INDIA
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INDIA
sions, which, moreover, suffered severely from the wars of Tippu Sahib. Long before this time the Jesuits had lost their missions among the Cliristians of St. Thomas, who in 1653 left the communion of Rome, and those in the vicinity of Cochin, as the Dutch from 1660 to 1663 had conquered nearly all the Portuguese possessions on the coast of Malabar. The Christians of St. Thonaas were, however, a second time prevailed upon to unite with Rome by Italian Carmelites ; and in 1698, through the mediation of the emperor Leopold I, one bishop and twelve missionaries of this order received permission to settle on the coast of Malabar. Eut this protection af- forded to the Italian missionaries led to a serious quar- rel between the Portuguese government, bishop, and missionaries and the Italians, as Portugal declined to forego its right of patronage, although it was neither able nor wilUng to exercise it. In 1838, Gregory XVI, by the bidl "Mtdta j^rwdure," abolished the former pa- pal constitutions for the Church of India, and assigned to the several vicars apostolic their dioceses. The sees of Cranganor, Cochin, and Meliapur (St. Thomas) were suppressed. The tUocese of JMcliapur was transferred to the vicariate apostolic of Madras ; the territory of the two other bishoprics to the vicariate of Malabar, which had been erected in 1659 for the Inealceate Carmelites, and the see of which is now at Verapoly. To it were also assigned the United Christians of St. Thomas, a pop- ulation of about 200,000, with 330 priests and 160 min- isters. The Portuguese of Goa now tried to make a schism. The archbishop of Goa, Jose da Silva y Torres, who had been consecrated in 1843, ordained, immedi- ately after his arrival in Goa in 1844, no less than 800 priests, chiefly men without any education, and sent them into the territories of the vicars apostolic. They succeeded in obtaining control of a majority of the churches, and jurisdiction over a population of about 240,000 souls. A letter from pope Gregory XVI to the archbishop remained without effect. In 1848 Portugal consented to the transfer of the archbishop from Goa to Portugal, where he became coadjutor of the archbishop of Braga. But the bishop of Macao continued to per- form episcopal functions in the dioceses of the vicars apostolic, denounced the latter, defied the letters of the pope, and at Goa within seven days ordained 536 priests. When Pius IX threatened the bishop of Macao with ec- clesiastical censures, the Portuguese chambers complain- ed of the attitude of Rome so severely that the papal nun- cio was on the point of leaving the country. New negoti- ations between Rome and Portugal led, however, in 1859, to another compromise, and the opposition of the Portu- guese priests in British India to the vicars apostoUc ap- pears to have died out. From the vicariate apostolic for Agra and Tibet, which was established in 1808, the vi- cariate of Patna was separated in 1845. Both vicariates are administered by missionaries of the Capuchin order. Tlie French vicariate of Pondicherry was established in 1770 ; from it three new vicariates were formed in 1846, namely, Mysore, Coimbatur, and JMadura ; the two for- mer under priests of the Paris Seminary of Foreign IMis- sions, and the latter under the Jesuits, who in 1836 had reoccupied this former field of their order. The vicari- ate of Vizigapatam was established in 1848 for the priests of the Congregation of St. Francis dc Sales.
Protestant missions began at the commencement of the 18th century, when the Lutheran missionary Zie- genbaly was sent to the Danish coast of Tran(iuebar. Amidst the greatest difficulties which the foreign lan- guages and the officers of the colony placed in his wav, he fomided schools, translated the Bible and the Cate- chism into the Tamil language, collected a congrega- tion which rapidly increased, and laid the foundation of the Evangelical Church of India. A large i)ortion of the councils either belonged to the lowest castes or were pariahs. In the course of the 18th century, the mis- sionary work was carried on by the Missionary Society of Halle ; at first with great zeal, which, however, grad- ually slackened mider the influence of Rationalism. " The