Gabriele Allegra

Blessed Gabriele Allegra, O.F.M.
Biblical Scholar
Born	Giovanni Stefano Allegra December 26, 1907 San Giovanni la Punta, Catania, Italy
Died	January 26, 1976 British Hong Kong, British Empire
Venerated in	Roman Catholic Church (Order of Friars Minor)
Beatified	29 September 2012, Catania, Sicily, Italy, by Cardinal Angelo Amato, S.D.B., representing Pope Benedict XVI
Feast	26 January

The Blessed Gabriele Allegra, O.F.M., was a Franciscan Friar and Biblical scholar. He is best known for performing the first complete translation of the Catholic Bible into the Chinese language. His Studium Biblicum Translation is often considered the definitive Chinese Bible among Catholics. He awaits canonization.

Giovanni Stefano Allegra was born the eldest of eight children, in San Giovanni la Punta in the province of Catania, Italy. He entered the Franciscan minor seminary at S. Biagio in Acireale in 1918, taking the name "Gabiele Maria", and the novitiate in Bronte in 1923. He then studied at the Franciscan International College of St. Anthony in Rome as of 1926, now known as the Pontifical University Antonianum.

The future course of his life was determined in 1928 when he attended the celebrations of the 6th centenary of another Franciscan, Giovanni di Monte Corvino, who had attempted a first translation of the Bible in Beijing in the 14th century. On that day, at the age of 21, Allegra was inspired to translate the Bible into Chinese; a task that took the next 40 years of his life. He was ordained a priest in 1930 and soon thereafter sailed for mainland China.

Allegra arrived at the mission in Hunan, southern China, in July 1931 and started to learn Chinese. With the help of his Chinese teacher he prepared a first draft of the translation of the Bible around 1937. He was fatigued from the translation effort and had to return to Italy for three years where he continued his studies in biblical languages and biblical archaeology.

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