocide of 1915/16. With the expulsion of all Germans by the Allies in 1919, Christoffel's work in Malatya came to an end.

After the travel ban for Germans was lifted in 1924, Christoffel returned to Turkey. But the new government forbade him to found another school. Because of this, his attempt to set up a home for the blind in Constantinople (now Istanbul) failed . Christoffel therefore evaded to Persia and established homes for the blind, deaf and dumb , people with other disabilities and orphans in Tabriz in 1925 and in Isfahan in 1928 . The work was interrupted by the Second World War. In 1943 he was captured by the Allies in Persia, interned in various camps for almost three years and later brought to Germany. In June 1946 he was released in Hamburg-Neuengamme . His institution in Tabriz has since been closed and the institution in Isfahan was taken over by the British as a school for blind girls.

Christoffel stayed in Germany for the time being and in 1949 set up a home for the war blind in Nümbrecht near Cologne. However, he made every effort to return to the Orient. In 1951 he went back to Iran and, with financial help from his Swedish friends, founded a new school in Isfahan for blind and other severely disabled men. In his 70s, he continued the work he had left behind. Christoffel died in Isfahan on April 23, 1955. Its facility was closed by the authorities in 1979 after the Islamic takeover .

Christoffel's grave in the Armenian cemetery in Isfahan

Commemoration

His gravestone in the Armenian cemetery near Isfahan reads in German, Armenian and Persian :

"Here rests in peace, Pastor Ernst J. Christoffel, the father of the blind, the no-man's children, the crippled and deaf-mute after more than fifty years of pioneering work."

effect

With the school and vocational training of the disabled, Christoffel refuted the prejudice that such people are not capable of education.

The Christoffel-Blindenmission (CBM), named after him, continues to support the severely disabled in developing countries. Ernst Jakob Christoffel's conviction is the guideline for the work of the Christoffel Blindenmission, which operates worldwide and is one of the ten largest aid organizations in Germany today.

In Austria, the organizations Licht für die Welt and Christoffel-Blindenmission Österreich , both based in Vienna, continue Christoffel's work.

Honors

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Hermann Lörner (Ed.): From becoming a mission . Aussaat, Wuppertal / Bremen 1948, p. 3. On the history of the mission cf. also: Fritz Schmidt-König: Ernst J. Christoffel: Father of the blind in the Orient . Brunnen, Gießen / Basel 1969, p. 71
  2. ↑ Sabine Thüne: Ernst Jakob Christoffel - A life in the service of Jesus. VTR, Nuremberg 2007, p. 33.
  3. ↑ Hans-Lukas Kieser : The missed peace. Mission, Ethnicity and State in the Eastern Provinces of Turkey 1839–1938. Chronos, Zurich 2000, p. 347

literature

Web links

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personal data
SURNAME Christoffel, Ernst Jakob
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German Protestant pastor, founder of the Christoffel Blind Mission
DATE OF BIRTH 4th September 1876
PLACE OF BIRTH Rheydt
DATE OF DEATH April 23, 1955
Place of death Isfahan