PROPAGAZIONE DEL CRISTIANESIMO

CHRISTIANITY’S PROPAGATION. — THE APOSTOLIC WORK. — It is easy to trace the stages of the growing expansion of the faith in the apostolic age: the first called were the Hebrew-speaking Jews; from Pentecost (30) numerous Hellenizing Jews who had come to Jerusalem from the diaspora were converted; then evangelization extended to the Samaritans and, even outside the Palestinian environment, to some distant adherents of the Mosaic Law (the eunuch of Queen Candace). After this, conversion of the Gentiles began, starting with the centurion Cornelius and his household in Caesarea of Palestine.

From that point onward, the preaching of the Christian faith “to every creature” was increasingly affirmed, without distinction between Jews and Gentiles. Chiefly through the work of St. Peter and St. Paul, Syrian Antioch became an important center of evangelical outreach, where for the first time the terms “Christians” and “Catholic Church” were used. Peter for a time established his see there; Paul made it the starting point of his apostolic missions. The universal mission of the Church was affirmed at the Council of Jerusalem, with the declaration that Gentile converts could not be subjected to the Mosaic Law. Aware of the primacy conferred upon him by Christ, Peter gave to the propagation of Christianity its definitive impetus by fixing the see of the Catholic Church at Rome.

The principal mission of St. Paul (q.v.) was to preach the Gospel to all nations. He took care to organize Christian communities in the commercial metropolises and the most renowned centers of Greek thought and pagan cult, from which the doctrine of Christ could easily spread to nearby localities. His main collaborators were Barnabas, the apostle of Cyprus; John Mark, founder of the Alexandrian Church, who also served as interpreter for St. Peter; Luke, faithful companion of St. 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 Less, and Jude Thaddeus remained among the Jewish Christians in Palestine. Of the others, reliable information is lacking; only St. John is known to have presided over the development of the churches in Asia Minor: Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea. By the time of his death, around the year 100, Christianity was firmly established in Syria, Asia Minor, Macedonia, and Rome; it flourished in parts of Egypt, Cyrenaica, Greece, Gaul, and Spain, and, transcending the boundaries of the Empire, had spread toward Mesopotamia and Adiabene (Assyria).

II. THE DIFFUSION OF CHRISTIANITY AFTER THE DEATH OF THE APOSTLES UNTIL THE SETTLEMENT OF THE BARBARIANS IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE

There is no lack of testimony proving the spread of Christianity throughout the then-known world. By the middle of the 3rd century, under Pope Cornelius, Rome had a fully organized clergy with important charitable institutions; at the Synod of 251, 60 Italian bishops were present. In Gaul, it is certain that flourishing communities existed in the 2nd century at Lyons and Vienne, and later at Marseilles, Arles, Orange, Toulouse, Autun, Rouen, Paris, Sens, Besançon, Bordeaux, Bourges, Reims. For Spain, the results of St. Paul’s apostolate are unknown, but the existence of churches in the 2nd century is attested by Irenaeus (Adv. Haer., I, 10, 2) and Tertullian (Adv. Jud., 7). In the following century, St. Cyprian wrote to the churches of León-Astorga and Mérida and recalled that of Saragossa (Ep. 67). At the Council of Elvira (c. 300), 19 bishops and 24 presbyters took part.

In Germany, Christianity spread, at least from the 2nd century, along the left bank of the Rhine. Irenaeus (Adv. Haer., I, 10, 2) mentions churches founded in Germany. The sees of Cologne and Trier probably date from the 3rd century. Monuments and inscriptions attest the presence of Christians in the 4th century at Metz, Mainz, Strasbourg, Bonn, and Xanten. In the Roman provinces of Raetia, Noricum, Pannonia, Moesia, Dacia, and Dalmatia, the faith was preached at least from the 3rd century, when several dioceses were established in the Danubian provinces: Poetovium (Ptuj) in Styria, Siscia (Sisak) in Croatia, Lauricum (Lorch) in Noricum, Salona in Dalmatia; the see of Augusta Vindelicorum (Augsburg) in Raetia probably dates from the 4th century. As for Britain, it seems that Christianity first penetrated there in the 2nd century through travelers from Asia Minor. Tertullian (Adv. Jud., 7) speaks of “the places of the Britons inaccessible to the Romans, but subject to Christ.”

At the Council of Arles (314), bishops from York, London, and Lincoln (Eboracum, Londinium, Colonia Lindensium) took part.

It is probable that in Roman Africa the preaching of the Gospel dates from the end of the 1st century. A rapid multiplication of episcopal sees is noted, even in less important localities. At the Synod of Carthage, presided over by Bishop Agrippinus (c. 220), 70 bishops were present; at that held in 256, St. Cyprian was 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 about 100 episcopal sees. In Ethiopia, the first evangelization is said to have been due to the work carried out at the court of Aksum by two young Christians from Tyre, Frumentius and Edesius, the first of whom was consecrated bishop by St. Athanasius of Alexandria.

By the end of the 3rd century, Christianity was the prevailing religion throughout Asia Minor, except in the central and southeastern regions (Cappadocia-Cilicia); at Nicomedia (Bithynia), imperial residence, a grand church stood opposite the imperial palace. As for Syria, at the Council of Antioch (268), where Paul of Samosata was deposed, about 80 bishops were present. From Syria, the faith spread to Osrhoene (Edessa) and beyond, into Mesopotamia (Nisibis), Assyria, and the independent kingdom of Armenia. In Georgia (Iberia), the Christian faith may have penetrated as early as the last decade of the reign of Constantine the Great (325); in southern Arabia (Yemen), the bishop Theophilus, sent by Emperor Constantius, labored successfully; later, in the interior of Asia—Turkestan, India, China, and Mongolia—Nestorians from Persia also distinguished themselves for their proselytism.

By the time the Roman Empire granted full legal existence to Christianity (313), Christianity had become, by virtue of its numerical strength as well as its intrinsic value, a moral power whose growing affirmation in public life no political authority could restrain.

III. THE PROPAGATION OF CHRISTIANITY IN THE MIDDLE AGES

1. The conversion of the Germanic, Scandinavian, Slavic and related peoples in Europe.

a) Conversion of the Germanic peoples. — The first barbarians to convert to Christianity were the Goths (Visigoths), settled in the 3rd century on the lower Danube and on the west and north shores of the Black Sea. At the Council of Nicaea (325), Theophilus, bishop of “Gothia,” took part. But the principal architect of their conversion was a fellow-countryman of theirs, Bishop Ulfila (341–83), translator of the Bible into the Gothic language. He was influenced by Arianism, and through him the Goths learned the Christian doctrine in this form and carried it with them, transmitting it to the Ostrogoths, Lombards, Burgundians and Vandals in their subsequent migrations into Italy, southern France and Spain. Here they embraced the Catholic faith following the example of King Reccared (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 Clovis (496). They had a decisive influence on the fortunes of the Church in the 6th–9th centuries, both in its armed defense against Arians and Muslims and in its protection of the papacy. “Vestra fides nostra victoria est,” wrote St. Avitus, bishop of Vienne, to Clovis. St. Gregory the Great strove to establish relations with the Merovingians (letters to Childebert III and to Brunhilda); bishops Germanus of Auxerre, Venantius Fortunatus of Poitiers, Eligius of Noyon, Nicetius of Trier, Vedastus of Arras, Amandus of Maastricht, Lambert of Tongres and many others adapted their ministry to the rural organization of the Franks; monks such as St. Columban (the younger), promoter of Irish monastic migrations, consolidated the work begun by the bishops and extended it to the Burgundians, Alemanni and Lombards.

In Ireland, indeed, the faith had been solidly established during the 5th century by St. Patrick (c. 385–461) and his disciples Benignus, Finnian, Brendan, Enna, Kevin, Comgall, through monasteries, centers of Christian formation and culture (Bangor, Clonard, Durrow, Derry) erected in every tribe. From the island of Iona (Hy), St. Columban (the elder), an Irish monk (521–97), propagated Christianity in Ireland and Scotland. The evangelization of the Angles, Saxons and Jutes, who had invaded England from the 5th century onward, was eminently a Roman work, begun in 597 by St. Augustine and his companions under the mandate of St. Gregory the Great. The first center of Christian faith was in the kingdom of Kent (Canterbury) under King Æthelberht. Soon episcopal sees were erected at London, Rochester and York. The instructions attributed to Gregory the Great, given to Bishop Augustine (601), on how to respect as much as possible the usages and customs of the new converts and on the most excellent liturgy, have universal missionary significance.

The conversion of the barbarians remaining in Germany—Thuringians, Alemanni, Bavarians, Frisians and Saxons—was chiefly the work of missionaries from Ireland and England. The name of Kilian is linked to the evangelization of Thuringia and Franconia; Gall and Pirmin preached Christ among the Alemanni and Suebi; Rupert, Corbinian and Emmeram among the Bavarians, from the end of the 7th to the first half of the 8th century. From 690 to 739, Willibrord, monk and bishop of Utrecht, devoted himself to the conversion of the Frisians according to the mandate he had received from Pope Sergius I. Boniface (v.), was an untiring preacher of the faith in Hesse, Thuringia, Bavaria and Alemannia, organizer of dioceses in Germany and reformer of the decadent Frankish Church. The conversion of the Saxons, imposed by force of arms by Charlemagne, was brought to a successful conclusion through persuasion under Louis the Pious (814–40).

The first preacher of the faith in Scandinavia (Denmark and Sweden) was St. Ansgar (v.), to whom Louis the Pious entrusted the see of Hamburg (831), whose jurisdiction extended to the Scandinavian peoples and the Germanic peoples of Nordalbingia. His principal co-workers were Gauzbert, Ansfrid and Rimbert. The conversion of the Danish kings, beginning with Gorm the Old (930–86), with the consequent establishment of dioceses (Schleswig, Aarhus, Ribe, Lund, Roskilde, Skara, Uppsala), as well as the educational work of the monks of Cluny, gave a solid foundation to evangelization. King Olaf Tryggvesson promoted the spread of the faith in the Faroe Islands, the Hebrides, the Orkneys, in Iceland and in Greenland.

b) The conversion of the Slavic and related peoples in Europe. — In the conversion of the Slavs there intervened a threefold factor: the episcopate and the Empire of the West, 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 bishops of Salzburg, Passau and Aquileia (8th–9th centuries); the conversion of the neighboring Croats, to the south of the Sava, along the Adriatic Sea, is contemporaneous with that of the Serbs, which depended on the Byzantine Empire. In the evangelization of the Bulgars (of Tartar origin but soon fused with the Slavs), after the conversion of Prince Boris (865), for a short time Roman priests sent by Pope Nicholas I contributed, and then the clergy of the Constantinopolitan patriarchate (869). The western branch of the Slavs includes the Moravians, Czechs and Poles. Among the Moravians, German missionaries ignorant of the Slavic language had attempted without success to propagate Christianity (830–40). In 863, the Byzantine Emperor Michael III sent them the two brothers Cyril and Methodius (v.), who knew the southern Slavic language. With the approval of Pope Adrian II, they celebrated the liturgy in Slavonic. Despite the political-ecclesiastical opposition of the bishops of Passau, Salzburg and Freising, Methodius remained until his death (885) a steadfast defender of preaching and liturgy in the Slavic language. His disciples, Clement, Naum, Angelar, expelled from Pannonia, carried with them into Bulgaria the Slavic liturgical books composed by Cyril and Methodius.

In Bohemia the Gospel was preached through the successive work of missionaries from the diocese of Regensburg (840) and of St. Methodius or his collaborators. As early as 880, Bohemia had Catholic princes, among whom was St. Wenceslas, slain by his brother Boleslaus I (929). In 973 the diocese of Prague was erected as a suffragan of Mainz. The first promoters of Christianity among the Poles were some Bohemian priests in the retinue of the princess Dobrawa, who married the Polish prince Mieszko I, who converted in 966. The see of Poznań was erected in 968 and that of Gniezno in 999. The Poles undertook the evangelization of Prussia and Pomerania (11th–12th centuries) and then 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. Princes Vladimir (980–1015) and Yaroslav (1015–54) organized the Church Kiev (v.). The great monastery near Kiev (the Kiev Pechersk Lavra) became the principal center of national and religious life of the Russians. The Hungarians, of Tartar stock, also turned to Christianity following the example of their princes: Stephen, who received the royal crown from Pope Sylvester II; his son St. Emeric; Béla I (1061), who achieved the final victory over the pagans. The conversion of the Cumans, a people of Finno-Turkic origin settled in Hungary after the Mongol invasions in southern Russia and Romania, was undertaken by King Béla IV in the middle of the 13th century, with the help of the Dominicans and Franciscans.

2. The Apostolic Endeavours of the Mendicant Orders in the Baltic Countries, Eastern Europe, Asia, and Africa (13th–15th Centuries). A distinctive feature of their missionary method was the establishment of personal and peaceful contacts, both with dissident Christians to bring them into union, and with Muslims for the liberation of enslaved faithful (Trinitarians and Mercedarians), and with the Mongols in the hope of converting them and drawing them closer to the Holy See and Christian principles.

In Livonia, Prussia, Finland, and Lithuania, the Mendicant Friars—Franciscans and Dominicans—opposed the forced baptisms imposed by the military Orders through preaching. During the 13th century, they established themselves in Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbia, and Bulgaria, despite the intrigues of dissident clergy and the persecutions of Muslim rulers. First the Dominicans (late 13th century), then the Franciscans (late 14th century), created the *Societates peregrinantium pro Christo*, professional missionary societies trained in special schools. These missionaries prepared for apostolic work in Asia and Africa at centres in Eastern Europe, such as Pera near Constantinople, Caffa in Crimea, Trebizond, Chios, and along the Caspian Sea.

For a century and a half, from Pope Innocent IV (1245) to Boniface IX (1392), the popes’ grand design was to establish missions among the Mongols of Persia, the Kipchak Khanate, China, and Turkestan. The most reliable sources on the internal state of the vast Tatar Empire were missionary explorers such as Giovanni da Pian del Carpine, William of Rubruck, Ascelin of Lombardia, and André de Longjumeau. In Persia, Armenia, and Georgia, episcopal sees were founded in the first half of the 14th century (Sultānjīeh, 1318). In the Kipchak Khanate, north of the Black Sea between Hungary and the Urals, the Franciscans maintained some twenty residences, and episcopal sees arose at Caffa, Tana, Sarai, Kerch, and Matrega. The invasions of Tamerlane (late 14th century) marked the decline of this flourishing mission.

Giovanni da Montecorvino reached China via India and arrived in Khan-Baliq (Beijing) in 1293. There, in 1299, he built the first Catholic church in China. An episcopal see was established not only in Beijing but also in Zaiton, a port in Fujian. The Franciscans worked in China until the Ming dynasty, hostile to Christianity, replaced the Mongol (Yuan) dynasty, which had been favourable to missionaries (1368). In Turkestan, the progress of the faith was violently obstructed by Muslim fanaticism. In India, several Dominican and Franciscan missionaries destined for China passed through, including Odoric of Pordenone, Giovanni Marignola, and Niccolò da Pistoia. In 1329, Jordan of Severac became the first bishop of Quilon.

From 1215 onward, Franciscans began to travel to the Holy Land, where, between 1273 and 1325, many shrines 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—it appears that the preaching of the faith was organized only from the 15th century onward, through the efforts of the Franciscans, whom Sixtus IV in 1476 ordered to defend the indigenous people, especially converts, against the slave trade.

Finally, note the contribution made by the Franciscans and Dominicans to apologetic literature grounded in knowledge of the doctrines they opposed, and to the technical training of missionaries through mastery of languages and local conditions. To this end, St Raymond of Peñafort promoted the founding of special colleges in Muslim lands (Murcia, Tunis) and Christian lands (Valencia, Játiva, Barcelona). At his request, St Thomas Aquinas wrote the *Summa contra Gentiles*. Two other Dominicans, Raymond Martin in Spain and Riccoldo of Monte Croce in Baghdad, refuted the errors of Muslims, Jews, and pagans (*Pugio Fidei*, *Contra legem Saracenorum*). At Oxford, Roger Bacon composed the geographical treatise on the Holy Land (1267) and compiled a Greek and a Hebrew grammar. The work of the Franciscan tertiary Raymond Lullo (v.) should also be remembered.

IV. THE MODERN ERA OF THE CATHOLIC MISSIONS

By the end of the 17th century, it can be said that the Church had established a presence in every country of Asia and the Americas, even if in fact its missionaries were not yet present in every land due to a shortage of personnel and difficulties of access; nonetheless, the network of ecclesiastical-missionary jurisdictions extended over all these territories, indicating at least de iure their “occupation.”

The 18th century, an era of intense jurisdictional and methodological controversies and of bloody persecutions in the Far East, saw the apostolate push beyond the boundaries already reached, penetrating into Tibet (1703), then Korea (1784), with a foothold in the Caroline Islands (1710).

Finally, in the 19th century, two other vast regions of the world—Africa and Australia, or rather the islands of Oceania—were fully drawn into the orbit of the missionary Church, which now had new forces providentially available at that time.

A few decades before the mid-century (1833: Vicariate of Eastern Oceania; 1841: Vicariate of the Two Guineas), the first missions were established, which might be called “central,” inasmuch as they were intended for a genuine deep penetration into the archipelagos of Oceania and the interior of the African continent. This penetration, in fact, proceeded at a steady 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 resistant tribes of the settled interior of New Guinea, through the work of the Missionaries of the Sacred Hearts of Picpus and the Divine Word Fathers.

It was also in the second twenty-year period of the 19th century that the first evangelization of the various Indian tribes of the northwest and north of Canada was undertaken, at the initiative of Bishop Provencher (q.v.) of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate, who occupied nearly all the regions as far as the Yellow Sea, even reaching the Eskimos in their igloos, and thus writing what was called the “white epic” (q.

V. CANADA; GROLLIER, P

With this, one may say that the missionary map of the world—at least in its broad outlines—was complete, and Catholic apostolate had penetrated, to a certain extent, into the heart of these geographical units, sowing the seed of the Gospel.

The so-called “closed” lands remained exceptions to this: Afghanistan, Arabia, Tibet, Nepal, Sikkim, Outer Mongolia, and Chinese Turkestan. To these countries should be added those regions where Islam predominates (whether independent or colonized), where, although religious freedom is legally recognized and guaranteed, in practice the missionary cannot enter, or can do so only briefly and with many restrictions. These include Iran, Iraq, Turkey, Syria, and other neighboring countries; and until a few months ago, some autonomous states of India, now merged into Hindustan, as well as certain regions of Indonesia or parts of British and Dutch colonial territories, which were closed under the pretext of personal security.

Disregarding these very latest territories, the total population of the great countries closed to the Gospel amounts to about 32 million inhabitants. Such is the path of the Gospel through these last four centuries, with its corresponding “ecclesiastical territorial occupation.”