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American Missionaries in Greece: 1820–1869

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Theodore Saloutos
Theodore Saloutos
Affiliation:
University of California, Los Angels
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Extract

A lesser known but perhaps significant phase of American religious reformism manifested itself beginning with the eighteen twenties when missionaries attempted to graft Protestantism on Greek soil. These spiritual reformers prepared to plant their faith in Greece while Samuel Gridley Howe, Jonathan P. Miller, and George Jarvis sought to help the Greeks win their independence from the Turks. This phase of missionary activity represented something extraordinary, because the Americans were attempting to impose their kind of Christianity on a people who had been Christians centuries before America was discovered.

Type
Research Article
Information
Church History , Volume 24 , Issue 2 , June 1955 , pp. 152 - 174
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1955

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References

1. General accounts dealing with missionary and humanitarian activities in Greece at the time of the Greek War of Independence are those of Shaw, P. E., American Contacts with the Eastern Churches, 1820–1870 (Chicago, 1937)Google Scholar; Earle, Edward Meade, “American Interest in the Greek Cause, 1821–1827”; American Historical Rexiew, XXVII (10, 1927), pp. 44–63CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Cline, Myrtle A., American Attitside Toward The Greek War of Independence (Atlanta, 1930)Google Scholar. See also Tracy, Joseph, “History of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions” in History of American Missions to the Heathen (Worcester, 1840), pp. 189–190.Google Scholar

2. Convenient accounts of these developments are to be found in Krout, John A. and Fox, Dixon Ryan, The Completion of Independence, 1790–1830 (New York, 1944), pp. 150–184, 185–211 and 247–278Google Scholar; Anderson, Rufus B., ed., Memorial Volume of the First Fifty Years (Boston, 1861), pp. 41–49Google Scholar; Tyler, Alice Felt, Freedom's Ferment (Minneapolis, 1944), pp. 29–32.Google Scholar

3. Shaw, , American Contacts with the Eastern Churches, 1820–1870, pp. 15–16 and 71.Google Scholar

4. The most convenient summaries of the activities of the various reformist elements are to be found in Tyler, , Freedom's Ferment, pp. 197–216, 232–238, 274–279, 319–326, 476–484.Google Scholar

5. Earle, , American Historical Review, XXVII, pp. 44–46.Google Scholar

6. American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, hereafter cited as ABCFM, Minutes of the Eleventh Annual Meeting (Boston, 1834), p. 281.Google Scholar

7. Shaw, , American Contacts with the Eastern Churches, pp. 15–34, 71–86, 120–133.Google Scholar An account of the Baptist mission is also found in Gammell, William, A History of Amerisan Baptist Missions (Boston, 1849), pp. 299–312.Google Scholar

8. Finlay, George, History of the Greek Revolution (Edinburgh and London), I, pp. 174, 186 and 229Google Scholar; Stanhope, Leicester, Greece in 1823 and 1824 (London, 1824), p. 238.Google Scholar

9. Finlay, , History of the Greek Revolution, I, pp. 184–185Google Scholar; II, pp. 314–316.

10. Perdicaris, George, Greece of the Greeks (New York), II, pp. 288–289.Google Scholar

11. On the question of pronunciation, see Wilson, Samuel S.. A Narrative of the Greek Mission (London, 1839), pp. 455–456.Google Scholar See Anderson, Rufus, Observations Upon the Peloponnesus and the Greek Islands (Boston, 1830), p. 174.Google Scholar Professor Neophytes Vamvas taught the first ABCFM missionaries in modern Greek.

12. Compare the observations in Missionary Herald, XXIV (08, 1828), pp. 244–245Google Scholar with those in ABCFM, Minutes of the Eleventh Annual Meeting, p. 280.

13. ABCFM, Fourteenth Annual Meeting, pp. 124–129. For brief accounts of Fisk and Parsons, see Smith, Lucius E., ed., Heroes and Martyrs of Modern Missionary Enterprise (Cincinnati, 1854), pp. 374–384, 385–394.Google Scholar

14. Missionary Herald, XXIII (09, 1827), pp. 267–268Google Scholar for a copy of the letter Pliny Fisk wrote on the need for establishing a Greek mission.

15. ABCFM, Fourteenth Annual Meeting, pp. 127–129; Tracy, in History of American Missions to the Heathen, p. 107.Google Scholar

16. ABCFM, Fifteenth Annual Meeting, pp. 110–113. Writing about the educating of youth a number of years later, Anderson wrote: “The experience proved so unsatisfactory in the end that all thought of educating foreign youth in this country, whether from heathen or from Oriental churches, was abandoned; and it became a settled policy of the Board to do all its educational work in the countries where it has its missions.” Anderson, , Memorial Volume of the First Fifty Years of the ABCFM, p. 332.Google Scholar Of the students educated in the United States, in 1828 Nicholas Petrokokino was reported employed in Malta at the printing press; and Anastasius Karavelles was reported teaching in “The Evangelical Gymnasium.” Tracy, in History of American Missions to the Heathen, pp. 179, 213 and 235.Google Scholar

17. An account of educational facilities in Greece is furnished by Eli Smith in his unpublished manuscript, “Notes On Greece Taken During A Journey In That Country In 1829,” which is on deposit in the Houghton Library, Harvard University. See also Anderson, Rufus B., Observations Upon The Peloponnesus and Greek Islands Made In 1829 (Boston, 1829), pp. 211–224.Google Scholar Regarding Greek schools in Smyrna see extracts from letter by MrGridley, . dated 03 18, 1827 in Missionary Herald, XXIII (09, 1827), pp. 265–267.Google Scholar

18. Ibid., XXIII (September, 1827), p. 266.

19. Ibid., XXIII, p. 266; Anderson, Observations Upon The Peloponnesus and Greek Islands Made In 1829, pp. 245–246; ABCFM, Minutes of the Eleventh Annual Meeting, pp. 280–281. In 1830 Anderson wrote: “There are three separate printing establishments now in the Mediterranean, which are employed, more or less, in furnishing elementary books for liberated Greece. These establishments belong to the Church Missionary Society, the London Missionary Society, and the American Board of Commissioners For Foreign Missions, and are all at present in the Island of Malta. The first is provided with the means of printing in Greek, Italian, Arabic, Amharic, and Ethiopic; the second, in Italian and Greek; and the third, in Italian. Greek, Arabic, Armenian, and Armeno-Turkish, or the Turkish language in the Armenian character. (A fourth establishment, designed to print exclusively in modern Greek, is about to be set up in sone part of liberated Greece, by the American Episcopal Missionary Society)…” Within a little more than seven years about 180,000 books were printed in modern Greek. The figures released by the ABCFM press at Malta from the commencement of its operations in July 1822 to December 31, 1829 were as follows: In Greek 180,650 copies 7,568,400 pages In Italian 74,500 copies 2,253,000 pages In Armeno-Turkish 21,000 copies 824,000 pages 276,150 copies 10,645,400 pages Malta ceased to be a station of the Board in 1833. The whole amount of printing done by the press from July 1822 until the closing in 1833 was 350,000 volumes with about 21,000,000 pages. See Tracy, in History of the American Missions to the Heathen, p. 235.Google Scholar

20. Missionary Herald, XXIV (12, 1828), p. 394.Google Scholar On the early activities of King, Jonas see History of the American Missions to the Heathen, pp. 107, 145–146.Google Scholar

21. Shaw, , American Contacts with the Eastern Churches, pp. 74–75;Google ScholarDictionary of American Biography, X (New York, 1935), pp. 395–396;Google ScholarHaines, F. E. H., Jonas King: Missionary to Syria and Greece (New York, 1879), pp. 202–214.Google Scholar

22. Anderson, , Memorial Volume of the First Fifty Years of the ABCFM, pp. 189–190.Google Scholar

23. ABCFM, Twenty-First Annual Meeting, pp. 48–51; Missionary Herald, XXV (08, 1829), pp. 260–261.Google Scholar French influences also were felt in Greece, along with those of the English. French soldiers had helped free the Peloponnesus from Egyptian troops; French scientists helped explore the resources and geography of the country; and Frenchmen were present to exert what aids they could. The Greeks considered French an essential part of their liberal education. French schoolbooks found their way into Greek schools. “The ‘Manual of Mutual Instruction,’ which the government of Greece has made the exclusive rule of Lancastrian schools, is a French work, by Sarisin; and the Greeks plead the example of the French in suspending a picture of the Saviour in the schools for the adoration of the pupils.… Whatever is now done in France to promote free and pure institutions, must exert some influence in Greece.” Tracy, in History of American Missions to the Heathen, p. 190.Google Scholar The plan for a loan was referred by Anderson to the Prudential Committee but “was never executed, as the Board did not feel authorized to loan funds to nations.”

24. ABCFM, Twenty-Fourth Annual Meeting, pp. 72–73.

25. ABCFM, Twenty-First Annual Meeting, pp. 50–51. For a copy of the text which promised that “all the subjects of the New State, whatever may be their religion, (culte,) shall be eligible to all publle offices, functions, and honors, and treated on the footing of an entire equality, without regard to difference of belief, in all their relations, rellgious, civil, or poliial,” see 33D Congress, 2d Session, Senate Ex. Doc. No. 67 (Washington, 1854), pp. 78–79.

26. For a copy of this letter see King, Jonas, The Oriental Church and Latin (New York, 1865), pp. 1–33;Google ScholarMissionary Herald, XXIV (08, 1828), pp. 244–245.Google Scholar

27. ABCFM, Twenty-Second Annual Meeting, pp. 37–43.

28. ABCFM, Twenty-Fourth Annual Meeting, pp. 70–73; Tracy, in History of the American Missions to the Heathen, pp. 203–204.Google Scholar Korck was a German serving as an agent of the English Church Missionary Society.

29. Strong, , Greece As A Kingdom, pp. 347–365.Google Scholar

30. Shaw, , American Contacts with the Eastern Churches, pp. 77–78.Google Scholar

31. The resentment against King is well told in The New Englander, XVII (01, 1847), pp. 14–20Google Scholar. See also Tracy, in History of the American Missions to the Heathen, pp. 235 and 249;Google Scholar and Shaw, , American Contacts with the Eastern Churches, p. 79.Google Scholar

32. ABCFM, Twenty-Seventh Annual Meeting, pp. 40–41; Twenty-Eighth Annual Meeting, pp. 46–47; Twenty-Ninth Annual Meeting, p. 61.

33. ABCFM, Thirty-Third Annual Meeting, pp. 100–101.

34. Denison, S. P., A History of the Foreign Missionary Work of the Protestant Episcopal Church (New York, 1871), pp. 78–81, 121–128;Google ScholarMissionary Herald, XXV (02, 1829), p. 42.Google Scholar

35. Service Commemorative of the Life and Work of the Reverend John Henry Hill, D.D. (New York, 1882), pp. 11–16.Google Scholar

36. Cutter, William, “Missionary Efforts of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States” in History of American Missions to the Heathen, pp. 579–581.Google Scholar

37. Ibid., pp. 582–584; Perdicaris, George A., Greece of the Greeks, II, pp. 295–296Google Scholar; Strong, , Greece As A Kingdom, pp. 375–376.Google Scholar

38. Service Commemorative of the Life and Work of the Reverend John Henry Hill, D.D., pp. 19–20.

39. Cutter, , “Missionary Efforts of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States,” History of American Missions to the Heathen, pp. 585–586.Google Scholar

40. Baird, Henry M., Modern Greece (New York, 1856), pp. 111–112.Google Scholar On French, German, and Russian influences in Greece, , see New Englander, XVII, pp. 13–14Google Scholar and Perdicaris, , Greece of the Greeks, II, pp. 294–295.Google Scholar

41. Shaw, , American Contacts with the Eastern Churches, pp. 29–30.Google Scholar

42. Service Commemorative of the Life and Work of the Reverend John Henry Hill, DD., LL.D., p. 20; Shaw, , American Contacts with the Eastern Churches, pp. 31–32.Google Scholar

43. Felton, Cornelius C., “The Schools of Modern Greece,” North American Review, XCVII (07, 1861), pp. 278–279Google Scholar; Wright, W. L. Jr, “John Henry Hill,” Dictionary of American Biography, IX (New York, 1935), pp. 41–42.Google Scholar

44. ABCFM, Thirty-Seventh Annual Meeting, pp. 92–94; Thirty-Eighth Annual Meeting, p. 89; Thirty-Ninth Annual Meeting, pp. 135–141.

45. Baird, , Modern Greece, pp. 363–365.Google Scholar

46. 33D Congress, 2d Session, Senate, Ex. Doc. No. 9 (Washington, 1854), pp. 2–5.Google Scholar

47. 33D Congress, 2d Session, Senate, Ex. Doc. No. 67 (Washington, 1854), pp. 12–13.Google Scholar

48. Ibid., Ex. Doc. No. 67, pp. 174–177.

49. ABCFM, Thirty-Fifth Annual Meeting, pp. 90–97.

50. Anderson, , Memorial Volume of the First Fifty Years of the ABCFM, pp. 356–357.Google Scholar

51. Perdicaris, , Greece of the Greeks, II, p. 293.Google Scholar

52. Shaw, , American Contacts with the Eastern Churches, pp. 135–156Google Scholar; ABCFM, Fifty-Eighth Annual Meeting, pp. 13–14.