MOYÉ, JEAN-MARTIN, venerable. — Apostolic missionary, founder of the Sisters of Providence in Lorraine and of the “Christian Virgins” who taught in China, born at Cutting (today in the diocese of Nancy) on 27 January 1730, died at Trier on 4 May 1793. Ordained a priest on 9 March 1754, he devoted himself to pastoral ministry for 17 years in his diocese of Metz.
On 14 January 1762 he founded the Congregation of the Sisters of Providence, in order to ensure free instruction in the most remote villages of his diocese. Having formed the intention of going as a missionary to China, in 1769 he requested affiliation with the Seminary of the Foreign Missions of Paris; on 28 March 1773 he reached Chengtu, capital of the apostolic vicariate of Szechwan. Bishop F. Pottier, apostolic vicar, chose him as his pro-vicar and, after a few months, entrusted to him as his field of apostolate the vast territories of eastern Szechwan and the province of Kweichow. For ten years (September 1773–July 1783), M. displayed there a truly heroic zeal, seeking new forms of apostolate that aroused lively disagreements and controversies among the vicariate’s five missionary confrères; his principal adversary was Bishop Giov. Desiderio de St-Martin, coadjutor to Bishop Pottier. M. promoted the Baptism of children of pagan parents who were in danger of death, thus becoming a precursor of the Society of the Holy Childhood (of interest in this regard is his Avis aux âmes charitables d'Europe of 7 October 1779); he introduced special exercises of piety and ascetic practices among his Christians; he established the “Christian Virgins,” intended for the education of girls, an institution still flourishing in China; he fought victoriously against the usurious contracts unfortunately in force even among Christians; and he composed various books of piety in the Chinese vernacular, still in use today. Exhausted by the harsh penances and incessant work carried out in the immense territory entrusted to him, he asked to return to Europe. Having reached Paris in 1784, he obtained permission to retire to his Lorraine, where he devoted himself to preaching popular missions and to developing the Institute of the Sisters of Providence. The French Revolution did not diminish his zeal; on the contrary, he was particularly generous in providing assistance and counsel to persecuted priests. To save the Institute of the Sisters, he emigrated with a group of them to Trier (in 1791), where, two years later, while dedicating himself to the victims of a typhus epidemic, he was struck down by death. The cause of M.’s beatification and canonization was introduced on 14 January 1891, and the heroicity of his virtues was proclaimed on 21 May 1945 (AAS, 38 [1946], pp. 287–90).
Among M.’s writings, the most important are recalled: Le dogme de la Grâce (2 vols., Nancy 1774); Relation de ce qui m'est arrivé en Chine pendant dix ans, written in 1784 and preserved in the archives of the Sisters of Providence at Portieux; Le directoire des Soeurs de la Providence de Portieux contenant les ouvrages écrits pour elles par M. M., edited by the priest Puy-Pény, 1858; 2nd ed., edited by J. Marchal, Paris 1874.