BONJEAN, CHRISTOPHE. - Missionary, Archbishop of Colombo. Born at Riom (France) on 23 Sept. 1823, he entered the Paris Foreign Missions Seminary and was ordained priest on 19 Dec. 1846. Sent as a missionary to Coimbatore (India), he remained there until 1857, when he joined the Congregation of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate. After the death of Mgr. Semeria, Vicar Apostolic of Jaffna, he was appointed his successor and consecrated bishop at Tours on 24 Aug. 1868. In 1883 he was named Vicar Apostolic of Colombo, and when, in 1886, the ecclesiastical hierarchy was established in the Indies, he was elected the first Archbishop of Colombo. He died on 3 Aug. 1892.
A gifted writer and polemicist, he authored many pamphlets in defense of Christian schools, on the question of Christian marriage, and on the Goan schism. He published a Directory for his missionaries, which went through several editions, and took part in the Vatican Council. In 1885 he was summoned to Rome, together with Mgr. Laouenan, for the negotiations that led to the establishment of the hierarchy in the Indies. The voluminous memoranda presented on that occasion by Mgr. Laouenan and Mgr. B. are largely his work.