Jesuit Mission
The Christ monogram (IHS) on the shield is a symbol of the order
Jesuits worked as missionaries in Asia (India, Indonesia, Japan, China, Philippines, Tibet, Indochina) and America , but also in Christian Ethiopia and in the spirit of the Counter Reformation in Europe.
The letters of the Jesuit missionary Francisco de Xavier aroused enthusiasm for the Gentile mission . Numerous young Jesuits asked to be sent on the mission. Around 22,000 letters of application ( Latin: litterae indipetarum ) from the 17th and 18th centuries are preserved in the Jesuit archives in Rome .
Classification
Historically, two stages of the Jesuit mission can be identified:
- the "old mission": from 1542 (arrival of Francis Xavier in Goa ) until the abolition of the Jesuit order in 1773
- the “new mission”: since the restoration of the Order in 1814
In the second half of the 19th century, however, the Jesuit mission in Asia and Africa faced clear Protestant, especially Anglo-American competition. Since the 1980s, the Jesuit mission has increased again.
Asia
India
In 1539 the Portuguese King John III asked . Pope Paul III for missionaries for the Portuguese possessions in the East Indies. After his appointment as Apostolic Nuncio for the whole of Asia , Francisco de Xavier y Jassu set out from Lisbon for India in 1541 and landed in Goa on May 6, 1542 . For three years he worked with great success in Goa, with the pearl fishermen and in the southern Indian area of Travancore.
Since Indians were often baptized out of opportunism , the problem arose that they soon returned to their old faith or followed their old rituals. In order to preserve the purity of the teaching, Franz Xavier finally asked the Portuguese king to send the Inquisition to India, which arrived there a few years later. From 1545 Franz Xavier missioned on the peninsula of Malacca in the back of India and on several islands of the Moluccas in what is now Indonesia, discovered by the Portuguese .
From 1604 the Jesuit Roberto de Nobili worked in India . Due to his strong adaptation to Indian culture and the reality of life, he aroused the displeasure of other missionaries and, after being charged in 1619, had to answer to the bishop in Goa.
Japan
On his return to Malacca in 1547 , Francisco de Xavier met the samurai Yajirō from Satsuma , whose reports convinced him to bring the Christian faith to Japan . After settling affairs of the order in Goa , which served as a kind of basis for his missionary work, he began the voyage to Nippon in 1549. August 15, 1549 is the day of his arrival at the port of Kagoshima on the Japanese island of Kyushu . Francisco de Xavier spent around three years on mission in Japan. He founded the first Christian community in Yamaguchi . He was not admitted to the Japanese emperor in Miyako (today: Kyōto ) in 1551. Nevertheless, his missionary work was very successful. He and his successors were able to convert several daimyo . In 1582 they sent an embassy to Rome to contact the Pope .
According to the Jesuits' reports, they built over 200 churches. The number of Japanese Christians is said to have been 150,000 at that time.
From 1587 on, Christians were persecuted in Japan. The most famous Japanese Jesuit martyr was Paul Miki , who was executed in 1597.
- See also: Christianity in Japan
China
In 1582 Matteo Ricci traveled to China. There he first settled in Chao-ch'ing in the province of Guangdong , learned Chinese and created his "Big Map of Ten Thousand Countries". In 1589 he went to Shao-chou and taught Western mathematics there, as he had learned from his teacher Clavius . In 1599, since Beijing was closed to foreigners, he moved to Nanjing and worked on mathematical, astronomical and geographical problems. In 1601 he moved to Beijing .
His work was continued by Nicolas Trigault . Trigault worked as a missionary and pastor in Nanjing , Hangzhou and especially in the capital Beijing . In 1614 he was appointed procurator of the Order of Japan and China. In the course of 1615 Trigault obtained important concessions from Pope Paul V. Especially the mission in China was now allowed to celebrate the entire liturgy in the national language (and no longer necessarily in Latin ). In addition, the missionaries in China were allowed to adapt their clothing to the national costume at liturgical celebrations. At the turn of the year 1617/18 he put together a group of 22 Jesuits. Under his leadership, this group set out from Lisbon in mid-April 1618 for China. Before leaving Trigault brought his order general Claudio Acquaviva to separate China from Japan in terms of order politics and to establish it as an independent order province; with him as procurator. In July 1619 they reached Macau . From there they founded u. a. the Henan and Kaifeng missions .
From the beginning of the Qing dynasty, numerous Jesuits worked as astronomers, geographers, painters, architects and mathematicians at the imperial court. Among the best known are Adam Schall von Bell and his successor Ferdinand Verbiest . Due to the Edict of Tolerance of Emperor Kangxi of 1692, they were able to pursue their missionary work relatively unhindered. At the emperor's request, a group around the Jesuit Jean-Baptiste Régis created maps between 1701 and 1709 that covered all of China. In 1720 there were around 300,000 Christians in China.
Soon, however, tensions arose with the Vatican and the other orders, as the Jesuits advocated so-called accommodation . According to this, those who have converted to Christianity should be allowed to maintain the external rites of their traditional religions. a. about Confucian ancestor worship . In 1742/44 Pope Benedict XIV put an end to this so-called rite dispute with the final ban on accommodation, which brought the Jesuit China mission increasingly under pressure from Emperor Qianlong . The Christian religion was suppressed and many missionaries were expelled. Only particularly well-deserved “Court Jesuits” like Giuseppe Castiglione , Jean Denis Attiret , Joseph-Marie Amiot , Ignaz Sichelbarth or Anton Gogeisl were allowed to stay and continue their work.
- See also: Catholic Church in China
Expansion
In 1595 Jesuit missionaries came to the Philippines , where they built a church in Baclayon . Alexandre de Rhodes came to Indochina in 1619 and, according to his estimates, was able to baptize 6,700 Vietnamese. In 1625 the Jesuit Antonio Freire de Andrade came to the Himalayan area . Under Mutio Vitelleschi's leadership, the mission expanded to Tibet ( Grueber and d'Orville came in 1661 and Desideri and Freyre came to Lhasa in 1715-16 ). In Korea , the Jesuit mission influenced "Western teaching" (Sonhak).
In Vietnam and Cambodia , French missionaries finally gained more and more influence from the 18th century ( Pierre Pigneau de Behaine ). Finally, under the pretext of protecting these missionaries from anti-Western attacks, France intervened in Vietnam in 1858 and annexed all of Indochina by 1885 .
America
South America
In 1590 José de Acosta reported from Lima. The mission provinces of Maynas (in the Peruvian region) and Moxos or Mojos (in the northeast of today's Bolivia ) soon emerged . In Paraguay there was a so-called " Jesuit State " from 1610 to 1767 , in which the Jesuits had introduced a Christian social system among the Indians. In this way the Indians were able to live in so-called reductions independently of the Spanish and Portuguese colonial masters and in safety from them (e.g. in the Jesuit missions La Santisima Trinidad de Paraná and Jesus de Tavarangue ). Many Jesuits carried out studies of the South American languages, such as Filippo Salvatore Gilii in the Orinoco region. In their missionary work, the Jesuits used music - liturgical songs, chants in local languages, composed masses, lamentations, passions as well as operas and theater performances - as a means of proselytizing.
The Jesuit mission in Latin America was viewed controversially in Europe, particularly in Spain and Portugal , where it was viewed as a hindrance to the colonial ventures of their own governments. In 1767 the Jesuits were expelled from Paraguay by the Spanish.
Central America
In 1617 the Central American tribe of the Yaqui asked for Jesuit missionaries to be sent because they saw this as a preservation and strengthening of their territoriality . It was only through religion that they achieved their true ethnic identity . Under the protectorate of the Jesuits, they went through a process of selective, self-chosen acculturation , which only ended in 1740 with a revolt of the Yaqui and the expulsion of the Jesuits.
North America
The Spanish kings left the settlement of California entirely to the Jesuits. In 1697 they founded Loreto in the middle of Lower California as the first settlement and capital of California. After the establishment of several dozen other Spanish missions in Baja California, the missionary work was continued by Franciscans in what is now the US state of California at the end of the 18th century . In what is now Canada , the mission began under the Iroquois and Hurons in the first half of the 17th century. Johannes de Brébeuf and seven of his companions suffered a particularly cruel martyrdom .
Africa
In the 17th century , actually immediately after the "Mohammedan storm" of the Sultanate of Adal , the Jesuits began their mission in Ethiopia in 1557 . Emperor Claudius rejected them, but in 1603 they succeeded in persuading Emperor Dengel († 1604) to convert. His successor Sissinios (Susenyos, Sissionos, Socinius) initially even agreed to a church union with Rome (like Emperor Constantine I around 1450 ), but then revoked it in 1630 because he feared the discontent of his subjects. Nevertheless, he was overthrown and killed in 1632, his successor Fasilides (1632–1667) drove out the Jesuits or had them executed, as well as Muslim missionaries. The country returned to Orthodox Christianity with Coptic characteristics.
Method of mission
To attract new Christians, it was customary to adapt outward forms to the customs and habits of the people. Comprehensive missionary organization, regular reports, building schools, and engaging local volunteers should be keys to successful missionary work. The adaptation to popular customs was criticized as syncretism and this type of proselytizing was forbidden.
The mission today is defined as follows:
In the age of globalization and the One World, missionary work has also gained a new meaning for the Jesuits. The option for the poor and the commitment to faith and justice are concretized in numerous institutions and projects of mission and development aid with which the Order has been cooperating more intensively since the 1980s.
See also
- Jesuit reductions in South America
- Jesuit reductions of the Guaraní
- Jesuit missions of the Chiquitos
- Jesuit Mission in England
- Christian Mission in India
literature
- Otto, Joseph Albert: Church is growing. Four hundred years of Jesuit mission in the service of world missions. Freiburg 1940
- Jean-Pierre Duteil: Le mandat du ciel: le rôle des Jésuites en Chine, de la mort de François-Xavier à la dissolution de la Compagnie de Jésus (1552–1774). Editions Arguments, Paris 1994, ISBN 2-909109-11-9 .
- Jacques Gernet: Chine et christianisme - Action et réaction. Paris, Nrf Edition Gallimard, 1982.
Web links
- Lecture Werner Liegl: Christian Mission in Asia 1998 Part 1 , Part 2
- German Jesuit Mission worldwide
Individual evidence
- ^ The letters of Francisco de Xavier . Selected, transmitted and commented on by Elisabeth Countess Vitzthum. Munich 1950.
- ↑ Christoph Nebgen : Missionary calls overseas in three German provinces of the Society of Jesus in the 17th and 18th centuries . Schnell & Steiner, Regensburg 2007, ISBN 978-3-7954-1942-4 .
- ↑ Ronald Daus: The Invention of Colonialism . Hammer, Wuppertal 1983, ISBN 3-87294-202-6 .
- ↑ Jerzy Henryk Skrabania : Sung Faith. Music in the context of Jesuit missionary practice among the Chiquitos . In: Christian Storch (ed.): The music and theater practice of the Jesuits in colonial America . Studiopunkt-Verlag, Sinzig 2015, p. 111.