جستجوی مقالات مرتبط با کلیدواژه « انجمن تبلیغی کلیسا » در نشریات گروه « تاریخ »

Following the formation of the Evangelical missionaries in the west, the church missionary society chose Isfahan as their base in Iran, relying on the British influence on the political structure of Iran. Upon determining their missionary boundaries with the Presbyterians, they decided to expand their territories to Yazd, Kerman and Shiraz. Iran Yazd was far from the volatile center of the country and had relative peace to warrant the presence and maintenance of Zoroastrians, Jewish and Bahai minorities. In the absence of Christian fellowmen, the church missionary society seized the opportunity to attract minorities, specially the Zoroastrians. To avoid arousing Muslims’ religious sensitivities, they carried out their missionary activities under the guise of health and education services. Enjoying the Britain and the central government political supports, they were quite successful until the constitution events. They tried to attract new converts by implementing different means such as establishing hospitals and schools and distributing relief donations among the poor. The present research is an attempt to investigate the activities of this society in attracting new converts through health and education establishments.

Following the emergence of the first centers of Protestant Christianity in England (late eighteenth century AD), Advertising Association in Africa and East (1799 CE / 1214 AH) – which was later to be called the Church Missionary Society (1812 CE / 1227 AH) – came into existence. Despite its rather late emergence by comparison with the other Christian bodies active in the nineteenth-century Iran, this association turned out well and popular as one of the two major pillars of the Protestant Church until the Islamic Revolution of Iran. It owed this success not only to the domain of its propaganda in Iran within the political influence of the imperial Britain but also to the benefit it took from the experiences of other communities which prioritized educational and health services. In the meantime, the Association’s missionaries – who benefited from the political support of the state to which they belonged as well as Iran’s backwardness in terms of education and health – put a variety of ways and means to the test in order to gain social legitimacy. To discuss the workings of the Church Missionary Society in Qajar Era, particularly until the Constitutionalists’ Revolution of Iran, the present article aims to analyze not only the keys but also the barriers to the success of such an association. This research is carried out by means of the historical analysis method.