First German Lutheran Missionaries in South India
Dr.Santha Varikoti-Jetty
The Lutheran Foreign Missionary enterprise had historical beginnings
since the time of the beginning of Lutheranism. According to the Herzog's
Encyclopedia, Martin Luther always reminded his hearers of the distress of
the heathens and Turks and urged them to pray on their behalf and send
a missionary for them.1 The foundation for the Lutheran Evangelical work
in South India was laid down under the auspices of King Frederick IV of
Denmark and by two Protestant missionaries Bartholomew Ziegenbalg
and Henry Pluetschau of the Danish Mission who had sailed to Tranquebar
on 9th July 1706. 2 During the initial years of the mission work at
Tranquebar, it was hard for these two missionaries to impress upon the
minds of the natives due to the corrupted lives of the Christians lived there
1 L. B. Wolf., Lutheran Missions and Missionaries before Carey: From 1555 to 1800 in
Wolf L. B. (ed) Missionary Heroes of the Lutheran Church, (Philadelphia: The Lutheran
Publication Society, 1911), 3.
2 John Rutherford., Missionary Pioneers in India, (Edinburgh: Andrew Elliot Press, 1896),
5.
and the idolatrous worship of the natives. 3 Rev. Ziegenbalg and Rev.
Plutscho learned the Portuguese and Malabarick languages to preach the
Gospel and to translate the Scriptures. They were much helped by the
Society for the Propagation of Christian Knowledge with a supply of a
printing press, six hundred weights of Roman and Italic type, one hundred
reams of paper and a printer man. 4 The work of Ziegenbalg from 1706 to
1719 could be assessed in terms of his accomplishments such as 355
converts and numerous catechumens, a native church, a complete New
Testament in Tamil, a dictionary, a mission seminary and schools. He was
termed by Dr. Alexander Duff, the pioneer Scottish missionary that
"Ziegenbalg was a great missionary, considering that he was the first,
inferior to none, scarcely second to any that followed him." 5
It was not until the year 1728, that the Society for the Propagation
of Christian Knowledge had formally began its Indian mission under Rev.
Benjamin Schultze. 6 Rev. Schultze had a pioneering experience in the
3 Ibid, In Ziegenbalgs own words.
4 Ibid, 15.
5 Ibid, 32.
6 Eugene Stock., The Romance of Missions: Beginnings in India, (London: The Society for
Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1917), 6.
printing field and he was responsible for the printing of the Tamil
Scriptures at the Francke's Orphan House. 7 The beginning of the German
Lutheran missionaries from Halle began with the arrival in India of Rev.
Christian Frederick Schwartz (1726- 1798) to Tanjore. He had a pioneering
missionary work to his credit for forty-eight years and having not visited
Europe during his time at Tanjore. 8 He was appointed as the
superintendent for the Christian schools and churches south of the river
Cauvery.9 He was also credited for the conversion of the Pariahs and the
Sdras as it was said that his garden was filled from morning till late in
the evening with natives of every rank who come to him to have their
differences settled.. and the number of those who came to him to be
instructed in Christianity was great. Every day individuals attended and
requested him to establish a Christian congregation in their part of the
country."10 A monument which was erected in his honor in 1807 read as:
He, during a period of fifty years went about doing good, manifesting in
7 Fleming Stevenson., The Dawn of the Modern Mission, (Edinburgh: A.C. Armstrong,
1888), 153.
8 John Rutherford., Missionary Pioneers, Op cit, 34.
9 Fleming Stevenson., The Dawn of the Modern Mission, Op cit, 38.
10 Ibid, 52.
respect to himself, the most entire abstraction from temporal views, but
embracing every opportunity of promoting both the temporal and eternal
welfare of others. 11
The History of the American Lutheran missionaries in India was
unique in the history of Indian Christianity as it is the only one body which
had enlisted the close cooperation and active participation of European
missionary bodies such as the North German Missionary Society of
Hamburg, the Leipzig Society of Dresden, the Lutheran Augustana Synod
and the Augustana Women's Missionary Society. The Hagerstown meeting
of 1837 urged for an establishment of the German Foreign Missionary
Society for enthusiastic Germans living in America. At the Baltimore
meeting of the General Synod in 1841, the Telugu field was chosen under
the societys new name "The Foreign Missionary Society of the Evangelical
Lutheran Church in the United States." Upon the request of the missionary
C.T.E Rhenius of the CMS Tinnevelly mission,12 the Foreign Missionary
Society decided to send Rev. John Christian Frederick Heyer to India in
11 James Hough., The History of Christianity in India: From the Commencement of the
Christian Era, 1706-1816, Vol. I, (London: Seeley Burnside, 1845), 644.
W. G. Polack.,In to All the World: The Story of Lutheran Foreign Missions, (St. Louis,
12
Missouri: Concordia Seminary, 1930), 109.
1841. Rev. Heyer served in the American Lutheran mission fields of Guntur
and Rajahmundry between the years 1841-1871.13
For a comprehensive account of the American Lutheran missionaries
in Colonial Coastal Andhra (1850-1950) see my recently published article
in the Indian Church History Review, Golden Jubilee Volume, July 2016.
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13 Ibid, 111.
