Lutherans Commemorate 300 Years of Ministry in India LWF President Hanson and General Secretary Noko Attend Celebrations
CHENNAI, India/GENEVA, 7 July 2006 (LWI) - The President of the Lutheran World Federation (LWF), Bishop Mark S. Hanson, and the General Secretary, Rev. Dr Ishmael Noko, are among delegates attending week-long celebrations in Chennai, India, to mark the 300th anniversary of the arrival of the first Protestant missionary in the country.
Bartholomaeus Ziegenbalg, a German Lutheran missionary sent by the Danish king, Frederick IV, to seek converts to Christianity, arrived in India on 9 July 1706 at Tranquebar (known as Tarangambadi in Tamil), which was then a Danish colony on India's eastern coast, 300 kilometers south of Chennai. With fellow missionary Heinrich Plütschau, Ziegenbalg set about translating the Bible, prayers and hymns into Tamil, the local language. Though Plütschau later returned to Germany, Ziegenbalg remained in Tranquebar until his death at the age of 36 in 1719.
Hanson, presiding bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), described Ziegenbalg as a great figure who had laid the foundations of modern Christian mission in India. A 16-member ELCA delegation is participating in the tercentenary commemorations taking place from 1 to 9 July at the Gurukul Lutheran Theological College and Research Institute, Chennai, and in Tranquebar. Five days of seminars and consultations on Ziegenbalg's legacy and the challenges facing the Indian churches will be followed on 8 July by a rededication of the New Jerusalem Church in Tranquebar, where Ziegenbalg's body is buried. An ecumenical jubilee thanksgiving service will be held on 9 July.
As well as translating the New Testament into Tamil for the first time, the missionary is credited with bringing the first mechanized printing press into India, and with compiling a Tamil-Latin grammar book that was reprinted in Halle, Germany, where he had studied. He is also known for his pioneering work in herbal medicine.
The inaugural ceremony on 3 July was followed by the handing over of more than 150 rolls of microfilm containing 35,000 pages of manuscripts and other documents on the life and work of Ziegenbalg by Dr Thomas Müller Bahlke, director of the Francke Foundation, Halle. The foundation is named after August Hermann Francke under whom Ziegenbalg studied theology.
"This will certainly help better research and encourage more of our students to study the contribution of Ziegenbalg and others," said Rev. Samuel Meshack, principal of Gurukul Lutheran Theological College, which received the microfilm, and co-sponsored the celebrations.
The Lutheran college is organizing the tercentenary events jointly with the United Evangelical Lutheran Church in India, which brings together 11 Lutheran churches; the National Council of Churches in India, which comprises 29 Orthodox and Protestant churches; and the Tamil Evangelical Lutheran Church, which has been a member of the LWF since 1947.
Over 300 delegates including international guests and local government officials are attending the celebrations. (477 words)
(Based on articles by the ELCA News Service and Ecumenical News Internation al (ENI).)
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