Evangelization

EVANGELIZATION. — From 1721 the Norwegian missionary Hans Egede, followed later by the Society of Harmhut, spread Protestantism in Greenland, and from 1732 the mission was extended also to Labrador. The Russian-atrolossan Church began missionary activity among the Aleuts in 1794. In the second half of the 19th century various Protestant societies and, on the Catholic side, the Jesuits began missions among the E. of Alaska, after Alaska had been sold by the Russians to the United States in 1887. The Jesuits founded several highly flourishing stations. Among the E. of the Canadian Arctic, the Catholic mission was effectively established only in our century. It is true that the Oblates of Mary Immaculate, advancing northward, had already made contact with the E. more than once from 1880 onward, but the foundation of a permanent mission proved impossible. Only in 1911 did Mgr. Gabriele Breynat, of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate, apostolic vicar of Mackenzie, send the first missionaries, namely Fathers Giovanni Battista Rouvière and Guglielmo Leroux, with the aim of founding a mission on the Coppermine River. The two missionaries, however, were massacred by the E. in 1913. Later another missionary, Father Giuseppe Frappauce, drowned in Great Bear Lake; from 1920 the Oblates succeeded in establishing themselves firmly among the E. on Great Bear Lake, on the Coppermine River, and on Victoria Island. In the following years they also penetrated the territories of the Mackenzie River delta and the neighboring islands. In 1912 Mgr. Arsenio Turquetil succeeded in founding the first mission among the E. of Hudson Bay at Chesterfield Inlet. This mission was raised to an apostolic prefecture in 1925 and to the apostolic vicariate of Hudson Bay in 1931; under the energetic direction of Mgr. Turquetil himself, it developed excellently and could be extended as far as the northernmost regions. In the latter years the Oblates also founded a mission among the E. of the northern coast of Labrador. — Vedi tav. XL.