Bartholomaeus Ziegenbalg

Bartholomäus Ziegenbalg (10 July 1682 – 23 February 1719) was a member of the Lutheran clergy and the first Pietist missionary to India.

Ziegenbalg was born in Pulsnitz, Saxony, on 10 July 1682 to poor but devout Christian parents: Bartholomäus Ziegenbalg Sr. (1640–1694), a grain merchant, and Maria née Brückner (1646–1692). Through his father he was related to the sculptor Ernst Friedrich August Rietschel, and through his mother's side to the philosopher Johann Gottlieb Fichte. He showed an aptitude for music at an early age. He studied at the University of Halle under the teaching of August Hermann Francke, then the center of Pietistic Lutheranism. Under the patronage of King Frederick IV of Denmark, Ziegenbalg, along with his fellow student, Heinrich Plütschau, became the first Protestant missionaries to India. They arrived at the Danish colony of Tranquebar on 9 July 1706.

A church of the Syrian tradition was probably born in South India as far back in history as the third century, at least. KP Kesava Menon, in his forward to Christianity in India (Prakam, 1972), described a church typical of that tradition as "Hindu in culture, Christian in religion, and oriental in worship."

Robinson laments the failure of the further forward moment of this potential dialogue between the two religions. He notes that even such supportive sympathisers of the European missionary’s endorsement of Hinduism as Roberto de Nobili and Ziegenbalg, despite their enthusiasm for this foreign faith, could never shake their conviction of the superiority of their own faith.

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