EVANGELIZZAZIONE

EVANGELIZATION. — From 1721 the Norwegian missionary Hans Egede, followed later by the Herrnhut Society, spread Protestantism in Greenland, and from 1752 the mission was extended to Labrador as well. The Russian Orthodox Church began missionary activity among the Aleuts in 1794. In the second half of the 19th century, various Protestant societies and, from the Catholic side, the Jesuits, began missions among the Eskimos of Alaska after Alaska was sold by the Russians to the United States in 1887. The Jesuits founded several very flourishing stations. Among the Eskimos of the Canadian Arctic, the Catholic mission was effectively established only in the present century. It is true that the Oblates of Mary Immaculate, pushing northward, had made contact with the Eskimos on several occasions since 1850, but the foundation of a stable mission proved impossible. Only in 1911 did Msgr. Gabriele Breynat, of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate, Apostolic Vicar of the Mackenzie, send the first missionaries, namely Frs. Giovanni Battista Rouvière and Guglielmo Le Roux, with the aim of founding a mission on the Coppermine River. The two missionaries, however, were murdered by the Eskimos in 1913. Later, another missionary, Fr. Giuseppe Fraspace, died by drowning in Great Bear Lake; from 1920 the Oblates managed to establish themselves solidly among the Eskimos on Great Bear Lake, the Coppermine River, and Victoria Island. In the following years they also penetrated into the territories of the Mackenzie River delta and the adjacent islands. In 1912 Msgr. Arsenio Turquetti succeeded in founding the first mission among the Eskimos of Hudson Bay at Chesterfield Inlet. This mission was elevated in 1925 to an apostolic prefecture, in 1931 to an apostolic vicariate of Hudson Bay, and under the energetic direction of the same Msgr. Turquetti it developed excellently and was able to be extended even to the most northern regions. In recent years the Oblates have also founded a mission among the Eskimos of the northern coast of Labrador. — See pl. XL.