Jerusalem 1851, a new missionary arrived in the Holy City to commit himself to the Protestant mission cause, together with the many other Christian missionaries who reached Ottoman Palestine during this period. Entering the city with a level of uncertainty about what would await him in his new mission post, this missionary, Charles Sandreczki, was sent by the British Church Mission Society (CMS) to continue his evangelization work in Jerusalem. His initial uncertainty quickly gave way to a strong vocation: to evangelize among the region’s native churches, a calling he understood as a new Reformation that would purify these Christian communities from their idolatrous practices. 

During my research traineeship in the Church Mission Society archive located in Birmingham, I came across the letters that Sandreczki sent to the CMS headquarters in London. His journals in particular provided intimate insights into Protestant mission work and Christian intrareligious relations in nineteenth-century Jerusalem. In addition, they do not only share information about the daily struggles that missionaries faced, such as chronic illness, death and tensions with local authorities, they also shed light on the different strategies and spheres of evangelization, schools being an important one. It was with these tools that Sandreczki engaged in the conversion of the native Christian population, which consisted primarily of Roman Catholics, Greek Orthodox, and Armenians.

Sandreczki’s tasks were not performed without difficulty and resistance from these communities often occurred. The native Christian churches possessed protection of the Sublime Port, which meant they were free to practice their religion. Being aware of this, Sandreczki shared in his journal that the CMS respected the established churches and that it therefore refrained from public acts of evangelization. But, he also emphasised that he would always warmly welcome the members of other Christian communities into the Protestant congregation. Believing that the established churches were in a state of decay and corruption, far removed from true Christianity, Sandreczki deemed it to be his calling to assist the local Christians in their spiritual restoration. Rituals and other outward religious expressions were observed and described in his journals with the greatest opposition and pity. 

This need for reform was paralleled  by Sandreczki with the Reformation in sixteenth-century Europe, as he interpreted it to be characterized by similar patterns. One element that he identified, something that was reiterated occasionally, was that this new reformation was a movement coming from the natives, and not something enforced by the Protestant missionaries. To argue for his point, he recalled various interactions with members of the established churches, lay individuals and clergy alike. These encounters always followed a similar narrative structure, which could be summarized in the following manner: 1) members of the Latin and Orthodox Churches approached Sandreczki for instruction into the Protestant doctrines, 2) Sandreczki’s reaction was one of hesitation and doubt about the sincerity of his interlocutors. He stressed that before admission, they must go through a period of probation, in which their motivations were examined, and that they had to return in a few days if they were genuinely interested. This-worldly motivations to convert were discouraged and Sandreckzi warned his interlocutors about the issues they would encounter when abandoning their former church, and 3) the native Christians always returned and repeated their desire to be admitted into the Protestant congregation, bringing with them petitions listing all the names of the families that desired to be converted to Protestantism. 

In addition, this second Reformation developed quickly, often so quickly that the missionaries could not keep up with the demand. Understaffed and lacking funds, the building of schools and churches for these new converts had to wait, leaving them without any religious organisation. The problems of  missionary absence and the constant attempts of the established churches to re-admit the newly converted Protestants were always present. However, according to Sandreczki, the dissatisfaction with the Latin and Orthodox churches was so severe that many native Christians longed to leave their former congregations. One of the native Christians, when asked the reason for his separation, described the condition of the native Christians as “a garden long neglected and injured’’ and therefore in need of a new caretaker. 

According to Sandreczki, this spiritual neglect was caused by their unfamiliarity with the Gospels. The established churches did not educate their members in the Bible and he and other missionaries of the Church Mission Society (CMS) therefore laboured to build schools where the children of new converts, as well as children belonging to the other religious communities would be instructed in Protestant doctrines. Schools were established in Jerusalem, Nazareth and Nablus, but often encountered insufficient financial support from the CMS headquarters. The building of such schools did not remain uncontested by the native churches of the Ottoman Empire, and Sandreczki recalled how their school in Nazareth was attacked by members of the Roman Catholic Church. 

The introduction of Protestant education was a key means in assisting this Reformation, in addition to other strategies and media such as literary and printing culture, and aimed to prepare the youngest generation for an active role in the spiritual transformation of Ottoman Palestine. conversion of the Christian “other’’ was thus a central theme in Sandreczki’s journals, providing detailed information about Christian intrareligious dynamics and Protestant mission activism in nineteenth-century Jerusalem, as well as wider European entanglements with the Middle East. 

Bibliography 

Secondary sources 

Church Mission Society. Register of Missionaries (Clerical, Lay and Female) and Native Agents, From 1804-1904. In Two Parts. P. 55, no. 305. 

Murre-van den Berg, H. L. New Faith in Ancient Lands: Western Missions in the Middle East in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries. Leiden: Brill, 2006. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789047411406.

Okkenhaug, Inger Marie. The Quality of Heroic Living, of High Endeavour and Adventure: Anglican Mission, Women, and Education in Palestine, 1888-1948. Leiden: Brill, 2002. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004320062.

Primary sources (Church Mission Society Archive, Birmingham) 

Boutaji, Seraphim. CMS/B/OMS/C M O16/7 (January 27, 1880, Nazareth). 

Sandreczki, Charles. CMS/B/OMS/C M O63/443 (Entries November 16, 1851; January 30, 1852, Jerusalem).

Sandreczki, Charles. CMS/B/OMS/C M O63/446 (Entries February 24- 26, 1852, Jerusalem). 

Sandreczki, Charles. CMS/B/OMS/C M O63/447 (Entry April 5, 1852, Jerusalem) 

Sandreczki, Charles. CMS/B/OMS/C M O63/448 (Entry June 25, 1852, Jerusalem). 

Sandreczki, Charles. CMS/B/OMS/C M O63/449 (Entries entry August 16 and 19, 1853, Jerusalem). 

Sandreczki, Charles. CMS/B/OMS/C M O63/450 (Entry October 18, 1852, Jerusalem). 

Sandreczki, Charles. CMS/B/OMS/C M O63/451 (Entry October 30, 1852, Jerusalem).

Sandreczki, Charles. CMS/B/OMS/C M O63/454 (Entry February 19, 1853, Jerusalem). 

Sandreczki, Charles. CMS/B/OMS/C M O63/456 (Entry March 20, 1853, Jerusalem). 

Sandreczki, Charles. CMS/B/OMS/C M O63/458 (Entries April 25-26; May 23, 1853, Jerusalem). 

Sandreczki, Charles. CMS/B/OMS/C M O63/461/ (Entry June 22, 1853, Jerusalem). 

Sandreczki, Charles. CMS/B/OMS/C M O63/468 (Entry November 26; and December 8, 1852, Jerusalem). 

Zeller, John. CMS/B/OMS/C M O71/101A (November 25, 1878, Jerusalem)