Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 11.djvu/788

 PERSIA

724

PERSIA

ever, of a new French representative at the Persian Court, M. de Sartigos, the Lazarists were permitted l)y the Persian Govcrnniont to continue their work uiimolostod, Father Cluzd luivint; become a great favourite with Mirza Aghasi, the iirimc minister. In ISGo, Father Kouge dicil at Urumiah and was suc- ceeded by a native Clialdean priest, Father I)l)igou- lim, who had joined the I>azarist Order. In 1852, Father ^'a^^■se was sent to Urumiah, and in l.S.5(3 was followed by eight I'Vench Sisters of Charity. Mean- while, Mgr Trioche, Apostolic Delegate of Meso- potamia, sent Dom Valerga (afterwards Latin Patri- arch of Jerusalem) to Khosrowa, where he built a magnificent stone church. Darnis and Cluzel soon afterwards established there a seminary to train in- digenous candidates for the priesthood, teaching them Latin, French, Syriac, and Armenian, as well as theology.

Some of the seminarians became secular priests, others joined the Lazarists, among the latter being Dbigoulim, Paul Bedjan now residing in Belgium, and famous in the scientific world for his admirable edition of some twenty-five volumes of Syriac texts and literature, and Dilou Solomon. In 1S52, Father Terral, a new arrival, took charge of the seminary and a few years later became superior of the mission. Besides the seminary, two other colleges were opened, one for boys, the other for girls, the latter under the care and direction of the newly-arrived Sisters of Charity. To these were soon added one hospital and one orphan asylum, where all — Mohammedans, Nestorians, Armenians, and Catholics — were gra- tuitously admitted and cared for. This splendid work evoked the admiration of Shah Nasr-ed-Din himself, and he contributed a yearly allowance of 200 tomans (S400) towards the rnaintenance of the two institu- tions. Soon after, two more hospitals were opened, one at Urumiah and one at Khosrowa. In 1858 Father Darnis died at the age of forty-four, and in his place several new mis-sionaries were sent. In 1862 the Lazarists established themselves permanently at Teheran under the able direction of Fathers Var^se and Plagnard, who soon built there a church and a mission house around which the European colony of Teheran gathered, and which soon afterwards became the most beautiful residential section of the Persian capital. In 1874 the Sisters of Charity estabhshed themselves at Teheran with a house, a hospital, and two schools.

The crowning event in the history of Catholic missions in Persia, however, took place in 1872, when the Prefecture Apostolic of Persia was raised to the dignitj' of an Apostolic Delegation, with Mgr Cluzel as its first incumbent. In 1S74 he was consecrated, in Paris, Archbishop of Heraclea, and assumed the func- tions of Apostolic Delegate of Persia and Adminis- trator of the Diocese of Ispahan, thus withdrawing the Persian Mission from the jurisdiction of the Apostolic Delegation of Mesopotamia. On his arrival in Persia, Mgr Cluzel was immediately acknowledged by the shah, decorated with the insignia of the Lion and Sun, and officially confirmed, by a special imperial firman, as the representative of the Father of the Faithful. During the seven years of his episcopal activity in Persia, the Lazarist mission made won- derful progress with the Chaldeans and Nestorians. A great cathedral was liuilt at Urumiah, and many new .schools were opened in the neighbouring villages. Mgr Cluzel died in 1S82 and was succeeded by Mgr Thomas, who built a preparatory school for the sem- inary of Khosro%va and successfully introduced celi- bacy among the native Catholic Chaldean clergy. Ill-health, however, compelled him to retire, and he was succeefled by Mgr Montety, who also had to re.sign for the same reason, and was succeeded, in 1896, by the present delegate Apostolic, Mgr Lcsnc, titular Archbishop of Philippopoli. Under his able

administration, the Catholic mission has made further progress, e.\tending its beneficial work far beyond the limits of Persia proper, into Sina, the Taurus mountains, and the regions of Persian Kurdistan and Armenia.

The latest statistics are as follows: Catholics of the Latin Rile. :!;"); Catholic Chaldeans, aliout SOOO, with 52 native iirirsts and 3 dioceses; Nestorian.s, about 35,000; Catholic Armenians, about 7f)0, with 5 priests; Protestants, about 5(X)0. — Catholic mis- sions: Lazarist Fathers, 19, with 5 mission stations; churches and chapels, 48; seminaries, 2, with 17 students; schools, 55, with 800 pupils; hospitals, 3; religious houses, 3 — 2 for men, with 18 religious, and 1 for women, with 37 sisters.

D. Non-Catholic Missions. — The earliest Protestant missionaries in Persia were Moravians wlio in 1747 came to evangelize the Guebers, but owing to political disturbances were compelled to withdraw. The next missioner was Henry Martin, a chaplain in the British army in India, who, in 1811, went to Persia and remained at Shiraz but eleven months, having completed there, in 1812, his Persian translation of the New Testament. After many trials and much opposition, especially from the Mohammedan mul- lahs, or priests, he was forced to leave the country, and died at Tokat, in Asia Minor, on his way back to England. The next labourer was a German, the Rev. C. G. Pfander, of the Basle Missionary Society, who visited Persia in 1829; after some years of fruitless labour in Kirmanshah and Georgia he too had to leave the country, and died in 1869 at Constantinople. He is well known for his book "Mizan-ul-IIakk" (The Balance of Truth), in which lie ]i(iiiits out the superiority of Christianity over Mlianimedani.sm. In 1833 another German missionary', the Rev. PVed- eric Haas, with some colleagues, being forced to leave Russia, entered Persia and for a time made their headquarters at Tabriz; but they also had to leave the country. In 1838, the Rev. W. Glen, a Scottish missionary, entered Persia and spent four years at Tabriz and Teheran, occupied mainly in completing and revising his own Persian translation of the Old Testament. The work of all these missions was prin- cipally directed to the conversion of Mohammedans and was therefore, as such attempts have generally proved, a complete failure.

The first organized Protestant missionary attempt among the Nestorian Christians of Persia took place in 1834, when the American Board of Commissioners of Foreign Missions (Congregational) commissioned Justin Perkins and his wife, and Asahel Grant (1835) and his wife to establish a mission among the Persian Nestorians. Between 1834 and 1871 some fifty-two missionaries, we are told, were sent by the A. B. C. F. M. into Persia. Among these American mission- aries were several physicians who, by ministering gratuitously to the poor Nestorians, made some prog- ress. In 1870 the work of the A. B. C. F. M. was transferred to the Board of Missions of the American Presbyterian Church, and the mission was divided into those of Eastern and Western Persia, the fornier including Tabriz, Teheran, Hamadan, Resth, Kaz- win, and Kirmanshah ; the latter, the Province of Azarbedjan (Urumiah, Khosrowa) and parts of Kurd- istan, Caucasus, and Armenia. The work has been, and still is, more of a humanitarian and semi-educa- tional character than moral or religious. About $600,000 was expended on this mission between 1834 and 1870, a larger amount between 1870 and 1890, and about one million dollars from 1890 to the present time, i. e., over two million dollars altogether. Yet it is extremely doubtful whether any results com- mensurate with this vast ex-penditure have been accomplished. The latest statistics (1909) are as follows: Missionaries, 37 (including 6 male and 3 female physicians); 35 native ministers; 7000 adher-