Το περιοδικό missionary herald: Μια αθησαύριστη πηγή για την ιστορία του Μικρασιατικού ελληνισμού
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The periodical missionary herald: An unidentified source on the Greeks of Asia minor
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Κισκήρα, Κωνσταντίνα
The ABCFM (American Board of Commisioners for Foreign Missions) wasorganized at Bradford, Massachusetts, 1810 by a little band of men dedicatingthemselves to be missionaries to the heathen. Most of these men were students ofsecret religious societies at Andover Theological Seminary, by that time,Andover Theological Seminary was re-invigorating New England Congregationalism.Thus, with a comparative cosmopolitan outlook, the American Board (nowUnited Church Board for World Ministries) in the early nineteenth century wastaking missions around the world.The attention of American Christians was first turned to the Ottoman Empireas a field for missionary effort, when PI. Fisk and L. Parsons were selected tobegin a mission to Palestine 1819. It soon became evident that there was no hopeof reaching the Jews and the Moslems in Palestine, so the first thing to be donewas to attempt to reform the Oriental Churches.Thus the ABCFM led the foundations of the Syrian Mission (1823), theArmenian Mission (1830-1831), the Mission to Greece (1831) and the NestorianMission (1834). Mission stations, schools, medical work and publications wereinitiated among the Bulgarians in 1858 and educational work was began amongthe Albanians in 1889.Driven by a compelling sense of Christian duty among hostility isolation anddeprivation, the American Board Missionaries persisted in founding schools,mission presses and hospitals in the Ottoman Empire for over a century.The organ of the American Board was its monthly publication, the MissionaryHerald ( 1820-1832).Information about the Ottoman Empire covers approximately 25-30% of thematerial in each issue. Data concerning Greece is limited to the years 1831-1869,while information about the Greeks living under Turkish occupation is dispersed
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