Propagation of Christianity

PROPAGATION OF CHRISTIANITY. —

I. THE APOSTOLIC WORK

It is easy to trace the stages of the growing spread of the faith in the apostolic age: the first to be called were the Judaizing Jews; beginning with Pentecost (30), numerous Hellenizing Jews who had come to Jerusalem from the Diaspora were converted; then evangelization extended to the Samaritans and even beyond the Palestinian environment, to some distant follower of the Mosaic Law (the eunuch of Queen Candace). Thereafter the conversion of the Gentiles began, starting with the centurion Cornelius and his family at Caesarea in Palestine.

From that time onward, the preaching of the Christian faith «to every creature» became increasingly established, without distinction between Jews and Gentiles. Through the work above all of s. Peter and s. Paul, Antioch of Syria became an important center of evangelical radiance, where for the first time people spoke of «Christians» and of the «Catholic» Church. For some time Peter established his see there; Paul made it the point of departure for his apostolic expeditions. The universal mission of the Church was affirmed at the Council of Jerusalem, with the declaration that the Mosaic Law could not be imposed on converted Gentiles. Conscious of the primacy conferred on him by Christ, Peter gave the p. of c. its definitive center of propulsion, establishing the see of the Catholic Church at Rome.

The principal mission of s. Paul (v.) was to preach the Gospel to all peoples. He concerned himself with organizing Christian communities in the commercial metropolises and in the most renowned centers of Greek thought and mythological worship, from which the doctrine of Christ could easily spread to the neighboring localities. His principal collaborators were Barnabas, the apostle of Cyprus; John Mark, founder of the Alexandrian Church, who was also an interpreter of s. Peter; Luke, the faithful companion of s. Paul on the second and third journeys; Timothy, bishop of Ephesus, and Titus, who evangelized the island of Crete and Dalmatia.

Of the other Apostles, James the Greater, James the Lesser, and Jude Thaddeus remained among the Jewish Christians in Palestine. Reliable information about the others is lacking; only of s. John is it known that he presided over the development of the Churches in Asia Minor: Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea. At his death, around the year 100, Christianity was firmly established in Syria, Asia Minor, Macedonia, and Rome; it flourished in certain parts of Egypt, Cyrenaica, Greece, Gaul, and Spain and, extending beyond the boundaries of the Empire, had spread in the direction of Mesopotamia and Adiabene (Assyria).

II. THE SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITY AFTER THE DEATH OF THE APOSTLES UNTIL THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE BARBARIANS IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE

The Apostles and their co-workers, prophets and teachers, were essentially itinerant missionaries, concerned with preaching Jesus Christ wherever he was not yet known, and with laying in the most important centers the foundations of communities which, directed by monarchical bishops, successors of the Apostles, became metropolitan churches—that is, mother churches of daughter churches—thanks to the constant proselytizing activity of the faithful: rich and poor, senators and patricians, slaves and laborers, merchants and soldiers. The oral teaching of Christian philosophers, moralists, and exegetes, as well as the writings of the apologists, helped spread the new faith in pagan circles. Particularly eloquent is the passage from the epistle ad Diognetum (VI, 1; 2nd cent.): « Quod est in corpore anima, hoc sunt in mundo christiani ».

There is no shortage of evidence proving the spread of Christianity throughout the world then known. In the mid-3rd century, under Pope Cornelius, Rome possessed a fully organized clergy with important charitable institutions; at the Synod of 251, 60 bishops from Italy were present. In Gaul, it is certain that flourishing communities existed in the 2nd century at Lyon and Vienne, and subsequently at Marseille, Arles, Orange, Toulouse, Autun, Rouen, Paris, Sens, Besançon, Bordeaux, Bourges, and Reims. For Spain, the results of the apostolate of s. Paul are unknown, but the existence of churches in the 2nd century is affirmed by Irenaeus (Adv. Haer., I, 10, 2) and Tertullian (Adv. Jud., 7). In the following century, s. Cyprian wrote to the Churches of León-Astorga and Merida and recalled that of Zaragoza (Ep. 67). At the Council of Elvira (ca. 300), 19 bishops and 24 presbyters took part.

In Germany, Christianity spread, at least as early as the 2nd century, along the left bank of the Rhine. Irenaeus (Adv. Haer., I, 10, 2) mentions churches founded in Germanis. The sees of Cologne and Trier probably date from the 3rd century. Monuments and inscriptions attest to the existence of Christians in the 4th century at Metz, Mainz, Strasbourg, Bonn, and Xanten. In the Roman provinces of Rhaetia, Noricum, Pannonia, Moesia, Dacia, and Dalmatia, the faith was preached at least as early as the 3rd century, when the establishment of several dioceses in the Danubian provinces may be observed:

Poetovium (Pettau) in Styria, Siscia (Sissak) in Croatia, Lauriacum (Lorch) in Noricum, Salona in Dalmatia; the see of Augusta Vindelicorum (Augsburg) in Rhaetia probably dates from the 4th century. As for Britain, it seems that Christianity first penetrated there in the 2nd century through travelers who came from Asia Minor. Tertullian (Adv. Jud., 7) speaks of the « Britannorum inaccessa Romanis loca, Christo vero subdita ». At the Council of Arles (314), the bishops of York, London, and Lincoln (Eboracum, Londinium, Colonia Lindensium) took part.

It is probable that in Roman Africa the preaching of the Gospel dates back to the end of the 1st century. A rapid multiplication of episcopal sees may be observed there, even in places of lesser importance. At the Synod of Carthage, presided over by Bishop Agrippinus (ca. 220), 70 bishops were present; at the one held in 256, s. Cyprian found himself surrounded by 87 colleagues. In Egypt, Christianity spread from the central see of Alexandria as far as the Thebaid and Libya, so that by the end of the 3rd century there were approximately 100 episcopal sees there. In Ethiopia, the first evangelization is said to have resulted from the work carried out at the court of Aksum by two young Christians from Tyre, Frumentius and Edesius, the former of whom was consecrated bishop by s. Athanasius of Alexandria.

By the end of the 3rd century, Christianity was the predominant religion throughout Asia Minor, except in the central and southeastern regions (Cappadocia-Cilicia); at Nicomedia (Bithynia), the imperial residence, a magnificent church stood opposite the Imperial Palace. As for Syria, at the Council of Antioch (268), where Paul of Samosata was deposed, approximately 86 bishops were present. From Syria the faith spread into Oshoene (Edessa) and beyond, into Mesopotamia (Nisibis), Assyria, and the independent kingdom of Armenia. In Georgia (Iberia), the Christian faith perhaps penetrated as early as the final decade of the reign of Constantine the Great (325); in southern Arabia (Yemen), the bishop Theophilus, sent by the emperor Constantius, labored successfully; in the interior of Asia—Turkestan, India, China, and Mongolia—the Nestorians, who came from Persia, later also distinguished themselves through their proselytizing.

When the Roman Empire granted Christianity full legal recognition (313), Christianity had become, both through its numerical strength and its intrinsic worth, a moral power whose growing affirmation in the public life of the Empire no political authority could have held back.

III. THE PROPAGATION OF CHRISTIANITY IN THE MIDDLE AGES

The missionary work carried out in the Middle Ages essentially comprised the conversion of the Germanic, Scandinavian, Slavic, and related peoples of Europe (4th–13th centuries), and the apostolic efforts of the mendicant Orders in the Baltic countries, Eastern Europe, Asia, and Africa (13th–15th centuries).

1. The conversion of the Germanic, Scandinavian, Slavic, and related peoples of Europe. a) Conversion of the Germanic peoples. — The first barbarians to convert to Christianity were the Goths (Visigoths), who settled in the 3rd century along the lower Danube and on the western and northern shores of the Black Sea. The Council of Nicaea (325) was attended by Theophilus, bishop of “Gothia.” But the principal architect of their conversion was one of their own countrymen, Bishop Ulfila (341–83), translator of the Bible into the Gothic language. He was subjected to Arian influence, and from him the Goths learned Christian doctrine in this form; they then carried it with them, transmitting it to the Ostrogoths, Lombards, Burgundians, and Vandals during their subsequent migrations into Italy, southern France, and Spain. There they embraced the Catholic faith, following the example of King Recaredo (586–601). The conversion of the Lombards to Catholicism occupied the entire 7th century.

The Franks passed directly from paganism to the Christian faith, following the example of King Clodoveo (496). They exercised a decisive influence on the fortunes of the Church in the 6th–9th centuries, both through their armed defense against the Arians and the Muslims and through their protection of the papacy. “Vestra fides nostra victoria est,” wrote s. Avito, bishop of Vienna, to Clodoveo. s. Gregorio Magno endeavored to establish relations with the Merovingians (letters to Childeberto III and Brunehilde); the bishops Germano of Auxerre, Venanzio Fortunato of Politera, Eligio of Noyon, Niccolò of Treves, Vedato of Arras, Amando of Maastricht, Lamberto of Tongres, and many others adapted their ministry to the rural organization of the Franks; monks such as s. Colombano (junior), the promoter of Irish monastic migrations, consolidated the work begun by the bishops and extended it to the Burgundians, Alemanni, and Lombards.

In Ireland, in fact, the faith had been firmly established during the 5th century by s. Patrizio (c. 385–461) and his disciples Benigno, Finniano, Brendano, Enna, Kevino, and Comgall, through monasteries—centers of Christian formation and culture (Bangor, Clonard, Durrow, Derry)—erected in every tribe. From the island of Iona (Hy), s. Colombano (senior), an Irish monk (521–97), propagated Christianity in the Hebrides and in Scotland. The evangelization of the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes, who had invaded England beginning in the 5th century, was an eminently Roman undertaking, begun in 597 by s. Agostino and his companions at the command of s. Gregorio Magno. The first center of the Christian faith was in the Kingdom of Kent (Canterbury), under King Etelberto. Episcopal sees were soon established at London, Rochester, and York. The instructions attributed to Gregorio Magno and given to Bishop Agostino (601), concerning the greatest possible respect for the usages and customs of the newly converted and liturgical adaptation, possess universal missiological significance.

The conversion of the barbarians who remained in Germany—the Thuringians, Alemanni, Bavarians, Frisians, and Saxons—was chiefly the work of missionaries who came from Ireland and England. The name of Chiliano is associated with the evangelization of Thuringia and Franconia; Gallo and Pirmino preached Christ among the Alemanni and Swabians; Ruperto, Corbiniano, and Emmeramo among the Bavarians, from the end of the 7th century to the first half of the 8th. From 690 to 739, Villibrondo, monk and bishop of Utrecht, devoted himself to the conversion of the Frisians, in accordance with the mandate he had received from Pope Sergio I. Bonifacio (v.), was an indefatigable preacher of the faith in Hesse, Thuringia, Bavaria, and Germany, an organizer of the dioceses in Germany, and a reformer of the fallen Frankish Church. The conversion of the Saxons, imposed by Charlemagne through the force of arms, was brought to completion by persuasion under Ludovico il Pio (814–40).

The first preacher of the faith in Scandinavia (Denmark and Sweden) was s. ASCARICO (v.), to whom Ludovico il Pio entrusted the see of Hamburg (831), whose jurisdiction extended over the Scandinavian peoples and the Germanic populations of Nordalbingia. His principal collaborators were Gaudberto, Ansfrido, and Rimberto. The conversion of the Danish kings, beginning with Arnaldo Blantand (650–86), together with the establishment of dioceses (Slesvig, Aarhus, Ribe, Lund, Drontheim, Skara, Uppsala), as well as the educational work of the monks of Cluny, provided a solid foundation for evangelization. King Olaf Tryggvesson promoted the propagation of the faith in the Faer-Oeer, Hebrides, and Orkney Islands, in Ireland, and in Greenland.

b) The conversion of the Slavic and related peoples of Europe. — Three factors played a part in the conversion of the Slavs: the episcopate and the Western Empire, the patriarchate of Constantinople and the Byzantine Empire, and, between the two, the moderating power of the Holy See. Among the southern Slavs, the Slovenes came to the faith through the work of the bishops of Salzburg, Passau, and Aquileia (8th–9th centuries); the conversion of the neighboring Croats, south of the Sava along the Adriatic Sea, was contemporary with that of the Serbs, who were dependent on the Byzantine Empire. In the evangelization of the Bulgarians (of Tatar origin but soon merged with the Slavs), after the conversion of Prince Boris (865), Roman priests sent by Pope Niccolò I contributed for a brief period, followed by the clergy of the Constantinopolitan patriarchate (869). The western branch of the Slavs included the Moravians, Bohemians, and Poles. Among the Moravians, German missionaries ignorant of the Slavic language had unsuccessfully attempted to propagate Christianity (830–40). In 865, the Byzantine emperor Michele III sent them METODISMO (v.), who knew the southern Slavic language. With the approval of Pope Adriano II, they celebrated worship in the Slavonic language. Despite the political and ecclesiastical opposition of the bishops of Passau, Salzburg, and Freising, Metodio remained until his death (885) a vigorous defender of preaching and liturgy in the Slavic language. His disciples, Clemente, Naeum, and Angelar, expelled from Pannonia, carried with them to Bulgaria the Slavic liturgical books composed by Cirillo and Metodio.

In Bohemia, the Gospel was preached successively by missionaries who came from the diocese of Regensburg (840) and by s. Metodio or his collaborators. From as early as 880, Bohemia had Catholic princes, among them s. Venceslao, murdered by his brother Boleslao I (929). In 973, the diocese of Prague was established as a suffragan of Mainz. The first propagators of Christianity among the Poles were certain Bohemian priests in the retinue of Princess Dobrowa, who had married the Polish prince Mieszko I, converted in 966. The see of Posnania was established in 968 and that of Gnesna (Gniezno) in 999. The Poles undertook the evangelization of Prussia and Pomerania (11th–12th centuries), and later that of Samogitia.

Among the Eastern Slavs, the first to hear the good news were those who occupied Podolia, northern Galicia, Volhynia, and the region around Kiev, formerly called Rus, Ruthenians, and today Ukrainians. They had missionaries from Bulgaria, Germany, and the Byzantine Empire. The princes Vladimiro (980–1013) and Jeroslao (1013–54) organized the Church there, Kiev (v.). The great monastery near Kiev (Petscherskaja Lavra) became the principal center of the national and religious life of the Russians. The Hungarians too, of Tartar stock, set out upon the path to Christianity following the example of their princes: Stefano, who received the royal crown from Pope Silvestro II; his son s. Emerico; and Bela I (1061), who achieved the final victory over the pagans. The conversion of the Cumans, peoples of Finno-Turkic origin who settled in Hungary after the Mongol invasions of southern Russia and Romania, was undertaken by King Bela IV around the middle of the 13th century, with the assistance of the Dominicans and Franciscans.

2. The apostolic efforts of the Mendicant Orders in the Baltic countries, Eastern Europe, Asia, and Africa (13th–15th centuries). A characteristic feature of their missionary method was the establishment of personal and peaceful contacts, both with dissident Christians, in order to lead them to union, and with Muslims, for the liberation of the faithful reduced to slavery (Trinitarians and Mercedarians), as well as with the Mongols, in the hope of converting them and bringing them closer to the Holy See and to the Christian princes.

In Livonia, Prussia, Finland, and Lithuania, the Friars Minor and Preachers opposed preaching to the baptism imposed by force by the military Orders. During the 13th century, they established themselves in Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbia, and Bulgaria, despite the intrigues of the dissident clergy and the tortures inflicted by their Muslim masters. First the Dominicans (at the end of the 13th century), then the Franciscans (at the end of the 14th century), founded the «Societates peregrinantium pro Christo», societies of professional missionaries trained in special schools who, in Eastern Europe, at Pera near Constantinople, Caffa in Crimea, Trebizond, Chios, and along the Caspian Sea, prepared themselves for apostolic conquests in Asia and Africa.

Establishing missions among the Mongols of Persia, the Kipchak, China, and Turkestan was, for a century and a half, the great aim of the popes, from Innocent IV (1245) to Boniface IX (1392). Their most faithful informants concerning the internal condition of the immense Tartar Empire were missionary explorers, such as Giovanni da Pian del Carpine, Guglielmo da Rubruq, Ascelino of Lombardy, and Andrea da Longjumeau. In Persia, Armenia, and Georgia, episcopal sees were founded in the first half of the 14th century (Sultanjieh, 1318). In the Kipchak, north of the Black Sea, between Hungary and the Urals, the Friars Minor had about twenty residences, and episcopal sees arose at Kaffa, Tana, Sarai, Kertsch, and Matrega. Tamerlane’s invasions (at the end of the 14th century) marked the decline of this flourishing mission.

Giovanni da Montecorvino entered China by way of India and arrived at Khan-Baliq (Beijing) in 1293. In that city he built the first Catholic church in China in 1299. An episcopal see was established not only at Beijing but also at Zaiton, the port of Fo-Kien. The Friars Minor worked in China until the Chinese Ming dynasty, hostile to Christianity, supplanted the Tartar dynasty of Genghis Khan, which had been favorable to the missionaries (1368). In Turkestan, the propagation of Christianity was violently obstructed by Muslim fanaticism. Several Dominican and Franciscan missionaries passed through India on their way to China: Odorico da Pordenone, Giovanni Marignola, and Nicola da Pistoia. In 1329, Giordano da Severac became the first bishop of Quilon. Beginning in 1215, the Friars Minor began going to the Holy Land, where, between 1273 and 1325, many sanctuaries were entrusted to them. They strove to preserve the faith among Catholics. West of Morocco, in the Canary Islands, discovered in the first half of the 14th century, the preaching of the faith seems to have been organized only from the 15th century onward, through the work of the Franciscans, whom Sixtus IV instructed in 1476 to defend the indigenous peoples, especially converts, against the slave trade.

Finally, mention should be made of the contribution of the Friars Minor and Preachers to apologetic literature, based on knowledge of the doctrines being opposed, and to the technical training of missionaries, through knowledge of languages and of the environment. For this purpose, s. Raimondo da Peñafort promoted the foundation of special colleges in Muslim lands (Murcia, Tunis) and in Christian lands (Valencia, Xativa, Barcelona). At his request, s. Tommaso d’Aquino wrote the Summa contra Gentiles. Two other Dominicans, Raimondo Martin in Spain and Riccoldo da Monte Croce in Baghdad, refuted the errors of Muslims, Jews, and Gentiles (Pugis Pidei, contra legem Saracenorum). At Oxford, Ruggero Bacone composed the geographical treatise on the Holy Land (1267) and compiled a Greek and a Hebrew grammar. The work of the Franciscan tertiary Raimondo Lullo should also be remembered (v.).

After Islam had been bottled up in the Mediterranean, Portugal advanced freely across the eastern seas, from Goa to Macao, Japan, and began its work of colonization, which—whether more or less profound—constituted in a certain sense the trajectory and, at the same time, the foundation of the propagation of the Gospel in those great regions, by land no longer inaccessible, or at least difficult to reach. For its part, the other Catholic Iberian power, Spain, through the agency of the Genoese Columbus, discovered entirely new and unsuspected lands for colonization and for the Church’s evangelizing ambition: millions of people of the most diverse races appeared on the horizon of Catholicism. Both Iberian nations received from the papacy a kind of privileged investiture, at once civil and religious, consisting of rights and duties (v. PATRONATO); thus began a new age of fruitful, though not danger-free, ecclesiastical-state collaboration in the evangelization of the newly discovered or rediscovered lands. Along this course, therefore, the Gospel was spread for approximately a century and a half, until the creation of the specialized missionary center, the Sacred Congregation de Propaganda Fide, in 1622.

The course of Christianity during this colonial period, which made use of the older religious Orders, but above all of the new ones that had arisen in the meantime, such as the Capuchins and the Jesuits, was marked by the course of colonization itself, geographically and historically, with some generous ventures beyond those limits. The missions along the entire perimeter of Africa, dotted with Portuguese fortresses, began during this period, although they did not achieve lasting results (v. AFRICA). The apostolate in the East Indies (Goa, a diocese in 1534), on the other hand, enjoyed greater success; decisive impetus was given to it by the apostolate of St. Francesco Saverio (v.); all of Asia colonized by Portugal, or within its sphere of influence, was “occupied” from a missionary standpoint at its most prominent points, with the erection of ordinary dioceses, beginning with India and then extending to Siam, Camboge, Burma, the Philippines, China, and Japan—all missions begun toward the end of the sixteenth century. Immediately afterward, at the beginning of the seventeenth century, came Cochin China and Tonkin as well (v. ASIA and the entries on the individual countries).

In the Spanish sphere of influence, that is, principally in the Americas and, later, once again in the Philippines, the same process took hold, but more profoundly; through the missions, in fact, the Church took possession of those lands, succeeding in founding there not only the first centers of propagation, but the first Christian nations (v. AMERICA and the entries on the individual American nations), several of them already during this very earliest period of little more than a century. By the middle of the sixteenth century (1546), Mexico, in fact, already had an archdiocese (Mexico City), with five suffragan dioceses.

The period that followed this patronage system—which, however, continued in the Americas and, to some extent, also in Asia—was distinguished by a twofold penetration, geographical and moral: geographical, insofar as Christianity advanced beyond the primitive strongholds of the colonizing nations, venturing into the interior regions; moral, because of the consequent more direct contact with the indigenous populations. An example of this greater and more effective missionary penetration in the seventeenth century is provided by the results achieved in the Chinese Empire, especially following the activity of Fr. Matteo Ricci (v.), and in the countries of Indochina, especially in the Kingdoms of Annam and Tonkin (v. RHODES). This twofold penetration, carried out with the participation of new religious families, especially the Paris Foreign Missions and the Lazarists, was also facilitated by France’s new and growing influence in the East (China, Siam, Indochina) and in the West (Canada), and was strongly promoted by the new Congregation de Propaganda Fide (1622), which, by inserting the new “apostolic vicariates”—entrusted to missionaries of nations other than Portugal—into the ancient patronage dioceses, especially in Asia, broadened the horizons of the missionary world and enhanced its fruitfulness.

By the end of the seventeenth century, therefore, it may be said that the Church had set foot in all the countries of Asia and the Americas, even though, in fact, its missionaries were not yet present in every land, owing to the shortage of personnel and the difficulties of access; in any case, the network of ecclesiastical-missionary units had by then been extended over all those territories, indicating their “occupation,” at least de iure.

The eighteenth century, the age of the greatest jurisdictional and methodological controversies and of bloody persecutions in the Far East, saw the apostolate advance still beyond the boundaries already reached, penetrating Tibet (1703), then Korea (1784), with an outpost in the Caroline Islands (1710).

Finally, with the nineteenth century, two other great regions of the world, Africa and Australia—or rather, the islands of Oceania—entered fully into the orbit of the missionary Church, which had new forces at its disposal, providentially arising precisely in that period.

A few decades before the middle of the century (1833: vicariate of Eastern Oceania; 1841: vicariate of the Two Guineas), the first missions were established that might be called “central,” since they were intended to achieve genuine penetration into the interior of the archipelagos of Oceania and of the African continent: a penetration that in fact proceeded at a sustained pace and continues to this day, from the regions of the great lakes of Central Africa, through the work of the White Fathers, to the most inaccessible and most resistant tribes of the unexplored interior of New Guinea, through the work of the Missionaries of the Sacred Hearts of Picpus and the Divine Word Fathers.

The first evangelization of the various Italian tribes of northwestern and northern Canada also dates from the second decade of the nineteenth century, through the initiative of Msgr. Provencher (v.) of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate, who occupied nearly all the regions as far as the Glacial Ocean, seeking out the Eskimos in their igloos and writing what came to be called the “white epic” (

V. CANADÀ; GROLLIER, P

H.; TACHE, A. A.).

With this, it may be said that the geographical-missionary map of the world, at least in its general outlines, was complete, and that the Catholic apostolate was also penetrating, to some extent, into the heart of these geographical units, casting the evangelical seed there.

Exceptions were the lands known as “closed” to evangelical propagation: Afghanistan, Arabia, Tibet, Nepal, Sikkim, Outer Mongolia, and Chinese Turkestan. To these countries should be added those regions of predominantly Muslim religion—whether independent or colonized—where, although religious freedom is legalized and recognized, the missionary is in fact unable to enter, or can enter only in transit and with many restrictions; these include Iran, Iraq, Turkey, Syria, and other neighboring countries. Until a few months ago, they also included certain autonomous states of India, now incorporated into Hindustan, and certain regions of Indonesia, or portions of British or Dutch colonial territories, access to which was prohibited under the pretext of concern for personal safety.

Setting aside these very recent territories, the total population of the large countries closed to the Gospel amounts to approximately 32 million inhabitants. Such has been the progress of the Gospel through these last four centuries, together with the corresponding ecclesiastical territorial “occupation.”