Johannes Avetaranian
Johannes Avetaranian or Johannes Awetaranian (born June 30, 1861 in Erzurum as Muhammad Shukri ; † December 11, 1919 in Wiesbaden ) was a Protestant missionary .
Born into a Muslim family (his father was a dervish ), Muhammad Shukri first became a mullah , but converted from Islam to Christianity after reading the New Testament and was baptized in Tbilisi on February 28, 1885 , using the Armenian name John Avetaranian ("Son of the Gospel") accepted. He joined the missionary work of the Swedish Missionary Union , was trained at the mission school in Kristinehamn and, after a brief assignment in Tbilisi and the surrounding area, came to Kashgar ( Xinjiang , then East Turkestan) in 1892 , where he worked as a missionary until 1897 and the new one Testament translated into Uyghur . From 1899 he worked for Johannes Lepsius ' German Orient Mission (DOM) and accompanied him on a nine-month trip to the Orient, in order to then work as a missionary in Bulgaria and later also in Persia . In 1909 he fled to Germany and was supposed to be employed at a planned "Mohammedan seminar" of the DOM in Groß-Lichterfelde , but returned to Plovdiv in 1910 after tensions with the board of the DOM . When Lepsius resigned from the DOM in 1918, Avetaranian joined him, but could no longer take on work due to his tense health and died while taking a spa stay.
Since 1900 he had been married to the German noblewoman Helene von Osteroth, who followed him to the mission field.
Fonts (selection)
- From Bulgaria to Persia . German Orient Mission, Berlin 1902.
- The story of the martyr Mirsa Ibrahim as well as some reports from the life of Christian Muslims . German Orient Mission, Berlin 1903.
-
Story of a Muslim who became a Christian . German Orient Mission, Großlichterfelde-West 1905.
- Story of a Muslim who became a Christian . After his death received by Richard Schäfer. Missionshandlung und Verlag, Potsdam 1930 e-book ( Memento from March 24, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
- The Muslim press and Islamic propaganda today . German Orient Mission, Potsdam 1910.
- The story of a Mohammedan the Christian was edited by Johannes Awetaranian, Brosamen Verlag Albstadt 2014
Web links
- English translation of Schäfer's book online (selection).
- Atanas Damianov: The work of the German Orient Mission among the Turkish Muslims in Bulgaria from the beginning of the 20th century to World War II Halle 2002, ISBN 3-8258-6311-5 .
- Literature by and about Johannes Avetaranian in the catalog of the German National Library
Individual evidence
- ↑ John Hultvall: Mission and Revolution in Central Asia. The MCCS Mission Work in Eastern Turkestan 1892–1938 . PDF , pp. 7-9.
personal data | |
---|---|
SURNAME | Avetaranian, Johannes |
ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Shukri, Muhammad (birth name) |
BRIEF DESCRIPTION | evangelical missionary in China and Bulgaria |
DATE OF BIRTH | June 30, 1861 |
PLACE OF BIRTH | Erzurum |
DATE OF DEATH | December 11, 1919 |
Place of death | Wiesbaden |