Joseph Schereschewsky

Samuel Isaac Joseph Schereschewsky (born May 6, 1831 in Tauragė (in the Lithuanian part of the tsarist empire ); † October 15, 1906 ) (known in Chinese as 施 约瑟) was 1877-1884 Anglican Bishop of Shanghai . In 1879 he founded St. John's University, Shanghai .

Samuel Isaac Joseph Schereschewsky

Early years

Schereschewsky was apparently named after his father. His mother was Rosa Salvatha. Already orphaned as a young boy, it is speculated that a half-brother of his, who was a wealthy timber merchant, raised him. Since he was a good student, he received the best education possible, and his family intended that he should become a rabbi  . After he left his brother's household at the age of 15, he earned his living as a tutor and a glazier . At the Zhytomyr Rabbinical School he received a New Testament in Hebrew from the London Society for Promoting Christianity Amongst the Jews . His reading of this book gradually convinced him that in Jesus of Nazareth the messianic prophecies of the Old Testament and thus the long-awaited hopes of his people had been fulfilled. At the age of 19 he went to Germany , where he studied for a year or more at the University of Frankfurt am Main , and then for two years at the University of Breslau . In addition to his fluent command of the Yiddish , Polish and Russian languages , he acquired the German language , which he mastered at a native level until the end of his days.

Way to china

In the summer of 1854 he decided to emigrate to the United States . He met Messianic Jews in New York City , but himself did not convert to Christianity until the spring of 1855 , when he became a member of a Baptist church by immersing himself completely in the water of baptism . For reasons unknown, he became a Presbyterian and then attended the Western Theological Seminary of the Presbyterian Church in Allegheny, Pennsylvania . After a little over two years, he also left the Presbyterian Church to join the Episcopal Church of the United States and attended General Theological Seminary . His plan to complete the remaining two years of his studies there was interrupted when he offered to do missionary work in China. On May 3, 1859, the Foreign Committee decided that he should be appointed a missionary to China immediately after his ordination . His ordination took place on July 17, 1859 in St. George's Church, New York by Bishop William Jones Boone . He arrived in Wusung on December 21, 1859 on the ship Golden Rule . He was ordained a priest on October 28, 1860 in the chapel of the Mission School (later known as Church of our Savior, Hongkew ) by Bishop Boone . By 1861, Schereschewsky had begun his translation work, the first of which concerned the Book of Psalms , which he translated into the Shanghai dialect . Together with the English missionary John Shaw Burdon , Schereschewsky translated the Book of Common Prayer into Chinese. He served as the bishop of Shanghai until he became so poor that he could not continue. He used a wheelchair at the end of his life.

Samuel Isaac Joseph Schereschewsky is buried in Tokyo .

St. John's University, which Schereschewsky founded with 39 students, taught mainly in Chinese until it introduced the English language in 1891 when the courses were more focused on science and natural philosophy.

Adoration

Schereschewsky is commemorated with a feast day on the calendar of the Episcopal Church of the United States on October 14th.

literature

• Muller, James Arthur Apostle of China: Samuel Isaac Joseph Schereschewsky (1937)
• Eber, Irene. 1999. The Jewish Bishop and the Chinese Bible: SIJ Schereschewsky (1831-1906). Leiden: Brill.

Web links

• Biographical Dictionary of Chinese Christianity