RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Mongols Monheim
favorable to Christianity to mount the throne. The victorious candidate, Gasan (1295-1304), embraced Islam, and as his first royal act ordered the destruction of the sacred edifices of idolaters, Christians, Jews, and Zoroastrians. Buddhist priests were put to death unless they renounced their faith, and Christians were treated with ignominy, though the intercession of Hethum II. of Armenia secured the rescinding of the edict to destroy the churches. The succeeding reigns of Uljaitu (1304-16) and Abu Said brought the Christians no relief. The Persian Christians, who were Nestorians, Jacobites, and other schismatics, despite all persecution preserved their organization through their patriarchs, whose seat was at Bagdad and who controlled over twenty metropolitan sees. At this same period, moreover, the Roman Catholic Church established dioceses, orders, and lay communities in Persia in answer to the request of some of the khans to the popes, who gladly sent many mendicant monks. The majority of these wandering missionaries were more interested in the reclamation of schismatics to the Roman Catholic Church than in making new converts. Their most important colonies were at Tauris and Sultanieh, especially as in the former city many Fraticelli had settled. At Sultanieh John XXil. erected an archiepiscopal see with six dioceses, while others were afterward created for a bishop of Tauris. The speedy dissolution of the khanate, however, rendered these archdioceses and their dependent sees short-lived.
East Turkestan and southern Siberia had passed, on the division of Genghis Khan's dominions, to his third son Ogotai; while his second son, Jagatai, had received western Turkestan. Here 4. Chris- the great majority of the inhabitants tianity in were Mohammedans, and desperate Turkestan efforts were made to extirpate the and Christians. Nevertheless, two papal Kipchak. briefs of the first half of the fourteenth century are extant which thank a Tatar prince of the region and two of his court for their protection of the Christians under their sway and for the building and the repair of churches. The Franciscans had settled at Jagatai's capital, Almaligh on the Hi, but in 1338 a persecution there brought a martyr's death both to their bishop and to a visiting Franciscan from Spain. On the other hand, Giovanni de Marignola, when on his way to China, was able, two years later, to build a church in Almaligh and preach and baptize in public. West of Jagatai's dominions lay the khanate of Kipchak, its center on the lower stretches of the Volga. The population waf mixed, the invading Mongols being settled among Ossetes, Kipchaks, Cherkesses, Russians, and Greeks. Between the Mohammedan Bulgarians and Kipchaks were Christian Armenians and B ithenians. The rulers must, therefore, be either Christian or Mohammedan. Berke, the brothet of Batu, the founder of the capital, Sarai, was a zealous Mohammedan; but Sertak, Berke's son, waf rumored to be a Christian. The monk Rubruk vas accordingly sent to the land, only to find thxt the rumor was false. Mohammedanism took firn. root in this branch of Genghis Khan's family. Jsbek Khan (1313-41),
while a firm follower of Mohammed, in 1813 granted the Metropolitan Peter a patent of protection and exemption from taxes to the Russian Church in his archdiocese. This policy of Usbek's was dictated by political expediency; but the patent was respected by his successors, though some of them again imposed taxes on the Christians. In 1261 the Greek Church received a further concession when Berke permitted the erection of a bishopric in Sarai. Pope John XXIL, in 1318, made Kassa the see city of a diocese extending from Sarai to Varna, the first bishop being a Franciscan named Hieronymus. Other Latin bishoprics were established in Soldaia, Cembalo (Balaklava), and Kertsch, often side by side with Greek sees. The Franciscans, moreover, had two dioceses, one with ten stations in the province of Sarai, and the other with seven in the province of Gazaria (Crimea). These monks developed great activity, and frequently converted to Christianity members of the Mongol royal family. For more recent missions see China; Missions to the Heathen. (W. Heyd-)-.)
Bibliography: H. Howorth, Hist, of the Mongols, 3 vols., London, 1881-88; W. W. Rockhill, Land of the Lamas: Notes of a Journey through China, Mongolia and Tibet, New York, 1891; J. C. Hannah, Brief Hist, of Eastern Asia, London, 1900; J. Curtin, The Mongols, Boston, 1907; idem, A Journey in Southern Siberia; the Mongols, their Religion and their Myths, ib., 1909.
MONHEIM, men'haim, JOHANN: German Roman Catholic, evangelical in type; b. at or near Elberfeld 1509 (?); d. at Diisseldorf Sept. 9, 1564. Educated at Mtinster and the University of Cologne, he was rector of the cathedral school at Essen in 1532-36, then in like position at Cologne until 1545, when he became rector of an institution founded by his patron, Duke William of Julich-Cleve-Berg, at Diisseldorf, where he remained until his death. Under his guidance the school attained high prestige and an attendance surpassing that of most universities. As an author Monheim showed his pedagogical devotion by restricting himself to educational themes. After revising a catechism of C. Hegendorfer (Wesel, 1547), he published (Cologne, 1551) two catechisms based on Erasmus. The point of view is essentially Roman Catholic, the doctrines of purgatory and the seven sacraments being maintained, although communion in both kinds is advocated for the laity. After his death appeared his commentary on the Gospel and epistle for each day of the year (Cologne, 1569), the translation used being that of Erasmus.
The most noteworthy work of Monheim, however, was his Catechismus in quo christians religionis elementa syncere simpliciterque explicantur (Diisseldorf, 1560), which was momentous for the ecclesiastical development of western Germany in that it was the first catechism of Evangelical spirit to appear on the lower Rhine. Deviating from its author's former Erasmian position, in its eleven dialogues it treats of God, man, the law (exegesis of the Decalogue), faith (exegesis of the Apostles' Creed), justification, prayer (exegesis of the Lord's Prayer), the sacraments in general, baptism, the Eucharist, penance, and the other sacraments. The material is borrowed largely from Calvin's "Institutes," with reminiscences of the Geneva
Monheim Monod