Pierre Lambert de la Motte
Encyclopedia
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
bishop
Bishop
A bishop is an ordained or consecrated member of the Christian clergy who is generally entrusted with a position of authority and oversight. Within the Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox Churches, in the Assyrian Church of the East, in the Independent Catholic Churches, and in the...
. He was a founding member of the Paris Foreign Missions Society
Paris Foreign Missions Society
The Society of Foreign Missions of Paris is a Roman Catholic missionary organization. It is not a religious order, but an organization of secular priests and lay persons dedicated to missionary work in foreign lands....
and became a missionary in Asia.
Life
Born in La BoissièreLa Boissière, Calvados
La Boissière is a commune in the Calvados department in the Basse-Normandie region in northwestern France.-Population:-References:*...
, Calvados
Calvados
The French department of Calvados is part of the region of Basse-Normandie in Normandy. It takes its name from a cluster of rocks off the English Channel coast...
, Lambert de la Motte was recruited by Alexander de Rhodes
Alexander de Rhodes
Father Alexander de Rhodes was a French Jesuit missionary and lexicographer who had a lasting impact on Christianity in Vietnam. He wrote the Dictionarium Annamiticum Lusitanum et Latinum, the first trilingual Vietnamese-Portuguese-Latin dictionary published in Rome in 1651.- Biography...
as a secular clergy
Secular clergy
The term secular clergy refers to deacons and priests who are not monastics or members of a religious order.-Catholic Church:In the Catholic Church, the secular clergy are ministers, such as deacons and priests, who do not belong to a religious order...
volunteer to become a missionary in Asia, together with François Pallu
François Pallu
François Pallu was a French bishop. He was a founding member of the Paris Foreign Missions Society and became a missionnary in Asia.-Life:...
and Ignace Cotolendi
Ignace Cotolendi
Ignace Cotolendi was a French bishop. He was a founding member of the Paris Foreign Missions Society and became a missionnary in Asia.-Life:...
. They were sent to the Far East as Apostolic vicars
Apostolic vicariate
An apostolic vicariate is a form of territorial jurisdiction of the Roman Catholic Church established in missionary regions and countries that do not have a diocese. It is essentially provisional, though it may last for a century or more...
.
In 1658 Pierre Lambert de la Motte was nominated Bishop of Beirut
Beirut
Beirut is the capital and largest city of Lebanon, with a population ranging from 1 million to more than 2 million . Located on a peninsula at the midpoint of Lebanon's Mediterranean coastline, it serves as the country's largest and main seaport, and also forms the Beirut Metropolitan...
, Vicar Apostolic of Cochinchina
Cochinchina
Cochinchina is a region encompassing the southern third of Vietnam whose principal city is Saigon. It was a French colony from 1862 to 1954. The later state of South Vietnam was created in 1954 by combining Cochinchina with southern Annam. In Vietnamese, the region is called Nam Bộ...
. The three bishops left France (1660–62) to go to their respective missions, and crossed Persia and India on foot, since Portugal
Portugal
Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...
would have refused to take non-Padroado
Padroado
The Padroado , was an arrangement between the Holy See and the kingdom of Portugal, affirmed by a series of treaties, by which the Vatican delegated to the kings of Spain and Portugal the administration of the local Churches...
missionnaries by ship, and the Dutch and the English refused to take Catholic missionaries.
Mgr Lambert left Marseilles on 26 November 1660 accompanied by Fathers De Bourges and Deydier, and reached Mergui
Mergui
Myeik is a city in Tanintharyi Division in Myanmar , located in the extreme south of the country on the coast of an island on the Andaman Sea. the estimated population was over 209,000. The area inland from the city is a major smuggling corridor into Thailand.-History:Myeik was the southernmost...
in Siam 18 months later. Mgr Pallu joined Mgr Lambert in the capital of Siam, Ayutthaya
Ayutthaya kingdom
Ayutthaya was a Siamese kingdom that existed from 1350 to 1767. Ayutthaya was friendly towards foreign traders, including the Chinese, Vietnamese , Indians, Japanese and Persians, and later the Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch and French, permitting them to set up villages outside the walls of the...
, after 24 months overland, and Mgr Cotolendi died upon arrival in India on 6 August 1662. Siam thus became the first country to receive the evangelization efforts of the Paris Foreign Missions Society, to be followed by new missions 40 years later in Cochinchina
Cochinchina
Cochinchina is a region encompassing the southern third of Vietnam whose principal city is Saigon. It was a French colony from 1862 to 1954. The later state of South Vietnam was created in 1954 by combining Cochinchina with southern Annam. In Vietnamese, the region is called Nam Bộ...
, Tonkin
Tonkin
Tonkin , also spelled Tongkin, Tonquin or Tongking, is the northernmost part of Vietnam, south of China's Yunnan and Guangxi Provinces, east of northern Laos, and west of the Gulf of Tonkin. Locally, it is known as Bắc Kỳ, meaning "Northern Region"...
and parts of China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
.
Ayutthaya (city)
Ayutthaya city is the capital of Ayutthaya province in Thailand. Located in the valley of the Chao Phraya River. The city was founded in 1350 by King U Thong, who went there to escape a smallpox outbreak in Lop Buri and proclaimed it the capital of his kingdom, often referred to as the Ayutthaya...
, Siam (the Seminary of Saint Joseph then Seminary of the Holy Angels, at the origin of the College General
College General
The College General is a Roman Catholic seminary located in Tanjung Bungah, Penang, Malaysia. The college's foundation can be traced back to the 1665 establishment of the Seminary of Saint Joseph in Ayuthia which was then the capital of Siam .- Ayuthia :The College General traces its history to...
now in Penang
Penang
Penang is a state in Malaysia and the name of its constituent island, located on the northwest coast of Peninsular Malaysia by the Strait of Malacca. It is bordered by Kedah in the north and east, and Perak in the south. Penang is the second smallest Malaysian state in area after Perlis, and the...
, Malaysia).
In 1670, Mgr Lampert went to Tonkin
Tonkin
Tonkin , also spelled Tongkin, Tonquin or Tongking, is the northernmost part of Vietnam, south of China's Yunnan and Guangxi Provinces, east of northern Laos, and west of the Gulf of Tonkin. Locally, it is known as Bắc Kỳ, meaning "Northern Region"...
together with the secular priests
Secular clergy
The term secular clergy refers to deacons and priests who are not monastics or members of a religious order.-Catholic Church:In the Catholic Church, the secular clergy are ministers, such as deacons and priests, who do not belong to a religious order...
Jacques de Bourges and Gabriel Bouchard to establish a church there, and created the congregation of Amantes de la Croix de Jésus-Christ.
On 23 July 1677, after 12 years in Siam, Mgr Lampert went to Cohinchina to take up his see.
He soon returned to Siam, where he died in 1679, in the capital Ayutthaya
Ayutthaya kingdom
Ayutthaya was a Siamese kingdom that existed from 1350 to 1767. Ayutthaya was friendly towards foreign traders, including the Chinese, Vietnamese , Indians, Japanese and Persians, and later the Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch and French, permitting them to set up villages outside the walls of the...
.