Johann Philipp Fabricius

Johann Phillip Fabricius (22 January 1711 – 23 January 1791) was a German Christian missionary and a Tamil scholar in later part of his life. He arrived in South India in 1740 to take charge of a small Tamil Lutheran congregation in Madras and expanded it during his stay. During his time in Madras he wrote several Christian hymns in Tamil and published the first Tamil to English Dictionary. Of his works his translation of the Bible to Tamil is considered to be most noteworthy.

Johann Phillip Fabricius was born on 22 January 1711 in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. He graduated in both law and theology in Germany.

In 1740 Johann Phillip Fabricius arrived in South India to take charge of a small Tamil Lutheran congregation in Madras. After initial setbacks, the congregation grew from 300 to 2,200 members in his 30 years of ministry. Initially the foundations of dubashi infrastructure in South India were laid down by Bartholomäus Ziegenbalg. During the course of 1720 to 1849, around seventy-nine missionaries came to Tranquebar from Europe. Benjamin Schultz and Johann Phillip Fabricius were the most noteworthy among them. Fabricius was Schultz’s successor and worked in Vepery from 1740 to 1791.

An important area of work started initially by Ziegenbalg and then later on taken up by Fabricius was Tamil Christian hymnody. Johann Phillip Fabricius published a collection of 335 Tamil hymns, most of them translated from German. The initial compositions by Ziegenbalg were not very well done and when Fabricius came to Madras he had this field of work entirely to himself and gained quite a mastery over this art. Even today hymns by Fabricius are sung by Christians in South India.

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