Protectorate of Missions

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.

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 Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant colonial/imperial powers.