1600 To 1699
See also: Christianity in the 17th century See also: Timeline of Christianity#17th century- 1600 - French missionaries arrive in the area of what is now Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan
- 1601 - First ordination of Japanese priests
- 1602 - Chinese scientist and translator Xu Guangqi is baptized
- 1603 - The Jesuit Mission Press in Japan commences publication of a Japanese- Portuguese dictionary
- 1604 - Jesuit missionary Abbè Jessè Flèchè arrives at Port Royal, Nova Scotia
- 1605 - Roberto de Nobili goes to India
- 1606 - Japanese Shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu bans Christianity
- 1607 - Missionary Juan Fonte establishes the first Jesuit mission among the Tarahumara in the Sierra Madre Mountains of Northwest Mexico
- 1608 - A missionary expedition into the Ceará area of Brazil fails when the Tacariju kill the Jesuit leader
- 1609 - Missionary Nicolas Trigault goes to China; he will soon (1615) publish Ricci's journals in Europe
- 1610 - Chinese mathematician and astronomer Li Zhizao is baptized
- 1611 - Two Jesuits begin work among Mi'kmaq Indians of Nova Scotia
- 1612 - Jesuits found a mission for the Abenakis in Maine
- 1613 - Missionary Alvarus de Semedo goes to China
- 1614 - Anti-Christian edicts issued in Japan with over 40,000 Christians being massacred
- 1615 - French missionaries in Canada open schools in Trois-Rivières and Tadoussac to teach First Nations children with the hopes of converting them
- 1616 - Nanjing Missionary Case in which the clash between Chinese practice of ancestor worship and Catholic doctrine ends in the deportation of foreign missionaries. Missionary Johann Adam Schall von Bell arrives in China
- 1617 - Portuguese missionary Francisco de Pina arrives in Vietnam
- 1618 - Portuguese Carmelites go from Persia to Pakistan to establish a church in Thatta (near Karachi)
- 1619 - Dominican missionaries found the University of St. Tomas in the Philippine islands
- 1620 - Carmelites enter Goa
- 1621 - The Augustinians establish themselves in Chittagong
- 1622 - Pope Gregory VI founds the Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith. This becomes the major Papal agency for coordinating and directing missionary work
- 1623 - A stone monument (Nestorian Stele) is unearthed in Xi'an (Si-ngan-fu), China. Its inscription, written by a Syrian monk almost a thousand years earlier and in both Chinese characters and Persian script, begins with the words, "Let us praise the Lord that the faith has been popular in China"; it told of the arrival of a missionary, A-lo-pen (Abraham), in AD 625. Alvaro Semedo and other Jesuits soon publicize the stele's discovery in Europe.
- 1624 - Persecution intensifies in Japan with 50 Christians being burned alive in Edo (now called Tokyo)
- 1625 - Vietnam expels missionaries
- 1626 - After entering Japan in disguise, Jesuit missionary Francis Pacheco is captured and executed at Nagasaki
- 1627 - Alexander de Rhodes goes to Vietnam where in three years of ministry he baptizes 6,700 converts
- 1628 - Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples established in Rome to train "native clergy" from all over the world
- 1629 - Franciscan missionary Alonzo Benavides founds Santa Clara de Capo on the border of Apache Indian country in what is now New Mexico
- 1630 - An attempt is made in the El Paso, Texas area to establish a mission among the Mansos Indians
- 1631 - Dutch missionary Abraham Rogerius (anglicized as Roger), who authored Open Door to the Secrets of Heathendom, begins 10 years of ministry among the Tamil people in the Dutch colony of Pulicat near Madras, India
- 1632 - Zuni Indians murder a group of Franciscan missionaries who had three years earlier established the first mission to the Zunis at Hawikuh in what is now New Mexico
- 1633 - Emperor Fasilides expels the Jesuit missionaries in Ethiopia; the German Lutheran Church sends Peter Heyling as the first Protestant missionary to Ethiopia.
- 1634 - Jesuit missionary Jean de Brèbeuf travels to the Petun nation (in Canada) and baptizes a 40 year old man.
- 1635 - An expedition of Franciscans leaves Quito, Ecuador, to try to penetrate into Amazonia from the west. Though most of them will be killed along the way, a few will manage to arrive two years later on the Atlantic coast.
- 1636 - The Dominicans of Manila (the Philippines) organize a missionary expedition to Japan. They are arrested on one of the Okinawa islands and will be eventually condemned to death by the tribunal of Nagasaki.
- 1637 - When smallpox kills thousands of Native Americans, tribal medicine men blame European missionaries for the disaster
- 1638 - Official ban of Christianity in Japan with death penalty; The Fountain Opened, a posthumous work of the influential Puritan writer Richard Sibbes is published, in which he says that the gospel must continue its journey "til it have gone over the whole world."
- 1639 - The first women to New France as missionaries—three Ursuline Nuns—board the "St. Joseph" and set sail for New France
- 1640 - Jesuit missionaries arrive on the Caribbean island of Martinique
- 1641 - Jesuit missionary Cristoval de Acuna describes the Amazon River in a written report to the king of Spain
- 1642 - Catholic missionaries Isaac Jogues and Rene Goupil are captured by Mohawk Indians as they return to Huron country from Quebec. Goupil was tomahawked to death while Jogues will be held for a period of time as a slave. He used his slavery as an opportunity for missionary work
- 1643 - John Campanius, Lutheran missionary to the Indians, arrives in America on the Delaware River; Reformed pastor Johannes Megapolensis begins outreach to Native Americans while pastoring at Albany, New York
- 1644 - John Eliot begins ministry to Algonquian Indians in North America
- 1645 - After thirty years of work in Vietnam, the Jesuits are expelled from that country
- 1646 - After being accused of being a sorcerer, Jesuit missionary Isaac Jogues is killed by the Iroquois
- 1647 - The Discalced Carmelites begin work on Madagascar
- 1648 - Baptism of Helena and other members of the emperial Ming family
- 1649 - Society for the Propagation of the Gospel In New England formed to reach the Indians of New England
- 1650 - The destruction of Huronia by the Iroquois puts an end to the Jesuits' dream of making the Huron Indians the focal point of their evangelism
- 1651 - Count Truchsess of Wetzhausen, prominent Lutheran layman, asks the theological faculty of Wittenberg why Lutherans are not sending out missionaries in obedience to the Great Commission
- 1652 - Jesuit Antonio Vieira returns to Brazil as a missionary where he will champion the cause of exploited indigenous peoples until being expelled by Portuguese colonists
- 1653 - A Mohawk war party captures Jesuit Joseph Poncet near Montreal. He is tortured and will be finally sent back with a message about peace overtures
- 1654 - John Eliot publishes a catechism for American Indians
- 1655 - Jinga or Zinga, princess of Matamba in Angola is converted; later she will write to the Pope urging that more missionaries be sent
- 1656 - First Quaker missionaries arrive in what is now Boston, Massachusetts
- 1657 - Thomas Mayhew, Jr., is lost at sea during a voyage to England that was to combine an appeal for missionary funds with personal business
- 1658 - After the flight of the French missionaries from his area, chief Daniel Garakonthie of the Onondaga Indians, examines the customs of the French colonists and the doctrines of the missionaries and openly begins protecting Christians in his part of what is now New York
- 1659 - Jesuit Alexander de Rhodes establishes the Paris Foreign Missions Society
- 1660 - Christianity is introduced into Cambodia
- 1661 - George Fox, founder of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) sends 3 missionaries to China (although they never reached the field)
- 1662 - French Jesuit missionary Julien Garnier sails for Canada
- 1663 - John Eliot's translation of the Bible into one of the Algonquian languages is published (the New Testament came out two years earlier). This Bible was the first complete Bible to be printed in the New World
- 1664 - Justinian Von Welz authors three powerful pamphlets on the need for world missions; he will go to Dutch Guinea (now called Surinam) where he will die after only three months
- 1665 - Japanese feudal landholders (called Daimyo) were ordered to follow the shogunate's example and to appoint inquisitors to do a yearly scutiny of Christians
- 1666 -John Eliot publishes his The Indian Grammar, a book written to assist in conversion work among the Indians. Described as "some bones and ribs preparation for such a work", Eliot intended his Grammar for missionaries wishing to learn the dialect spoken by the Massachusett Indians.
- 1667 - The first missionary to attempt to reach the Huaorani (or Aucas), Jesuit Pedro Suarez, is slain with spears
- 1668 - In a letter from his post in Canada, French missionary Jacques Bruyas laments his ignorance of the Oneida language: "What can a man do who does not understand their language, and who is not understood when he speaks. As yet, I do nothing but stammer; nevertheless, in four months I have baptized 60 persons, among whom there are only four adults, baptized in periculo mortis. All the rest are little children."
- 1669 - Eager to compete with the Jesuits for conversion of the Indian Nations on the western Great Lakes, Sulpilcian missionaries François Dollier de Casson and René Bréhant de Galinée set out from Montreal with twenty-seven men in seven canoes led by two canoes of Seneca Indians
- 1670 - Jesuits establish missions on the Orinoco River in Venezuela
- 1671 - Quaker missionaries arrive in the Carolinas
- 1672 - A chieftain on Guam kills Jesuit missionary Diego Luis de San Vitores and his Visayan assistant, Pedro Calungsod, for having baptized the chief's daughter without his permission (some accounts do say the girl's mother consented to the baptism)
- 1673 - French trader Louis Jolliet and missionary Jacques Marquette visit what is now the state of Illinois, where the latter establishes a mission for Native Americans
- 1674 - Vincentian mission to Madagascar collapses after 25 years of abortive effort
- 1675 - An uprising on the islands of Micronesia leads to the death of three Christian missionaries
- 1676 - Kateri Tekakwitha, who became known as the Lily of the Mohawks, is baptized by a Jesuit missionary. She, along with many other Native Americans, joins a missionary settlement in Canada where a syncretistic blend of ascetic indigenous and Catholic beliefs evolves.
- 1678 -French missionaries Jean La Salle and Louis Hennepin discover Niagara Falls
- 1679 - Writing from Changzhou, newly arrived missionary Juan de Yrigoyen describes three Christian congregations flourishing in that Chinese city
- 1680 - The Pueblo Revolt begins in New Mexico with the killing of twenty-one Franciscan missionaries
- 1681 - After arriving in New Spain, Italian Jesuit Eusebio Kino soon becomes what one writer described as "the most picturesque missionary pioneer of all North America." A bundle of evangelistic zeal, Kino was also an explorer, astronomer, cartographer, mission builder, ranchman, cattle king, and defender of the frontier
- 1682 - 13 missionaries go to "remote cities" in East Siberia
- 1683 - Missionary Louis Hennepin returns to France after exploring Minnesota and being held captive by the Dakota to write the first book about Minnesota, Description de la Louisiane
- 1684 - Louis XIV of France sends Jesuit missionaries to China bearing gifts from the collections of the Louvre and the Palace of Versailles
- 1685 - Consecration of first Catholic bishop of Chinese origin
- 1686 - Russian Orthodox monks arrive in China as missionaries
- 1687 - French activity begins in what is now Côte d'Ivoire when missionaries land at Assinie
- 1688 - New Testament translated into the Malay language (the first Bible translation into a language of southeast Asia)
- 1689 - Calusa Indian chief from what is the state of Florida visits Cuba to discuss idea of having missionaries come to his people
- 1690 - First Franciscan missionaries arrive in Texas
- 1691 - Christian Faith Society for the West Indies was organized with a focus on evangelizing African slaves
- 1692 - Chinese Kangxi Emperor permits the Jesuits to freely preach Christianity, converting whom they wish
- 1693 - Jesuit missionary John de Britto is publicly beheaded in India
- 1694 - Missionary and explorer Eusebio Kino becomes the first European to enter the Tucson, Arizona basin and create a lasting settlement
- 1695 - China's first Russian Orthodox church building is consecrated
- 1696 - Jesuit missionary Francois Pinet founds the Mission of the Guardian Angel near what is today Chicago. The mission was abandoned in 1700 when missionary efforts seemed fruitless
- 1697 - To evangelize the English colonies, Thomas Bray, an Anglican preacher who made several missionary trips to North America, begins laying the groundwork for what will be the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts
- 1698 - Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge organized by Anglicans
- 1699 - Priests of the Quebec Seminary of Foreign Missions establish a mission among the Tamaroa Indians at Cahokia in what is now the state of Illinois
Read more about this topic: Timeline Of Christian Missions