The Church Missionary Society in India was a branch organisation established by the Church Missionary Society (CMS), which was founded in Britain in 1799 under the name the Society for Missions to Africa and the East,[1] as a mission society working with the Anglican Communion, other Protestants, and Orthodox Christians around the world. In 1812, the British organization was renamed the Church Missionary Society.[2]
The East India Company controlled access to India and only allowed its chaplains to work among the European communities. The ReverendHenry Martyn wanted to offer his services to the Church Missionary Society, however a financial disaster in Cornwall deprived him and his unmarried sister of the income their father had left for them. It was necessary for Martyn to earn an income that would support his sister as well as himself.[5] He accordingly obtained a chaplaincy under the East India Company and left for India on 5 July 1805.[6]William Wilberforce campaigned for the revision of the charter of the East India Company to permit missionaries to work in India. When the Charter Bill was passed in 1813 the CMS had missionaries ready for the India mission.[2] The Revd Charles Rhenius and the Revd John Christian Schnarre were the first CMS missionaries to arrive at India and were sent to work at Chennai (Madras).[7] Charles Rhenius later worked in Tirunelveli (Tinnevelly).
The CMS sent 7 missionaries to India in 1814-1816: two were placed at Chennai (Madras), two at Bengal and three at Travancore (1816).[3] The Indian missions were extended in the following years to a number of locations including Agra, Meerut district, Varanasi (Benares), Mumbai (Bombay) (1820), Tirunelveli (Tinnevelly) (1820) and Kolkata (Calcutta) (1822).
In 1899, B. Baring-Gould and his daughter Elizabeth oversaw the missions in India and China supporting the development of additional hospitals and schools. Their work describe the balance between westernized education and medical care versus Christian conversion.[9]
Kolkata (Calcutta)
The CMS mission in Calcutta was started in 1822. The first CMS school was opened at Kidderpore, a suburb of Calcutta, in 1816; and the first girls’ school in 1822, by Miss M. A. Cooke, at Calcutta.[7]Reginald Heber, the Bishop of Calcutta (1823–1826) supported the work of the CMS mission.
The Revd James Long joined the mission in 1840. Edward Stuart served in India from 1850 to 1874. He was the Secretary of the Church Missionary Society at Calcutta. He also served at Agra and at Jalalpur.[10]
The CMS mission in Lahore started in 1852. The Revd H. U. Weitbrecht was sent to India in 1875 to be the Vice Principal of St. John's Divinity College, Lahore. Valpy French became the first Bishop of Lahore in 1877.[11]
Mission in Kerala
The contribution made by the society in creating and maintaining educational institutions in Kerala, the most literate state in India, is significant. Many colleges and schools in Kerala and Tamil Nadu still have CMS in their names. Among the oldest in modern India, the CMS College Kottayam is regarded a pioneer in popularising secondary education in southern India, whose famous alumni include former Indian President K. R. Narayanan, career diplomats K.P.S. Menon and K. M. Panikkar as well as scientist E. C. George Sudarshan.
The Revd Benjamin Bailey was appointed to the Kottayam mission in the Indian state of Kerala in 1816 and in 1821 he established a printing press.[3] Benjamin Bailey translated the complete Bible to Malayalam language. He also authored the first printed Malayalam-English Dictionary. He is considered as the father of Malayalam printing.[12]
CMS activities in the 20th Century
The CMS continued to send missionaries to India, including Frank Lake in 1937.
↑ Benjamin Bailiyum Malayala Saahityavum. By Dr. Babu Cherian. Published by the Department of Printing and Publishing, Mahatma Gandhi University, Kottayam.
Rev. Edward Bickersteth was an English evangelical clergyman from the prominent Bickersteth family.
The CMS College, established in 1815, is one of the earliest Western-style college in India. This college is located at Kottayam, in the Kottayam district of Kerala. It offers undergraduate and postgraduate courses in arts, commerce, and sciences. It also offers different vocational degree courses. It is affiliated to the Mahatma Gandhi University, Kerala. It has been given Autonomous status by the University Grants Commission, India. CMS College, Kottayam and Presidency College Calcutta, established in the same year, are the two earliest western-style colleges of India.
The Church Mission Society (CMS), formerly known as the Church Missionary Society, is a British Anglican mission society working with Christians around the world. Founded in 1799, CMS has attracted over nine thousand men and women to serve as mission partners during its 200-year history. The society has also given its name "CMS" to a number of daughter organisations around the world, including Australia and New Zealand, which have now become independent.
St. John's College is a constituent college of Dr. Bhimrao Ambedkar University, located in Agra. It is a Christian college under the Church of North India. It was established by the Church Mission Society to Agra. The college admits both undergraduates and postgraduates and awards degrees in liberal arts, commerce, sciences, business administration and education under the purview of Agra University.
Protestants in India are a minority and a sub-section of Christians in India and also to a certain extent the Christians in Pakistan before the Partition of India, that adhere to some or all of the doctrines of Protestantism. Protestants in India are a small minority in a predominantly Hindu majority country, but form majorities in the north-eastern states of Meghalaya, Mizoram and Nagaland and significant minorities in Konkan division, Bengal, Kerala and Tamil Nadu, with various communities in east coast and northern states. Protestants today trace their heritage back to the Protestant reformation of the 16th century. There are an estimated 20 million Protestants and 16 million Pentecostals in India.
Thomas Valpy French was an English Christian Missionary in India and Persia, who became the first Bishop of Lahore, in 1877, and also founded the St. John's College, Agra, in 1853.
Charles Theophilus Ewald Rhenius was a German born missionary of the Church Mission Society (CMS). He was the first CMS missionary to arrive at India. For his missionary work in the Tirunelveli district he came to be known as the "Apostle of Tirunelveli". He was involved in the attempt to revise the Fabricius version of the Tamil Bible and also published a Tamil grammar book. Rhenius’ split from the Anglican Church in 1830 and started his own congregation. Rhenius' work was recognized in 1980 by the Reverend Daniel Abraham, the then Church of South India (CSI) bishop of Tirunelveli diocese. Rhenius's work was given official recognition by the Anglican Communion during the Tirunelveli diocese bicentenary celebration in 1980, in which, all the bishops, including Anglican bishop Stephen Neill and all the presbyters took an oath in front of the tomb of Rev Rhenius to follow the path of the resting soul, regard to evangelism.
Vedha Muthu Mukandar, , was the first Protestant Christian in the Megnanapuram Circle. He was a Hindu who converted to Christianity through the influence of missionary, the Rev. C. T. E. Rhenius. Vedha Muthu is buried at St Stephen's Church, Jebagnanapuram, Solaikudiyiruppu.
Christianity in the state of Tamil Nadu, India is the second largest religion in the state. According to tradition, St. Thomas, one of the twelve apostles, landed in Malabar Coast in AD 52. In the colonial age many Portuguese, Dutch, British and Italian Christians came to Tamil Nadu. Priests accompanied them not only to minister the colonisers but also to spread the Christian faith among the non-Christians in Tamil Nadu. Currently, Christians are a minority community comprising 6% of the total population. Christians are mainly concentrated in the southern districts of Tamil Nadu - Kanyakumari, Thoothukudi and Tirunelveli.
Benjamin Bailey was a British Church Mission Society missionary in Kerala, India for 34 years. He was ordained 1815 and moved to Kerala in 1816 where he found a mission station in Kottayam, and in 1821 he established a Malayalam printing press. He translated the Bible into Malayalam, in 1846 published the first English-Malayalam dictionary, and in 1849 published the first Malayalam-English dictionary.
The Madhya Kerala Diocese is one of the twenty-four dioceses of the Church of South India covering the central part of Kerala. When the Church of South India was formed on 27 September 1947, the diocese was called the Diocese of Central Travancore. It was a part of the erstwhile Anglican Diocese of Travancore and Cochin founded in 1879. The Diocese was later renamed as the Diocese of Madhya Kerala.
Malankara Church of God Thrikkannamangal is a church in Kottarakkara, Kerala, India, originally known as Malankara Poorna Suvisesha Sabha.
Bishop Vedanayagam Samuel Azariah was an Indian evangelist and the first Indian bishop in the churches of the Anglican Communion, serving as the first bishop of the diocese of Dornakal. A pioneer of Christian ecumenism in India, Azariah had a complex relationship with Mahatma Gandhi, who at least once called him postcolonial Indians' "Enemy Number One."
The Diocese of Iran is one of the four dioceses of the Anglican Province of Jerusalem and the Middle East. The diocese was established in 1912 as the Diocese of Persia and was incorporated into the Jerusalem Archbishopric in 1957. The most recent bishop was Azad Marshall, until 2016. His title is Bishop in Iran, rather than the often expected Bishop of Iran.
Edward Alfred Livingstone Moore was Bishop of Travancore and Cochin from 1925 to 1937.
Robert Clark (1825–1900), and his colleague Thomas Henry Fitzpatrick, were the first English Church Mission Society (CMS) missionaries in the Punjab. Clark was the first missionary to the Afghans, and was the first agent of the Church to enter the city of Leh.
Arumai Nayakam Sattampillai (1823–1918), known popularly as Arumainayagam Sattampillai, Arumainayagam, Sattampillai or Suttampillai, a Tamilian convert of Anglican church, was a catechist and the founder of first indigenous and independent Hindu Church of Lord Jesus, rejecting Western missionaries domination for the first time in the history of Indian subcontinent. This subversion paved the way for the development of a fusion model of Hindu-Christian religion, free from European missionary interference and also inspired the Indian national movement, largely centred on Bengal and Madras Presidency to fight against Western-dominated institutionalized church leading to separation of Christ from Church and Indianization of Christianity: to express and interpret Christianity and Biblical text in Indian context, socially, culturally, and religiously.
The Church Missionary Society in the Middle East and North Africa, operated through branch organisations, such as the Mediterranean Mission, with the mission extending to Palestine, Iran (Persia), Iraq, Egypt, Ethiopia (Abyssinia) and the Sudan. The missions were financed by the CMS with the local organisation of a mission usually being under the oversight of the Bishop of the Anglican diocese in which the CMS mission operated. The CMS made an important contribution to the Episcopal Church in Jerusalem and the Middle East.
Saint Thomas Anglicans are the Saint Thomas Christian members of the Church of South India; the self-governing South Indian province of the Anglican Communion. They are among the several different ecclesiastical communities that splintered out of the once undivided Saint Thomas Christians; an ancient Christian community whose origins goes back to the first century missionary activities of Saint Thomas the Apostle, in the present-day South Indian state of Kerala. The Apostle, as legend has it, arrived in Malankara in AD 52.
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