Protectorate of missions
Encyclopedia
Protectorate of Missions is a term for the right of protection exercised by a Christian
power in an 'infidel' (e.g. Muslim
) country with regard to the persons and establishments of the missionaries. The term does not apply to all protection of missions, but only to that permanently exercised in virtue of an acquired right, usually established by a treaty or convention (either explicit or tacit), voluntarily consented to or accepted after more or less compulsion by the infidel power. The object of the protectorate may be more or less extensive, according as it embraces only the missionaries who are subjects of the protecting power
, or applies to the missionaries of all nations or even to their neophytes, the native Christians. To comprehend fully the nature of the protectorate of missions, as it has been in times past and as it is to-day, it will be necessary to study separately the Protectorate of the Levant
and that of the Far East
.
rule, especially Constantinople
, the Archipelago
, Syria
, Palestine
, Egypt
, Barbary etc. It was French in origin, and was, until near the end of the nineteenth century, the almost exclusive privilege of France
. It was inaugurated in the Holy Land
by Charlemagne
, who secured from the celebrated Caliph
Haroun al-Raschid a sort of share in his sovereignty over the Holy Places of Jerusalem. Charlemagne and his successors made use of this concession to make pious and charitable foundations in the Holy city
, to protect the Christian inhabitants and pilgrims, and to insure the perpetuity of Christian worship.
The destruction of the Arabian Empire by the Turks put an end to this first protectorate, and for reasons that were not purely religious, led to the Crusades, as a result of which Palestine was conquered from the Saracens and became a Latin, French-speaking kingdom. The Christian rule was later replaced by that of Islam, but during the three centuries of Crusades, which had been undertaken and supported mainly by France, the Christians of the East had grown accustomed to look to that country for assistance in oppression or to gain more leverage in their dealings with the Ottomans, while France valued its increasingly important role in the region and its accompanying geopolitical benefits. There lies the germ of the modern Protectorate of the Levant.
. At first this name designated the commercial agreement conceded by the Sublime Porte to Latin merchants (first to the Italians), and arose from the fact that the articles of these agreements were called capitoli 'chapters' in the Italian redaction: the term has not, therefore, the same humiliating meaning as in military parlance (conceding utter defeat), but a similar neutral etymology as the Carolingian Capitularia.
Francis I
was the first king of France who sought an alliance with Turkey. To this he was urged, not by the spirit of the Crusaders, but entirely by the desire to break in Europe the dominating power of the imperial Habsburg House of Austria. By compelling Austria to spend its forces in defense against the Turks in the East, he hoped to weaken it and render it unable to increase or even to maintain its power in the West.
The next French kings down to Louis XV followed the same policy, which, whatever criticism it merits, was as a matter of fact favourable to Christianity in the Levant, seeking by their zeal in defending Christian interests at the Porte, to extenuate their alliance with infidels, which was a source of scandal even in France. As early as 1528, Francis I had appealed to Suleiman the Magnificent
to restore to the Christians of Jerusalem a church which the Turks had converted into a mosque. The Sultan refused on the plea that his religion would not permit alteration of the purpose of a mosque, but he promised to maintain the Christians in possession of all the other places occupied by them and to defend them against all oppression.
However, religion was not the object of a formal convention between France and Turkey prior to 1604, when Henry IV of France
secured from Ahmad I the insertion, in the capitulations of 20 May, of two clauses relative to the protection of pilgrims and of the religious in charge of the church of the Holy Sepulchre. The following are the relevant clauses of the treaty: "Article IV. We also desire and command that the subjects of the said Emperor [sic] of France, and those of the princes who are his friends and allies, may be free to visit the Holy Places of Jerusalem, and no one shall attempt to prevent them nor do them injury"; "Article V. Moreover, for the honor and friendship of this Emperor, we desire that the religious living in Jerusalem and serving the church of Comane [the Resurrection] may dwell there, come and go without let or hindrance, and be well received, protected, assisted, and helped in consideration of the above."
It is noteworthy that the same advantages are stipulated for the French and for the friends and allies of France, but for the latter in consideration of, and at the recommendation of France.
The result of this friendship was the development of the Catholic missions, which began to flourish through the assistance of Henry IV Bourbon and his son Louis XIII Bourbon and through the zeal of the French missionaries. Before the middle of the seventeenth century, various religious orders (Capuchin
, Carmelite, Dominican
, Franciscan
and Jesuit) were established, as chaplain
s of the French ambassador
s and consuls
, in major Ottoman cities (Istanbul, Alexandria, Smyrna, Aleppo, Damascus etc.), Lebanon and the islands of the Aegean Archipelago. They assembled the Catholics to instruct and confirm them in the Catholic faith, opened schools to which flocked the children of all rites, relieved the spiritual and corporal miseries of the Christians in the frightful Turkish prisons, and nursed the pest-stricken, which last office made many martyrs of charity.
During the reign of Louis XIV, the missionaries multiplied and extended the field of their activities: the Sun King' gave them at once a material and a moral support, which the prestige of his victories and conquests rendered irresistible at the Porte. Thanks to him, the often precarious tolerance, on which the existence of the missions had previously depended, was officially recognized in 1673, when on 5 June, Mehmed IV
not only confirmed the earlier capitulations guaranteeing the safety of pilgrims and the religious guardians of the Holy Sepulchre, but signed four new articles, all beneficial to the missionaries. The first decreed in a general manner "that all bishops or other religious of the Latin sect [cfr. Millet (Ottoman Empire)
] who are subjects of France, whatever their condition, shall be throughout our empire as they have been hitherto, and [may] there perform their functions, and no one shall trouble or hinder them"; the others secure the tranquil possession of their churches, explicitly to the Jesuits and Capuchins, and in general "to the French at Smyrna, Saïd, Alexandria, and in all other ports of the Ottoman Empire".
The reign of Louis XIV marked the apogee of the French Protectorate in the East, for not only the Latin missionaries of all nationalities, but also the heads of all Catholic communities, regardless of rite or nationality, appealed to the Grand Roi, and at the recommendation of his ambassadors and consuls to the Porte and the pasha
s, obtained justice and protection from their enemies. Though the missionaries were sometimes on such amicable terms with the non-Catholic clergy that the latter authorized them to preach in their churches, they usually experienced a lively hostility from that quarter. On several occasions the Greek and Armenian non-uniate patriarch
s, displeased at seeing a great portion of their flocks abandon them for the Roman priests, on various pretexts persuaded the Turkish Government to forbid all propaganda by the latter, but representatives of Louis XIV successfully opposed this ill-will.
At the beginning of the reign of Louis XV the preponderance of French influence with the Porte was also manifested in the authority granted the Franciscans, who were protégés of France, to repair the dome of the Holy Sepulchre: this meant the recognition of their right of proprietorship in the Holy Sepulchre as superior to the claims of the Greeks and the Armenians.
In 1723 the schismatic patriarchs succeeded in obtaining from the Sultan a "command" forbidding his Christian subjects to embrace the Roman religion, and the Latin religious to hold any communication with the Greeks, Armenians and Syrians, on the pretext of instructing them. French diplomacy sought, long in vain, to have this disastrous measure revoked. At last, as a reward for the services rendered to Turkey during its wars with Russia and Austria (1736–1739), the French succeeded in 1740 in securing the renewal of the capitulations, with additions which explicitly confirmed the right of the French Protectorate, and at least implicitly guaranteed the liberty of the Catholic apostolate. By the eighty-seventh of the articles signed on 28 May 1740, Sultan Mahmud I
declared: "... The bishops and religious subject to the Emperor of France living in my empire shall be protected while they confine themselves to the exercise of their office, and no one may prevent them from practising their rite according to their custom in the churches in their possession, as well as in the other places they inhabit; and, when our tributary subjects and the French hold intercourse for purposes of selling, buying, and other business, no one may molest them for this sake in violation of the sacred laws."
In subsequent treaties between France and Turkey, the capitulations were not repeated verbatim, but they are recalled and confirmed (e. g. in 1802 and 1838). The various regimes which succeeded the monarchy of St. Louis
and of Louis XIV all maintained in law, and in fact, the ancient privilege of France in the protection of the missionaries and Christian communities of the Orient. The expedition in 1860 sent by Emperor Napoleon III to put a stop to the massacre of the Maronites
was in harmony with the ancient rôle of France, and would have been more so if its work of justice had been more complete. The ultimate decline of the French Protectorate in the Levant will be treated below.
). This was the privilege, granted by the popes to the Crown of Portugal
, of designating candidates for the sees and ecclesiastical benefices in the vast domains acquired through the expeditions of its navigators and captains in Africa and the East Indies
. This concession, which brought to the King of Portugal a certain portion of the ecclesiastical revenues of his kingdom, carried the condition that he should send good missionaries to his new subjects, and that he should provide with a fitting endowment the dioceses, parishes and religious establishments established in his acquired territories.
At first Portugal's zeal and generosity for the spread of Christianity corresponded to the liberality of the sovereign pontiffs manifested in the grant of the padroado; but in the course of time this patronage became the source of most unpleasant annoyances to the Holy See and one of the chief obstacles to the progress of the missions. The main cause of this regrettable change was the failure of Portugal to observe the conditions agreed upon at the bestowal of the privilege, the reason was the disagreement between Portugal and the Holy See with regard to the extent of the patronage, for while Rome maintained that it had never granted the privilege except for really conquered countries, Lisbon claimed the right for all the countries designated by the famous demarcation of pope Alexander VI as future possessions of Portugal. In virtue of this interpretation the Portuguese Government violently contested the papal right to appoint, without its consent, missionary bishops or vicars Apostolic in countries which were never subject to its dominion, such as the greater part of India, Tong-king, Cochin-China (both in present Vietnam), Siam and especially China. In the vast Chinese empire, where Portugal had never possessed more than Macau
, the popes consented to end the strife by a sort of compromise. Besides the See of Macau they created in the chief Chinese cities, Peking and Nanking, bishoprics in the appointment of the King of Portugal, to which were assigned five of the Chinese provinces; the other provinces were left to the vicars Apostolic named personally by the pope. This system lasted from 1696 to 1856, when Pius IX suppressed the titles of the sees of Peking and Nanking; thenceforth all the Christian settlements of China were administered only by vicars Apostolic.
Passing over the quarrels regarding the padroado, the missions of the East owe much to the munificence of the kings of Portugal, although these were never accepted by the native non-Christian sovereigns as the official protectors of the missionaries, much less of the native Christians. Portugal strove to play this honorable role in China, especially by dispatching formal embassies to Peking during the eighteenth century, for besides their ostensible instructions, the ambassadors received orders to intervene as much as possible in behalf of the missionaries and native Christians, who were then being cruelly persecuted in the provinces. The first of these embassies in 1727 almost had a disastrous ending, when the Portuguese envoy Dom Metello de Souza petitioned the Emperor Yung-ching to recognize the liberty of Christian preaching; the second avoided in 1753 a similar danger by maintaining silence on this critical point. These embassies, having flattered Chinese vanity, procured for the mission a measure of respite from, or moderation of, the persecution. Later, by expelling the Jesuits and other religious societies which had established for it such successful missions, Portugal excluded itself from subsequently occupying any position in a sphere in which it had earlier been foremost, and by its own act destroyed the basis of its patronage and its protectorate such as it was.
. The two monarchs shared the expense of erecting the first French church at Peking: the emperor donated land within the limits of the imperial city and the building materials, the French king paid for the labor, the decoration and the magnificent liturgical ornaments. Several other churches erected in the provinces through the munificence of Louis XIV increased the prestige of France throughout the empire. Under Louis XV the mission in China, like many other things, was somewhat overlooked, but the government did not wholly neglect it. It found a zealous protector in Louis XVI's minister Bertin
, but it felt keenly the suppression of the Society of Jesus and the French Revolution with all its consequences, which dried up the source of the apostolate in Europe. It was a handful of French missionaries, such as Lazarists
or members of the Society of Foreign Missions
, assisted by some Chinese priests, who preserved the Faith throughout the persecutions of the early nineteenth century, during which several of them were martyred.
secured further concessions which inaugurated a new era. The Treaty of Whampoa
, which was signed on that date at Whampoa
, speaks only of liberty for the French to settle in certain territory in the open ports, but at the request of the ambassador, an imperial edict was sent to the mandarins and at least partially promulgated, praising the Christian religion and removing the prohibition for Chinese to practice it. However, the execution of the missionary Auguste Chapdelaine
in 1856 and other facts showed the insufficiency of the guarantees accorded to Europeans; to obtain others, England and France had recourse to arms.
The war (1858–1860, cfr. Second Opium War
), which showed China its weakness, was ended by the treaties of T'ien-tsin (24–25 October 1860). They contained an article which stipulated freedom for the missionaries to preach and for the Chinese to embrace Christianity. This article was included in the treaties which other powers a little later concluded with China. To the treaty with France was also added a supplementary article, which reads as follows: "An imperial edict conformable to the imperial edict of 20 February 1846 [that secured by M. de Lagrené], will inform the people of the whole empire that soldiers and civilians be permitted to propagate and practice the religion of the Lord of Heaven [Catholic], to assemble for explanation of doctrine, to build churches wherein to celebrate their ceremonies. Those [the mandarin
s] who henceforth make searches or arbitrary arrests must be punished. Furthermore, the temples of the Lord of Heaven, together with the schools, cemeteries, lands, buildings etc., which were confiscated formerly when the followers of the religion of the Lord of Heaven were persecuted, shall be either restored or compensated for. Restoration is to be made to the French ambassador residing at Peking, who will transfer the property to the Christians of the localities concerned. In all the provinces also the missionaries shall be permitted to rent or purchase lands and erect buildings at will". The general and exclusive right of protection granted to the French over all the Catholic missions in China could not be more explicitly recognized than it was by this agreement, which made the French ambassador the indispensable intermediary in the matter of all restitutions. And the representatives of France never ceased to make full use of this right in favor of the missionaries, whom from the middle of the nineteenth century a revival of Apostolic zeal drew from all countries to China. From them the passports necessary to penetrate into the interior of the country were regularly sought, and to them were addressed complaints and claims, which it was their duty to lay before the Chinese Government. The French ministers also secured, not without difficulty, the necessary additions to the Treaty of T'ien-tsin—such, for instance, as the Berthemy Convention (1865) with the Gerard addition (1895), regulating the important question of the purchase of lands and buildings in the interior.
As early as 1875, at the time of the negotiations between France and -nominally Ottoman- Egypt with regard to judiciary reform, the German Government declared "that it recognized no exclusive right of protection of any power in behalf of Catholic establishments in the East, and that it reserved its rights with regard to German subjects belonging to any of these establishments." In Germany and Italy a paragraph of article sixty-two of the Treaty of Berlin, 1878
, which had been signed by all the European powers, was used as a weapon against the exclusive protectorate of France: "Ecclesiastics, pilgrims and monks of all nationalities traveling in Turkey in Europe or Turkey in Asia shall enjoy the same rights, advantages and privileges. The official right of protection of the diplomatic and consular agents of the Powers in Turkey is recognized, with regard both to the above-mentioned persons and to their religious, charitable and other establishments in the Holy Places and elsewhere." The passage immediately following this paragraph in the article was overlooked: "The acquired rights of France are explicitly reserved, and there shall be no interference with the statu quo in the Holy Places." Thus the protection guaranteed to all ecclesiastics etc., no matter what their nationality or religion, as well as the generally recognized right of all the powers to watch over this protection, should be understood with the reservation of the "acquired rights" of France i.e. of its ancient protectorate in behalf of Catholics. This protectorate is therefore really confirmed by the Treaty of Berlin.
But as a matter of fact, the influence of Russia, which has assumed the protectorate of Orthodox Christians, already greatly affected the standing which the ancient French Protectorate had assured to Catholics in Palestine and especially in Jerusalem.
Moreover, Emperor William II of Germany has installed Protestantism with a magnificent church beside the Holy Sepulchre in 1898. As a sort of compensation he indeed ceded to German Catholics the site of the Dormition of the Blessed Virgin, which he obtained from the Sultan where a church and a monastery were erected and, together with the other German establishments, placed under the protection of the German Empire, without deference to the ancient prerogative of France.
A similar situation prevailed in China. First, in 1888, Germany obtained from the Chinese imperial Government that German passports should insure the same advantages to the missionaries as those secured at the French legation. At the same time the German Catholic missionaries of Shan-tung, who had much to endure from the infidels, were on several occasions offered the powerful protection of the German Empire. Mgr. Anzer, the vicar Apostolic, decided to accept it, after having, as he declares, several times sought unsuccessfully the aid of the French minister. In 1896 the German ambassador at Peking received from Berlin the command to support energetically the claims of the Catholic missionaries and even to declare that the German Empire would pledge itself to defend against all unjust oppression the persons and property of the mission of Shan-tung, together with freedom of preaching, in the same measure in which such had been formerly guaranteed by the French Protectorate. The murder of two of the Shan-tung missionaries in November 1897 afforded the occasion for a more solemn affirmation of the new protectorate, while it furnished a long-sought pretext for the occupation of Kiaochow.
Austria had a better foundation for claiming a share in the Catholic protectorate, as it had in various treaties concluded with the Porte (1699, 1718, and 1739) secured a right of protection over "the religious" in the Turkish Empire and even at Jerusalem. Whatever the meaning of this concession (apparently it did not include liberty of worship), it was never confirmed by usage, except in the countries bordering on Habsburg Austria (notably Albania
and Macedonia
). In 1848 the Austrian Protectorate was extended to the mission of the Sudan and Nigritia, which was in the care of Austrian priests; apparently for this reason, when the Coptic Catholic hierarchy was restored in Egypt by pope Leo XIII in 1895, the new patriarch and his suffragans placed themselves under the protection of Austria.
Italy also was very active in seeking to acquire a protectorate of missions, by patronizing societies for the assistance of the missionaries and by legislative measures intended to prove its benevolence to the Italian missionaries and persuade them to accept its protection. It even attempted by attractive promises to win over the Propaganda Fide, but that Roman Congregation discouraged it by a circular addressed to the Italian missionaries of the Levant and the Far East on 22 May 1888 which forbade the missionaries to adopt towards official representatives of Italy any attitude which might be interpreted as favoring the Piedmontese usurpations in Italy, but once more affirmed the privilege of France in the most formal manner: "They [the missionaries] know that the Protectorate of the French Nation in the countries of the East has been established for centuries and sanctioned even by treaties between the empires. Therefore, there must be absolutely no innovation in this matter; this protectorate, wherever it is in force, is to be religiously preserved, and the missionaries are warned that, if they have need of any help, they are to have recourse to the consuls and other ministers of France."
, dated 1 August 1898: "France has a special mission in the East confided to her by Providence -- a noble mission consecrated not alone by ancient usage, but also by international treaties, as has been recognized recently by Our Congregation of the Propaganda in its deliberation of 22 May 1888. The Holy See does not wish to interfere with the glorious patrimony which France has received from its ancestors and which beyond a doubt it means to deserve by always showing itself equal to its task." This attitude of the Holy See is the best defense of the French Protectorate, and is in fact its only defense against the manœuvres of its rivals as regards missions not under the direction of French subjects. The latter would have difficulty in resisting the pressing invitations extended to them from other quarters, if the Holy See left them free to accept. Rome gives still another proof of respect for the acquired rights of France by refusing, as it has hitherto done, to accredit permanent legates or ministers to Constantinople and Peking. For a time the idea, supported by the official agents of the Turkish and Chinese governments, attracted Leo XIII, but he dismissed it at the instance of French diplomats, who represented to him that the object was less to establish amicable relations between the Holy See and Turkey or China than to evade the tutelage of the lay protectorate. Pius X has done nothing to alter the protectorate, although some action in this direction would perhaps have been but a just reprisal for the disloyal separation.
The protectorate of missions was open to some criticism both in theory and in practice. The following are the most plausible objections which have influenced even friends of the apostolate to the extent of making them sometimes doubtful of the usefulness of the institution, even for the missions. The protectorate, it is said, was unwillingly tolerated by the authorities of infidel countries; it embittered the antipathy and hatred excited by the Christians in those countries, and caused the missionaries relying on its support to be insufficiently mindful of the sensibilities of the natives and on their guard against excessive zeal. The modicum of truth contained in these objections showed that the exercise of the protectorate requires great wisdom and discretion. Naturally, the infidel powers chafe somewhat under it as a yoke and an uncomfortable and even humiliating servitude, but so long as they did not assure to the missionaries and their works the security and guarantees of justice which are found in Christian countries (and experience has shown how little this is the case in the Turkish and Chinese empires), the protectorate was the best means of providing them. But to obviate as much as possible the odium attached to the meddling of one foreign power in the affairs of another, this intervention is reduced to what is absolutely necessary. The solution of the delicate problem lay in the cordial union and prudent collaboration of the agents of the protectorate and the heads of the mission, which is possible to realize in practice. When it is learned that the superior of the mission of south-east Chi-li during the difficult period from 1862 to 1884 had recourse to the French legation only three times and arranged all other difficulties directly with the local Chinese authorities (Em. Becker, "Le R. P. Joseph Gonnet", Ho-kien-fou, 1907, p. 275), it will be understood that the French Protectorate was not necessarily a heavy burden, either for those who exercise it or for those bound by it. The abuses which may arise were due to the men, not to the system; after all, the missionaries, though not faultless, are most anxious that it should not be abused. Perhaps the abuse most to be feared was that the protectors should seek payment for their services by trammelling the spiritual direction of the mission or by demanding political services in exchange: a complete history of the protectorate could show such abuses and others to be insignificant when compared with the benefits conferred by this institution on religion and civilization.
Christian
A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...
power in an 'infidel' (e.g. Muslim
Muslim
A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...
) country with regard to the persons and establishments of the missionaries. The term does not apply to all protection of missions, but only to that permanently exercised in virtue of an acquired right, usually established by a treaty or convention (either explicit or tacit), voluntarily consented to or accepted after more or less compulsion by the infidel power. The object of the protectorate may be more or less extensive, according as it embraces only the missionaries who are subjects of the protecting power
Protecting power
A protecting power is a state which somehow protects another state, and/or represents the interests of the protected state's citizens in a third state....
, or applies to the missionaries of all nations or even to their neophytes, the native Christians. To comprehend fully the nature of the protectorate of missions, as it has been in times past and as it is to-day, it will be necessary to study separately the Protectorate of the Levant
Levant
The Levant or ) is the geographic region and culture zone of the "eastern Mediterranean littoral between Anatolia and Egypt" . The Levant includes most of modern Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Israel, the Palestinian territories, and sometimes parts of Turkey and Iraq, and corresponds roughly to the...
and that of the Far East
Far East
The Far East is an English term mostly describing East Asia and Southeast Asia, with South Asia sometimes also included for economic and cultural reasons.The term came into use in European geopolitical discourse in the 19th century,...
.
- This article deals with a historical approach to the 'legitimation' of protectorates by the need to facilitate the 'holy' duty of spreading the Christian faith, as invoked by CatholicCatholicThe word catholic comes from the Greek phrase , meaning "on the whole," "according to the whole" or "in general", and is a combination of the Greek words meaning "about" and meaning "whole"...
, OrthodoxEastern Orthodox ChurchThe Orthodox Church, officially called the Orthodox Catholic Church and commonly referred to as the Eastern Orthodox Church, is the second largest Christian denomination in the world, with an estimated 300 million adherents mainly in the countries of Belarus, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Georgia, Greece,...
and Protestant colonial/imperial powers.
In the (Muslim) Levant
This comprises the missions of the countries under OttomanOttoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
rule, especially Constantinople
Constantinople
Constantinople was the capital of the Roman, Eastern Roman, Byzantine, Latin, and Ottoman Empires. Throughout most of the Middle Ages, Constantinople was Europe's largest and wealthiest city.-Names:...
, the Archipelago
Archipelago
An archipelago , sometimes called an island group, is a chain or cluster of islands. The word archipelago is derived from the Greek ἄρχι- – arkhi- and πέλαγος – pélagos through the Italian arcipelago...
, Syria
Syria
Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....
, Palestine
Palestine
Palestine is a conventional name, among others, used to describe the geographic region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, and various adjoining lands....
, Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
, Barbary etc. It was French in origin, and was, until near the end of the nineteenth century, the almost exclusive privilege of France
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...
. It was inaugurated in the Holy Land
Holy Land
The Holy Land is a term which in Judaism refers to the Kingdom of Israel as defined in the Tanakh. For Jews, the Land's identifiction of being Holy is defined in Judaism by its differentiation from other lands by virtue of the practice of Judaism often possible only in the Land of Israel...
by Charlemagne
Charlemagne
Charlemagne was King of the Franks from 768 and Emperor of the Romans from 800 to his death in 814. He expanded the Frankish kingdom into an empire that incorporated much of Western and Central Europe. During his reign, he conquered Italy and was crowned by Pope Leo III on 25 December 800...
, who secured from the celebrated Caliph
Caliph
The Caliph is the head of state in a Caliphate, and the title for the ruler of the Islamic Ummah, an Islamic community ruled by the Shari'ah. It is a transcribed version of the Arabic word which means "successor" or "representative"...
Haroun al-Raschid a sort of share in his sovereignty over the Holy Places of Jerusalem. Charlemagne and his successors made use of this concession to make pious and charitable foundations in the Holy city
Holy city
Holy city is a synonym applied to many cities, all of them central to the history or faith of specific religions. Such cities may also contain at least one headquarters complex which constitutes a major destination of human...
, to protect the Christian inhabitants and pilgrims, and to insure the perpetuity of Christian worship.
The destruction of the Arabian Empire by the Turks put an end to this first protectorate, and for reasons that were not purely religious, led to the Crusades, as a result of which Palestine was conquered from the Saracens and became a Latin, French-speaking kingdom. The Christian rule was later replaced by that of Islam, but during the three centuries of Crusades, which had been undertaken and supported mainly by France, the Christians of the East had grown accustomed to look to that country for assistance in oppression or to gain more leverage in their dealings with the Ottomans, while France valued its increasingly important role in the region and its accompanying geopolitical benefits. There lies the germ of the modern Protectorate of the Levant.
The Franco-Turkish Capitulations
The protectorate began to assume a contractual form in the sixteenth century, in the treaties concluded between the kings of France and the Ottoman Sultans, which are historically known as CapitulationsCapitulation (treaty)
A capitulation , or ahidnâme, is a treaty or unilateral contract by which a sovereign state relinquishes jurisdiction within its borders over the subjects of a foreign state...
. At first this name designated the commercial agreement conceded by the Sublime Porte to Latin merchants (first to the Italians), and arose from the fact that the articles of these agreements were called capitoli 'chapters' in the Italian redaction: the term has not, therefore, the same humiliating meaning as in military parlance (conceding utter defeat), but a similar neutral etymology as the Carolingian Capitularia.
Francis I
Francis I of France
Francis I was King of France from 1515 until his death. During his reign, huge cultural changes took place in France and he has been called France's original Renaissance monarch...
was the first king of France who sought an alliance with Turkey. To this he was urged, not by the spirit of the Crusaders, but entirely by the desire to break in Europe the dominating power of the imperial Habsburg House of Austria. By compelling Austria to spend its forces in defense against the Turks in the East, he hoped to weaken it and render it unable to increase or even to maintain its power in the West.
The next French kings down to Louis XV followed the same policy, which, whatever criticism it merits, was as a matter of fact favourable to Christianity in the Levant, seeking by their zeal in defending Christian interests at the Porte, to extenuate their alliance with infidels, which was a source of scandal even in France. As early as 1528, Francis I had appealed to Suleiman the Magnificent
Suleiman the Magnificent
Suleiman I was the tenth and longest-reigning Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, from 1520 to his death in 1566. He is known in the West as Suleiman the Magnificent and in the East, as "The Lawgiver" , for his complete reconstruction of the Ottoman legal system...
to restore to the Christians of Jerusalem a church which the Turks had converted into a mosque. The Sultan refused on the plea that his religion would not permit alteration of the purpose of a mosque, but he promised to maintain the Christians in possession of all the other places occupied by them and to defend them against all oppression.
However, religion was not the object of a formal convention between France and Turkey prior to 1604, when Henry IV of France
Henry IV of France
Henry IV , Henri-Quatre, was King of France from 1589 to 1610 and King of Navarre from 1572 to 1610. He was the first monarch of the Bourbon branch of the Capetian dynasty in France....
secured from Ahmad I the insertion, in the capitulations of 20 May, of two clauses relative to the protection of pilgrims and of the religious in charge of the church of the Holy Sepulchre. The following are the relevant clauses of the treaty: "Article IV. We also desire and command that the subjects of the said Emperor [sic] of France, and those of the princes who are his friends and allies, may be free to visit the Holy Places of Jerusalem, and no one shall attempt to prevent them nor do them injury"; "Article V. Moreover, for the honor and friendship of this Emperor, we desire that the religious living in Jerusalem and serving the church of Comane [the Resurrection] may dwell there, come and go without let or hindrance, and be well received, protected, assisted, and helped in consideration of the above."
It is noteworthy that the same advantages are stipulated for the French and for the friends and allies of France, but for the latter in consideration of, and at the recommendation of France.
The result of this friendship was the development of the Catholic missions, which began to flourish through the assistance of Henry IV Bourbon and his son Louis XIII Bourbon and through the zeal of the French missionaries. Before the middle of the seventeenth century, various religious orders (Capuchin
Order of Friars Minor Capuchin
The Order of Friars Minor Capuchin is an Order of friars in the Catholic Church, among the chief offshoots of the Franciscans. The worldwide head of the Order, called the Minister General, is currently Father Mauro Jöhri.-Origins :...
, Carmelite, Dominican
Dominican Order
The Order of Preachers , after the 15th century more commonly known as the Dominican Order or Dominicans, is a Catholic religious order founded by Saint Dominic and approved by Pope Honorius III on 22 December 1216 in France...
, Franciscan
Franciscan
Most Franciscans are members of Roman Catholic religious orders founded by Saint Francis of Assisi. Besides Roman Catholic communities, there are also Old Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran, ecumenical and Non-denominational Franciscan communities....
and Jesuit) were established, as chaplain
Chaplain
Traditionally, a chaplain is a minister in a specialized setting such as a priest, pastor, rabbi, or imam or lay representative of a religion attached to a secular institution such as a hospital, prison, military unit, police department, university, or private chapel...
s of the French ambassador
Ambassador
An ambassador is the highest ranking diplomat who represents a nation and is usually accredited to a foreign sovereign or government, or to an international organization....
s and consuls
Consul (representative)
The political title Consul is used for the official representatives of the government of one state in the territory of another, normally acting to assist and protect the citizens of the consul's own country, and to facilitate trade and friendship between the peoples of the two countries...
, in major Ottoman cities (Istanbul, Alexandria, Smyrna, Aleppo, Damascus etc.), Lebanon and the islands of the Aegean Archipelago. They assembled the Catholics to instruct and confirm them in the Catholic faith, opened schools to which flocked the children of all rites, relieved the spiritual and corporal miseries of the Christians in the frightful Turkish prisons, and nursed the pest-stricken, which last office made many martyrs of charity.
During the reign of Louis XIV, the missionaries multiplied and extended the field of their activities: the Sun King' gave them at once a material and a moral support, which the prestige of his victories and conquests rendered irresistible at the Porte. Thanks to him, the often precarious tolerance, on which the existence of the missions had previously depended, was officially recognized in 1673, when on 5 June, Mehmed IV
Mehmed IV
Mehmed IV Modern Turkish Mehmet was the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1648 to 1687...
not only confirmed the earlier capitulations guaranteeing the safety of pilgrims and the religious guardians of the Holy Sepulchre, but signed four new articles, all beneficial to the missionaries. The first decreed in a general manner "that all bishops or other religious of the Latin sect [cfr. Millet (Ottoman Empire)
Millet (Ottoman Empire)
Millet is a term for the confessional communities in the Ottoman Empire. It refers to the separate legal courts pertaining to "personal law" under which communities were allowed to rule themselves under their own system...
] who are subjects of France, whatever their condition, shall be throughout our empire as they have been hitherto, and [may] there perform their functions, and no one shall trouble or hinder them"; the others secure the tranquil possession of their churches, explicitly to the Jesuits and Capuchins, and in general "to the French at Smyrna, Saïd, Alexandria, and in all other ports of the Ottoman Empire".
The reign of Louis XIV marked the apogee of the French Protectorate in the East, for not only the Latin missionaries of all nationalities, but also the heads of all Catholic communities, regardless of rite or nationality, appealed to the Grand Roi, and at the recommendation of his ambassadors and consuls to the Porte and the pasha
Pasha
Pasha or pascha, formerly bashaw, was a high rank in the Ottoman Empire political system, typically granted to governors, generals and dignitaries. As an honorary title, Pasha, in one of its various ranks, is equivalent to the British title of Lord, and was also one of the highest titles in...
s, obtained justice and protection from their enemies. Though the missionaries were sometimes on such amicable terms with the non-Catholic clergy that the latter authorized them to preach in their churches, they usually experienced a lively hostility from that quarter. On several occasions the Greek and Armenian non-uniate patriarch
Patriarch
Originally a patriarch was a man who exercised autocratic authority as a pater familias over an extended family. The system of such rule of families by senior males is called patriarchy. This is a Greek word, a compound of πατριά , "lineage, descent", esp...
s, displeased at seeing a great portion of their flocks abandon them for the Roman priests, on various pretexts persuaded the Turkish Government to forbid all propaganda by the latter, but representatives of Louis XIV successfully opposed this ill-will.
At the beginning of the reign of Louis XV the preponderance of French influence with the Porte was also manifested in the authority granted the Franciscans, who were protégés of France, to repair the dome of the Holy Sepulchre: this meant the recognition of their right of proprietorship in the Holy Sepulchre as superior to the claims of the Greeks and the Armenians.
In 1723 the schismatic patriarchs succeeded in obtaining from the Sultan a "command" forbidding his Christian subjects to embrace the Roman religion, and the Latin religious to hold any communication with the Greeks, Armenians and Syrians, on the pretext of instructing them. French diplomacy sought, long in vain, to have this disastrous measure revoked. At last, as a reward for the services rendered to Turkey during its wars with Russia and Austria (1736–1739), the French succeeded in 1740 in securing the renewal of the capitulations, with additions which explicitly confirmed the right of the French Protectorate, and at least implicitly guaranteed the liberty of the Catholic apostolate. By the eighty-seventh of the articles signed on 28 May 1740, Sultan Mahmud I
Mahmud I
Mahmud I , called the Hunchback was the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1730 to 1754.-Biography:...
declared: "... The bishops and religious subject to the Emperor of France living in my empire shall be protected while they confine themselves to the exercise of their office, and no one may prevent them from practising their rite according to their custom in the churches in their possession, as well as in the other places they inhabit; and, when our tributary subjects and the French hold intercourse for purposes of selling, buying, and other business, no one may molest them for this sake in violation of the sacred laws."
In subsequent treaties between France and Turkey, the capitulations were not repeated verbatim, but they are recalled and confirmed (e. g. in 1802 and 1838). The various regimes which succeeded the monarchy of St. Louis
Louis IX of France
Louis IX , commonly Saint Louis, was King of France from 1226 until his death. He was also styled Louis II, Count of Artois from 1226 to 1237. Born at Poissy, near Paris, he was an eighth-generation descendant of Hugh Capet, and thus a member of the House of Capet, and the son of Louis VIII and...
and of Louis XIV all maintained in law, and in fact, the ancient privilege of France in the protection of the missionaries and Christian communities of the Orient. The expedition in 1860 sent by Emperor Napoleon III to put a stop to the massacre of the Maronites
Maronites
Maronites , is an ethnoreligious group in the Middle East that have been historically tied with Lebanon. They derive their name from the Syriac saint Mar Maron whose followers moved to Mount Lebanon from northern Syria establishing the Maronite Church....
was in harmony with the ancient rôle of France, and would have been more so if its work of justice had been more complete. The ultimate decline of the French Protectorate in the Levant will be treated below.
Portuguese patronage in the Far East
This refers especially to China—there was prior to the nineteenth century no protectorate properly so called or based on a treaty. What is sometimes called the Portuguese Protectorate of Missions was only the "Portuguese Patronage" (PadroadoPadroado
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...
). This was the privilege, granted by the popes to the Crown of 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...
, of designating candidates for the sees and ecclesiastical benefices in the vast domains acquired through the expeditions of its navigators and captains in Africa and the East Indies
East Indies
East Indies is a term used by Europeans from the 16th century onwards to identify what is now known as Indian subcontinent or South Asia, Southeastern Asia, and the islands of Oceania, including the Malay Archipelago and the Philippines...
. This concession, which brought to the King of Portugal a certain portion of the ecclesiastical revenues of his kingdom, carried the condition that he should send good missionaries to his new subjects, and that he should provide with a fitting endowment the dioceses, parishes and religious establishments established in his acquired territories.
At first Portugal's zeal and generosity for the spread of Christianity corresponded to the liberality of the sovereign pontiffs manifested in the grant of the padroado; but in the course of time this patronage became the source of most unpleasant annoyances to the Holy See and one of the chief obstacles to the progress of the missions. The main cause of this regrettable change was the failure of Portugal to observe the conditions agreed upon at the bestowal of the privilege, the reason was the disagreement between Portugal and the Holy See with regard to the extent of the patronage, for while Rome maintained that it had never granted the privilege except for really conquered countries, Lisbon claimed the right for all the countries designated by the famous demarcation of pope Alexander VI as future possessions of Portugal. In virtue of this interpretation the Portuguese Government violently contested the papal right to appoint, without its consent, missionary bishops or vicars Apostolic in countries which were never subject to its dominion, such as the greater part of India, Tong-king, Cochin-China (both in present Vietnam), Siam and especially China. In the vast Chinese empire, where Portugal had never possessed more than Macau
Macau
Macau , also spelled Macao , is, along with Hong Kong, one of the two special administrative regions of the People's Republic of China...
, the popes consented to end the strife by a sort of compromise. Besides the See of Macau they created in the chief Chinese cities, Peking and Nanking, bishoprics in the appointment of the King of Portugal, to which were assigned five of the Chinese provinces; the other provinces were left to the vicars Apostolic named personally by the pope. This system lasted from 1696 to 1856, when Pius IX suppressed the titles of the sees of Peking and Nanking; thenceforth all the Christian settlements of China were administered only by vicars Apostolic.
Passing over the quarrels regarding the padroado, the missions of the East owe much to the munificence of the kings of Portugal, although these were never accepted by the native non-Christian sovereigns as the official protectors of the missionaries, much less of the native Christians. Portugal strove to play this honorable role in China, especially by dispatching formal embassies to Peking during the eighteenth century, for besides their ostensible instructions, the ambassadors received orders to intervene as much as possible in behalf of the missionaries and native Christians, who were then being cruelly persecuted in the provinces. The first of these embassies in 1727 almost had a disastrous ending, when the Portuguese envoy Dom Metello de Souza petitioned the Emperor Yung-ching to recognize the liberty of Christian preaching; the second avoided in 1753 a similar danger by maintaining silence on this critical point. These embassies, having flattered Chinese vanity, procured for the mission a measure of respite from, or moderation of, the persecution. Later, by expelling the Jesuits and other religious societies which had established for it such successful missions, Portugal excluded itself from subsequently occupying any position in a sphere in which it had earlier been foremost, and by its own act destroyed the basis of its patronage and its protectorate such as it was.
French Protectorate in China
The protectorate still exercised in the early 20th century by France over the missions in the Chinese Empire dates, as far as a regular convention is concerned, only from the middle of the nineteenth century, but the way was prepared by the protection which French statesmen had accorded the missionaries for almost two centuries. The zeal and liberality of Louis XIV permitted the foundation of the great French Jesuit mission, which in less than fifteen years (1687–1701) more than doubled the number of apostolic workers in China, and never ceased to produce most capable workers. The first official relations were formed between France and China when the missionaries brought thither by the "Amphitrite", the first French vessel seen in Chinese waters (1699), presented gifts from Louis XIV to the Kangxi EmperorKangxi Emperor
The Kangxi Emperor ; Manchu: elhe taifin hūwangdi ; Mongolian: Энх-Амгалан хаан, 4 May 1654 –20 December 1722) was the fourth emperor of the Qing Dynasty, the first to be born on Chinese soil south of the Pass and the second Qing emperor to rule over China proper, from 1661 to 1722.Kangxi's...
. The two monarchs shared the expense of erecting the first French church at Peking: the emperor donated land within the limits of the imperial city and the building materials, the French king paid for the labor, the decoration and the magnificent liturgical ornaments. Several other churches erected in the provinces through the munificence of Louis XIV increased the prestige of France throughout the empire. Under Louis XV the mission in China, like many other things, was somewhat overlooked, but the government did not wholly neglect it. It found a zealous protector in Louis XVI's minister Bertin
Bertin
St. Bertin is a saint and abbot of Saint-Omer.He was born near Coutances. At an early age he entered the monastery of Luxeuil in France where, under the austere rule of St. Columbanus, he prepared himself for his future missionary career...
, but it felt keenly the suppression of the Society of Jesus and the French Revolution with all its consequences, which dried up the source of the apostolate in Europe. It was a handful of French missionaries, such as Lazarists
Lazarists
Congregation of the Mission is a vowed order of priests and brothers associated with the Vincentian Family, a loose federation of organizations who claim St. Vincent de Paul as their founder or Patron...
or members of the Society of Foreign Missions
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....
, assisted by some Chinese priests, who preserved the Faith throughout the persecutions of the early nineteenth century, during which several of them were martyred.
Treaties of T'ien-tsin
When the English, after the so-called Opium War, imposed on China the Treaty of Nanking (1842), they did not at first ask for religious liberty, but the murder of the Lazarist John Gabriel Perboyre (11 September 1840) becoming known, they added an article stipulating that thenceforth a missionary taken in the interior of the country should not be tried by the Chinese authorities, but should be delivered to the nearest consul of his country. On 24 October 1844, French ambassador Théodore de LagrenéMarie Melchior Joseph Théodore de Lagrené
Marie Melchior Joseph Théodore de Lagrené, , was a French legislator and diplomat, who hailed from an old family from Picardie. He joined the French diplomatic service at a young age and served in the foreign ministry under Mathieu de Montmorency and accompanied him to the Congress of Verona in 1822...
secured further concessions which inaugurated a new era. The Treaty of Whampoa
Treaty of Whampoa
The Treaty of Whampoa was a commercial treaty between France and China, which was signed by Théodore de Lagrené and Qiying on October 24, 1844.-Terms:...
, which was signed on that date at Whampoa
Whampoa
Whampoa is the old English transliteration of Huangpu District, Guangzhou, in China.From there, it derives its other meanings, and can also refer to:* Relating to the Whampoa district:...
, speaks only of liberty for the French to settle in certain territory in the open ports, but at the request of the ambassador, an imperial edict was sent to the mandarins and at least partially promulgated, praising the Christian religion and removing the prohibition for Chinese to practice it. However, the execution of the missionary Auguste Chapdelaine
Auguste Chapdelaine
Father Auguste Chapdelaine was a French Christian missionary of the Paris Foreign Missions Society.-Biography:He was born in La Rochelle-Normande, France...
in 1856 and other facts showed the insufficiency of the guarantees accorded to Europeans; to obtain others, England and France had recourse to arms.
The war (1858–1860, cfr. Second Opium War
Second Opium War
The Second Opium War, the Second Anglo-Chinese War, the Second China War, the Arrow War, or the Anglo-French expedition to China, was a war pitting the British Empire and the Second French Empire against the Qing Dynasty of China, lasting from 1856 to 1860...
), which showed China its weakness, was ended by the treaties of T'ien-tsin (24–25 October 1860). They contained an article which stipulated freedom for the missionaries to preach and for the Chinese to embrace Christianity. This article was included in the treaties which other powers a little later concluded with China. To the treaty with France was also added a supplementary article, which reads as follows: "An imperial edict conformable to the imperial edict of 20 February 1846 [that secured by M. de Lagrené], will inform the people of the whole empire that soldiers and civilians be permitted to propagate and practice the religion of the Lord of Heaven [Catholic], to assemble for explanation of doctrine, to build churches wherein to celebrate their ceremonies. Those [the mandarin
Mandarin (bureaucrat)
A mandarin was a bureaucrat in imperial China, and also in the monarchist days of Vietnam where the system of Imperial examinations and scholar-bureaucrats was adopted under Chinese influence.-History and use of the term:...
s] who henceforth make searches or arbitrary arrests must be punished. Furthermore, the temples of the Lord of Heaven, together with the schools, cemeteries, lands, buildings etc., which were confiscated formerly when the followers of the religion of the Lord of Heaven were persecuted, shall be either restored or compensated for. Restoration is to be made to the French ambassador residing at Peking, who will transfer the property to the Christians of the localities concerned. In all the provinces also the missionaries shall be permitted to rent or purchase lands and erect buildings at will". The general and exclusive right of protection granted to the French over all the Catholic missions in China could not be more explicitly recognized than it was by this agreement, which made the French ambassador the indispensable intermediary in the matter of all restitutions. And the representatives of France never ceased to make full use of this right in favor of the missionaries, whom from the middle of the nineteenth century a revival of Apostolic zeal drew from all countries to China. From them the passports necessary to penetrate into the interior of the country were regularly sought, and to them were addressed complaints and claims, which it was their duty to lay before the Chinese Government. The French ministers also secured, not without difficulty, the necessary additions to the Treaty of T'ien-tsin—such, for instance, as the Berthemy Convention (1865) with the Gerard addition (1895), regulating the important question of the purchase of lands and buildings in the interior.
Rivals of the French Protectorate
The foregoing historical sketch shows that the ancient French right of protection over the missions, in both Turkey and China, was established as much by constant exercise and by services rendered as by treaties. Furthermore, it was based on the fundamental right of the Church, derived from God Himself, to preach the Gospel everywhere and to receive from Christian powers the assistance necessary to enable her to perform her task untrammeled. The desire to further the Catholic church's mission, which always guided the French monarchs to a greater or less extent, does not influence the present government. The latter endeavors, however, to preserve the prerogative of its predecessors, and continues to lend protection, though much diminished, to the Catholic missionary undertakings—even to those directed by religious who are proscribed in France (e. g. it subsidizes the Jesuit schools in Syria). The advantages of the protectorate are too obvious even to the least clerical of the ministers for them not to attempt to retain them, whatever the resulting contradictions in their policy. It is very evident that France owed to this protectorate throughout the Levant and in the Far East a prestige and a moral influence which no commerce or conquest could ever have given her. Thanks to the protectorate, the treasures of respect, gratitude and affection won by the Catholic missionaries became to a certain extent the property of France; and, if the French entertained doubts as to the utility of this time-honored privilege (a few anti-clericals attempt to obscure the evidence on this point), the efforts of rival nations to secure a share of it would prove enlightening. These efforts have been frequent, especially since 1870, and have been to a large extent successful.As early as 1875, at the time of the negotiations between France and -nominally Ottoman- Egypt with regard to judiciary reform, the German Government declared "that it recognized no exclusive right of protection of any power in behalf of Catholic establishments in the East, and that it reserved its rights with regard to German subjects belonging to any of these establishments." In Germany and Italy a paragraph of article sixty-two of the Treaty of Berlin, 1878
Treaty of Berlin, 1878
The Treaty of Berlin was the final act of the Congress of Berlin , by which the United Kingdom, Austria-Hungary, France, Germany, Italy, Russia and the Ottoman Empire under Sultan Abdul Hamid II revised the Treaty of San Stefano signed on March 3 of the same year...
, which had been signed by all the European powers, was used as a weapon against the exclusive protectorate of France: "Ecclesiastics, pilgrims and monks of all nationalities traveling in Turkey in Europe or Turkey in Asia shall enjoy the same rights, advantages and privileges. The official right of protection of the diplomatic and consular agents of the Powers in Turkey is recognized, with regard both to the above-mentioned persons and to their religious, charitable and other establishments in the Holy Places and elsewhere." The passage immediately following this paragraph in the article was overlooked: "The acquired rights of France are explicitly reserved, and there shall be no interference with the statu quo in the Holy Places." Thus the protection guaranteed to all ecclesiastics etc., no matter what their nationality or religion, as well as the generally recognized right of all the powers to watch over this protection, should be understood with the reservation of the "acquired rights" of France i.e. of its ancient protectorate in behalf of Catholics. This protectorate is therefore really confirmed by the Treaty of Berlin.
But as a matter of fact, the influence of Russia, which has assumed the protectorate of Orthodox Christians, already greatly affected the standing which the ancient French Protectorate had assured to Catholics in Palestine and especially in Jerusalem.
Moreover, Emperor William II of Germany has installed Protestantism with a magnificent church beside the Holy Sepulchre in 1898. As a sort of compensation he indeed ceded to German Catholics the site of the Dormition of the Blessed Virgin, which he obtained from the Sultan where a church and a monastery were erected and, together with the other German establishments, placed under the protection of the German Empire, without deference to the ancient prerogative of France.
A similar situation prevailed in China. First, in 1888, Germany obtained from the Chinese imperial Government that German passports should insure the same advantages to the missionaries as those secured at the French legation. At the same time the German Catholic missionaries of Shan-tung, who had much to endure from the infidels, were on several occasions offered the powerful protection of the German Empire. Mgr. Anzer, the vicar Apostolic, decided to accept it, after having, as he declares, several times sought unsuccessfully the aid of the French minister. In 1896 the German ambassador at Peking received from Berlin the command to support energetically the claims of the Catholic missionaries and even to declare that the German Empire would pledge itself to defend against all unjust oppression the persons and property of the mission of Shan-tung, together with freedom of preaching, in the same measure in which such had been formerly guaranteed by the French Protectorate. The murder of two of the Shan-tung missionaries in November 1897 afforded the occasion for a more solemn affirmation of the new protectorate, while it furnished a long-sought pretext for the occupation of Kiaochow.
Austria had a better foundation for claiming a share in the Catholic protectorate, as it had in various treaties concluded with the Porte (1699, 1718, and 1739) secured a right of protection over "the religious" in the Turkish Empire and even at Jerusalem. Whatever the meaning of this concession (apparently it did not include liberty of worship), it was never confirmed by usage, except in the countries bordering on Habsburg Austria (notably Albania
Albania
Albania , officially known as the Republic of Albania , is a country in Southeastern Europe, in the Balkans region. It is bordered by Montenegro to the northwest, Kosovo to the northeast, the Republic of Macedonia to the east and Greece to the south and southeast. It has a coast on the Adriatic Sea...
and Macedonia
Macedonia (region)
Macedonia is a geographical and historical region of the Balkan peninsula in southeastern Europe. Its boundaries have changed considerably over time, but nowadays the region is considered to include parts of five Balkan countries: Greece, the Republic of Macedonia, Bulgaria, Albania, Serbia, as...
). In 1848 the Austrian Protectorate was extended to the mission of the Sudan and Nigritia, which was in the care of Austrian priests; apparently for this reason, when the Coptic Catholic hierarchy was restored in Egypt by pope Leo XIII in 1895, the new patriarch and his suffragans placed themselves under the protection of Austria.
Italy also was very active in seeking to acquire a protectorate of missions, by patronizing societies for the assistance of the missionaries and by legislative measures intended to prove its benevolence to the Italian missionaries and persuade them to accept its protection. It even attempted by attractive promises to win over the Propaganda Fide, but that Roman Congregation discouraged it by a circular addressed to the Italian missionaries of the Levant and the Far East on 22 May 1888 which forbade the missionaries to adopt towards official representatives of Italy any attitude which might be interpreted as favoring the Piedmontese usurpations in Italy, but once more affirmed the privilege of France in the most formal manner: "They [the missionaries] know that the Protectorate of the French Nation in the countries of the East has been established for centuries and sanctioned even by treaties between the empires. Therefore, there must be absolutely no innovation in this matter; this protectorate, wherever it is in force, is to be religiously preserved, and the missionaries are warned that, if they have need of any help, they are to have recourse to the consuls and other ministers of France."
The Protectorate and the Holy See
The instance just mentioned was not the only occasion on which the Holy See undertook the defense of the French Protectorate. Whenever missionaries sought protection other than that of France, French diplomacy complained to Rome, and the Propaganda Fide was always careful to reprimand the missionaries and to remind them that it appertained to France alone to protect them against infidel powers. Two such instances relating to the years 1744 and 1844 and selected from many others, are cited by the author of the study of the French Protectorate in the "Civiltà Cattolica" (5 November 1904). To these may be added Leo XIII's confirmation of the Decree of 1888 in his reply to Cardinal Langénieux, Archbishop of ReimsArchbishop of Reims
The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Reims is an archdiocese of the Latin Rite of the Roman Catholic Church in France. Erected as a diocese around 250 by St. Sixtus, the diocese was elevated to an archdiocese around 750...
, dated 1 August 1898: "France has a special mission in the East confided to her by Providence -- a noble mission consecrated not alone by ancient usage, but also by international treaties, as has been recognized recently by Our Congregation of the Propaganda in its deliberation of 22 May 1888. The Holy See does not wish to interfere with the glorious patrimony which France has received from its ancestors and which beyond a doubt it means to deserve by always showing itself equal to its task." This attitude of the Holy See is the best defense of the French Protectorate, and is in fact its only defense against the manœuvres of its rivals as regards missions not under the direction of French subjects. The latter would have difficulty in resisting the pressing invitations extended to them from other quarters, if the Holy See left them free to accept. Rome gives still another proof of respect for the acquired rights of France by refusing, as it has hitherto done, to accredit permanent legates or ministers to Constantinople and Peking. For a time the idea, supported by the official agents of the Turkish and Chinese governments, attracted Leo XIII, but he dismissed it at the instance of French diplomats, who represented to him that the object was less to establish amicable relations between the Holy See and Turkey or China than to evade the tutelage of the lay protectorate. Pius X has done nothing to alter the protectorate, although some action in this direction would perhaps have been but a just reprisal for the disloyal separation.
The protectorate of missions was open to some criticism both in theory and in practice. The following are the most plausible objections which have influenced even friends of the apostolate to the extent of making them sometimes doubtful of the usefulness of the institution, even for the missions. The protectorate, it is said, was unwillingly tolerated by the authorities of infidel countries; it embittered the antipathy and hatred excited by the Christians in those countries, and caused the missionaries relying on its support to be insufficiently mindful of the sensibilities of the natives and on their guard against excessive zeal. The modicum of truth contained in these objections showed that the exercise of the protectorate requires great wisdom and discretion. Naturally, the infidel powers chafe somewhat under it as a yoke and an uncomfortable and even humiliating servitude, but so long as they did not assure to the missionaries and their works the security and guarantees of justice which are found in Christian countries (and experience has shown how little this is the case in the Turkish and Chinese empires), the protectorate was the best means of providing them. But to obviate as much as possible the odium attached to the meddling of one foreign power in the affairs of another, this intervention is reduced to what is absolutely necessary. The solution of the delicate problem lay in the cordial union and prudent collaboration of the agents of the protectorate and the heads of the mission, which is possible to realize in practice. When it is learned that the superior of the mission of south-east Chi-li during the difficult period from 1862 to 1884 had recourse to the French legation only three times and arranged all other difficulties directly with the local Chinese authorities (Em. Becker, "Le R. P. Joseph Gonnet", Ho-kien-fou, 1907, p. 275), it will be understood that the French Protectorate was not necessarily a heavy burden, either for those who exercise it or for those bound by it. The abuses which may arise were due to the men, not to the system; after all, the missionaries, though not faultless, are most anxious that it should not be abused. Perhaps the abuse most to be feared was that the protectors should seek payment for their services by trammelling the spiritual direction of the mission or by demanding political services in exchange: a complete history of the protectorate could show such abuses and others to be insignificant when compared with the benefits conferred by this institution on religion and civilization.
Sources and references
- Concerning the Levant. -- Charrière, Négociations de la France dans le Levant (4 volumes, Paris, 1848)
- Schopoff, Les réformes et la protection des chrétiens en Turquie 1673-1904, Firmans, bérats, ... traités (Paris, 1904)
- Pélissié du Rausas, Le régime des capitulations dans l'empire ottoman (Paris, 1902-5), I, 190-202
- II, 80-176; Rey, De la protection diplomatique et consulaire dans les échelles du Levant et de Barbarie (Paris, 1899)
- De Saint-Priest, Mémoires sur l'ambassade de France en Turquie, suivis du texte des traductions originales des capitulations et des traités conclus avec la Sublime Porte (Paris 1877)
- Charmes, Politique extérieure et coloniale (Paris, 1885), 303-84, 387-428
- Le régime des capitulations par un ancien diplomate (Paris, 1898)
- Burnichon, Les capitulations et les congregations religieuses en Orient, in Etudes, LX (1893), 55
- Prélot, Le protectorat de la France sur les chrétiens d'Orient, in Etudes, LXXVII (1898), 433, 651
- LXXVIII, 38, 172; Rabbath, Documents inédits pour servir à l'histoire du Christianisme en Orient, XVI-XIX siècle (Paris, 1907–10)
- Auguste CarayonAuguste CarayonAuguste Carayon was a French Jesuit author and bibliographer.He was born in Saumur, France in 1813; he joined the Society of Jesus in 1848, and was at various times librarian and procurator...
, Relations inédits des missions de la Co. de Jésus à Constantinople et dans le Levant au XVIIe siècle (Paris, 1864) - Lettres, édifiantes et curieuses.
- Concerning the Far East. -- Cordier, Histoire des relations de la Chine avec les puissances occidentales (Paris, 1901-2)
- Couvreur, Choix de documents, lettres officielles, proclamations, édits ... Texte chinois avec traduction en français et en latin (Ho-kien-fu, 1894)
- Wieger, Rudiments de parler et de style chinois, XI, Textes historiques (Ho-kien-fu, 1905), 2070-38; Cogordan, Les missions catholiques en Chine et le protectorat de la France, in Revue des deux mondes, LXXVIII (15 December 1886), 765-98
- Fauvel, Les Allemands en Chine, in Le Correspondant, CXCI (1898), 538-58, 758-74
- Launay in Piolet, Les missions catholiques, III, 270-75
- De Lanessan, Les missions et leur protectorat (Paris, 1907), written against the protectorate and very unfriendly towards the missionaries. -- Fod the Portuguese Patronage. -- Jordão, Bullarium patronatus Portugalliœ regum in ecclesiis Africœ, Asiœ atque Oceaniœ (Lisbon, 1868)
- De Bussierre, Histoire du schisme portugais dans les Indes (Paris, 1854).