timeline of Christian missions

The following is a timeline of Christian missions, chronicling the global expansion of Christianity through its missionary work.

A more general timeline of Christianity and History of Christianity is also available.

Apostolic Age

See also: Apostolic Age and Acts of the Apostles

Earliest dates must all be considered "approximate"

30 Great Commission of Jesus, to go and baptize all nations, see also Seventy Disciples
31 - Pentecost and what some consider the birth of the Christian Church, see also Pillars of the Church
34 - In Gaza, Philip baptizes a convert, an Ethiopian who was already a Jewish proselyte.
39 - Peter preaches to a Gentile audience in the house of Cornelius
42 - Mark goes to Egypt (Kane, 10)
47 - Paul (formerly known as Saul of Tarsus) begins his first missionary journey to modern-day Turkey (Walker, 26)
50 - Council of Jerusalem on admitting Gentiles into the Church (Walker, 26)
51 - Paul begins his second missionary journey, a trip that will take him through modern-day Turkey and on into Greece (Walker, 27)
52 - Thomas arrives in India and founds church that subsequently becomes Indian Orthodox Church (and its various descendants) (Neill, 44-45)
54 - Paul begins his third missionary journey
60 - Paul sent to Rome (Walker, 27)

Early Christianity

See also: Early Christianity

66 - Thaddeus establishes the Christian church of Armenia
69 - Andrew is crucified in Patras on the Peloponnese peninsula of Greece
90 - Philip was crucified upside down (like Peter) in Hierapolis in Modern day Turkey
100- First Christians are reported in Monaco, Algeria and Sri Lanka.
112 - Traditional date of martyrdom of Sharbil, Babai, and Barsamy in Edessa, Mesopotamia; Pliny reports rapid growth of Christianity in Bithynia (Neill, 28)
117 - Emperor Hadrian executes thousands of soldiers who had converted to Christianity
166 - Bishop Soter writes that the number of Christians has surpassed the Jews (Neill, 30)
167 - At the request of Lucius of Britain, missionaries Fuganus (or Phagan) and Duvianus (or Deruvian) were sent by Pope Eleuterus to convert the Britons to Christianity
174 - First Christians reported in Austria
177 - Churches in Lyon and Vienne (southern France) report being persecuted (Neill, 24)
196 - Bar Daisan writes of Christians among the Parthians, Bactrians (Kushans), and other peoples in the Persian Empire
197 - Tertullian writes that Christianity had penetrated all ranks of society in North Africa
200 - First Christians are reported in Switzerland and Belgium
206 - Abgar, King of Edessa, embraces the Christian faith
208 - Tertullian writes that Christ has followers on the far side of the Roman wall in Britain where Roman legions have not yet penetrated (Neill, 31)
250 - Denis (or Denys or Dionysius) is sent from Rome along with six other missionaries to establish the church in Paris
280 - First rural churches emerge in northern Italy; Christianity is no longer exclusively in urban areas
287 - Maurice from Egypt is killed at Agauno, Switzerland for refusing to sacrifice to pagan divinities
300 - First Christians reported in Greater Khorasan; an estimated 10% of the world's population is now Christian; the Bible is available in 10 different languages
c. 300 - Two young Roman Christians, Frumentius and Aedesius, are the sole survivors of a ship destroyed in the Red Sea due to tensions between Rome and Aksum. They are taken as slaves to the Ethiopian capital of Axum to serve in the royal court.
304 - Armenia accepts Christianity as state religion
306 - The first bishop of Nisibis is ordained
313 - Emperor Constantine issues Edict of Milan, legalizing Christianity in the Roman Empire (Kane, 33)
314 - Tiridates III of Armenia converted by Gregory the Illuminator
314 - King Urnayr of Caucasian Albania converted by Gregory the Illuminator

Era of the Seven Ecumenical Councils

See also: Ecumenical councils#The first seven Ecumenical Councils

327 - Emperor Constantine baptized shortly before his death; Georgian King Mirian III of Iberia converted by Nino
c. 330 - Ethiopian King Ezana of Axum makes Christianity an official religion
334 - The first bishop is ordained for Merv in Transoxiana
341 - Ulfilas begins work with the Goths in present-day Romania (Neill, 48)
354 - Theophilus "the Indian" reports visiting Christians in India; Philostorgius mentions a community of Christians on the Socotra islands, south of Yemen in the Arabian Sea
364 - Conversion of Vandals to Christianity during the reign of Emperor Valens
c. 370 - Wulfila translates the Bible into Gothic, the first Bible translation done specifically for missionary purposes
381 - Roman Emperor Theodosius I makes Christianity the official state religion
382 - Jerome is commissioned to translate the Bible into Latin
386 - Augustine of Hippo converted
390 - Nestorian missionary Abdyeshu (or Abdisho) builds a monastery on the island of Bahrain
397 - Ninian evangelizes the Southern Picts of Scotland
400 - Hayyan begins proclaiming gospel in Yemen after having been converted in Hirta on the Persian border
410 - New Testament translated into Armenian (Neill, 48)
420 - An Arabian Bedouin tribe is converted under sheikh Peter-Aspebet
425 - The first bishops are ordained for Herat (Afghanistan) and Samarkand (Uzbekistan)
432 - Patrick goes to Ireland as missionary (Neill, 49)
496 - Conversion of Clovis I, king of Franks in Gaul, along with 3,000 warriors (Neill, 51, 95)
499 - Persian king Kavadh I, fleeing his country, meets a group of Christian missionaries going to Central Asia to preach to the Turks
500 - First Christians reported in North Yemen; Nairam becomes Christian center
508 - Philoxenus of Mabug begins translation of the Bible into Syriac
528 - Benedict of Nursia destroys pagan temple at Monte Cassino (Italy) and builds a monastery
535 - The Hephthalite Huns - nomads living in northern China and Central Asia, who were also known as the White Huns - are taught to read and write by Nestorian missionaries.
542 - Julian (or Julianus) from Constantinople begins evangelizing Nubia, accompanied by an Egyptian named Theodore.
563 - Columba sails from Ireland to Scotland where he founds an evangelistic training center on Iona.
565 - The first report of a Loch Ness monster after the Irish missionary Columba visits the Loch. Columba described an animal that broke the surface of the 800 foot-deep loch with a loud roar and an open mouth
569 - Longinus, church leader in Nobatia, evangelizes Alodia (in what is now Sudan)
578 - Conversion to Christianity of An-numan III, last of Lachemids (Arab princes)
592 - Death of Irish missionary Moluag (Old Irish: Mo-Luóc)
596 - Gregory the Great sends Augustine and a team of missionaries to (what is now) England to reintroduce the gospel. The missionaries settle in Canterbury and within a year baptize 10,000 people (Neill, 58-59; Tucker, 46)
600 - First Christian settlers in Andorra (southwestern Europe, between France and Spain)
629 - Amandus of Elnon is consecrated a missionary bishop. He evangelized the region around Ghent and went on missions to Slavs along the Danube and to Basques in Navarre
631 - Conversion of the East Angles (one of the seven kingdoms of the Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy)
635 - First Christian missionaries (Nestorian monks, including Alopen, from Asia Minor and Persia) arrive in China (Neill, 81); Aidan of Lindisfarne begins evangelizing in the heart of Northumbria (England)
637 - Lombards, a German people living in northern Italy, become Christians
638 - A church building is erected in Ch'ang-an, then perhaps the largest city in the world (see Daqin Pagoda)
650 - First church organized in Netherlands
673 - Irish monk Maol Rubha founds a training center at Aprochrosan that would serve as a base for missionary outreach into Scotland
680 - First translation of Christian Scriptures into Arabic
689 - Pagans kill Irish missionary Kilian near Würzburg in what is now Germany. His remains will be buried in a Benedictine abbey in Würzburg.
692 - Willibrord and 11 companions cross the North Sea to become missionaries to the Frisians (modern day Netherlands) (Kane, 41)
697 - Muslims overrun Carthage, capital of North Africa
720 - Caliph Umar II puts heavy pressure on the Christian Berbers to convert to Islam
722 - Boniface goes to Germanic tribes
724 - Boniface fells pagan sacred oak of Thor at Geismar in Hesse (Germany) (Neill, 64)
740 - Irish monks reach Iceland
771 - Charlemagne decrees that sermons be given in the vernacular. He also commissions the translation of parts of the Bible into Germanic languages.
781 - Nestorian Stele erected near Xi'an (China) to commemorate the propagation in China of the Luminous Religion, thus providing a written record of a Christian presence in China (Neill, 82)
787 - Liudger begins missionary work among the pagans near the mouth of the Ems river (in modern day Germany)

Middle Ages

See also: Middle Ages

822 - Mojmír I of Great Moravia, converts to Christianity
826 - Ansgar from France is sent by Roman papal authority to Denmark as a royal chaplain and missionary; Harald Klak is baptized along with 400 of his followers at Mainz (Neill, 69)
828 - First Christian church in present-day Slovakia is built in Nitra
828 - First missionaries reach the area that is now the Czech Republic
830 - Scotch-born Erluph is evangelizing in (what is now) Germany when he is killed by the Vandals.
859 - Execution of Eulogius, proponent of confrontational Christian witness in Spain and other Muslim-dominated societies. Opposed to any feeling of affinity with Muslim culture, Eulogius advocated using a missiology of martyrdom to confront Islam.
863 - Cyril and Methodius are invited by Rastislav to evangelize in Great Moravia and the Balaton Principality
864 - Conversion of Prince Boris of Bulgaria
867 - The Serbian and Montenegrin peoples embrace Christianity
878 - Last definite reference to Christians in China before the Mongol era
880 - First Slavic archbishopric established in Great Moravia with Methodius as its head
900 - Missionaries reach Norway
912 - The Normans become Christian
948 - The leader of the Magyars converts to Christianity
957 - Princess Olga of Kiev baptized (Neill, 76)
965 - Harold I of Denmark converts to Christianity and smooths the way for the acceptance of Christian faith by the Danish people
966 - Mieszko I of Poland converts to Christianity and begins the period of Christian Poland (Neill, 79)
987 - Nestorian monks visiting China find no traces of Christian community left (Neill, 83)
988 - Baptism of Kievan Rus' under Vladimir I (Olson, 104)
995 - Christian missionaries from Norway begin working in Iceland
997 - Adalbert of Prague dies as a martyr in Prussia (Neill, 94)

1000 to 1499

1000 - Leif the Lucky evangelizes Greenland, possibly Vinland
1008 - Sigfrid (or Sigurd), English missionary, baptizes King Olof of Sweden
1009 - Bruno of Querfurt is beheaded in Prussia where he had gone as a missionary (Neill, 94)
1015 - Russia is said to have been "comprehensively" converted to the Orthodox faith
1017 - The Danish king Canute converts to Christianity
1099 - Crusaders capture Jerusalem and massacre 70,000 Muslims as well as Jews
1200 - The Bible is now available in 22 different languages
1219 - Francis of Assisi presents the Gospel to the Sultan of Egypt (Neill, 99)
1220 - Dominican Order established
1223 - Franciscan Order established
1227 - Prince Bort converted and baptized in the Ukraine (Neill, 100)
1244 - Christians are reported in Lithuania with King Mindaugas being baptized in 1251 (Neill, 95)
1253 - Franciscan William of Rubruck begins his journey to the Mongols (Neill, 104-105)
1266 - Mongol leader Khan sends Marco Polo's father and uncle, Niccolo and Matteo Polo, back to Europe with a request to the Pope to send 100 Christian missionaries (only two responded and one died before reaching Mongol territory) (Neill, 107)
1276 - Ramon Llull opens training center to send missionaries to North Africa (Neill, 116)
1289 - Franciscan friars begin mission work in China
1291 - Appointment of first indigeneous bishop in Finland (Neill, 93)
1294 - Franciscan Giovanni di Monte Corvino arrives in China (Neill, 108)
1303 - Arnold von Koln arrives in China to assist Giovanni di Monte Corvino
1322 - Odoric of Pordenone, a Franciscan monk from Italy, arrives in China
1321 - Jordanus, a Dominican monk, arrives in India as the first resident Roman Catholic missionary
1323 - Franciscans make contacts on Sumatra, Java, and Borneo
1326 - Changatid Khan Ilchigedai grants permission for a church to be built in Samarkand, Uzbekistan
1329 - Nicaea falls to Muslim Ottoman Turks
1368 - Collapse of the Franciscan mission in China as Ming Dynasty abolishes Christianity
1379 - Stephen of Perm travels north toward the White Sea and settles as a missionary among the Finno-Ugric speaking Komi peoples living between Pechora and Vychegda Rivers at Ust-Vim
1382 - Bible translated into English from Latin by John Wycliff
1386 - Jogaila (baptized - Wladyslaw II), king of the Lithuanians, is baptized
1410 - Bible is translated into Hungarian
1420 - Franciscan missionaries accompany Portuguese expedition to Madeira (Kane, 57)
1431 - Franciscan missionaries accompany Portuguese expedition to the Azores (Kane, 57)
1435 - Forced conversion of Jews in Spain
1440s - Solovetsky Monastery is founded on the islands in the White Sea
1448 - First Christians reported in Mauritania
1450 - Franscian missionaries accompany Portuguese expedition to the Cape Verde Islands (Kane, 57)
1453 - Constantinople falls to the Muslim Ottoman Turks who make it their capital
1455 - With the bull Romanus Pontifex the patronage of missions in new countries behind Cape Bojador is given to the Portuguese.
1462 - Johannes Gutenberg begins printing the Bible with his movable-type printing process; Pope Pius II assigns the evangelization of the Portuguese Guinea Coast of Africa to the Franciscans led by Alfonso de Bolano
1485 - After having come into contact with the Portuguese, the King of Benin requests that a church be planted in his kingdom
1486 - Dominicans become active in West Africa, notably among the Wolof people in Senegambia.
1489 - Baptism of Wolof king Behemoi in Senegal
1491 - The Congo sees its first group of missionaries arrive (Kane, 69). Under the ministry of these Franciscan and Dominican priests, the king would soon be baptized and a church built at the royal capital.
1492 - Birth of the church in Angola
1493 - Pope Alexander VI commands Spain to colonize the New World with Catholic missions; Christopher Columbus takes Christian priests with him on his second journey to the New World
1494 - First missionaries arrive in Dominican Republic
1495 - The head of a convent in Seville, Spain, Mercedarian Jorge, makes a trip to the West Indies.
1496 - First Christian baptisms in the New World take place when Guaticaba along with other members of his household are baptized on the island of Hispaniola (Pane, 32)
1497 - Forced conversion of Jews in Portugal
1498 - First Christians are reported in Kenya
1499 - Portuguese Augustinian missionaries arrive at Zanzibar. Their mission will end in 1698 due to the Oman-Arab conquest.

1500 to 1599

1500 - Franciscans enter Brazil with Cabral (Kane, 57)
1501 - Pope Alexander VI grants to the crown of Spain all the newly-discovered countries in the Americas, on condition that provision be made for the religious instruction of the native populations
1502 - Bartolome de Las Casas, who will later become an ardent defender of the indigenous peoples of the Americas, goes to Cuba. For his military services there he will be given an encomienda, an estate that included the services of the Indigenous Peoples of the Americas living on it.
1503 - Mar Elijah, Patriarch of the East Syrian church, sends three missionaries "to the islands of the sea which are inside Java and to China."
1506 - Mission work begun in Mozambique
1508 - Franciscans begin evangelizing in Venezuela
1509 - First church building constructed on Puerto Rico
1510 - Dominicans begin work in Haiti
1511 - Martin de Valencia came to believe that Psalm 58 prophesied the conversion of all unbelievers. While reflecting on the Scripture passage, he asked, "When will this be? When will this prophecy be filled . . . we are already in the afternoon, at the end of our days, and the world's final era." Later that same week, while reading aloud from the prophet Isaiah, he reportedly saw a vision of vast multitudes being converted and baptised. He began to pray to be chosen to preach and convert all heathen. He would die 20 years later as a missionary to Mexico.
1512 - Dominican missionary Antonio de Montesino returns to Spain to try to convince King Ferdinand that all is not as it should be in the new western colonies. He reported that on the islands of Hispaniola (now Dominican Republic and Haiti) and Cuba, the indigeneous peoples were rapidly dying out under the system of slavery used by the colonists.
1513 - In Cuba, Bartolome de Las Casas is ordained (possibly the first ordination in the New World). Soon thereafter, Las Casas will renounce all claims to his Indian serfs
1514 - Franciscans begin missionary work in California
1515 - Portuguese missionary Francisco Álvares is sent on a diplomatic mission to Dawit II, the Negus or Emperor of Abyssinia (an old name for Ethiopia)
1516 - Three Franciscans are killed by cannibals in northeastern South America, in the area of Colombia and Venezuela
1517 - The Mughal Rulers of Delhi opened the door of Bengal to Christian missionaries
1518 - Don Henrique, son of the king of the Congo, is consecrated by Pope Leo X as the first indigenous bishop from sub-Saharan Black Africa
1519 - Two Franciscans accompany Hernán Cortés in his expedition to Mexico
1520 - German missionary Maximilian Uhland, also known as Bernardino de San Jose, goes to Hispaniola with the newly appointed Bishop Alessandro Geraldini.
1521 - Pope Leo X grants Franciscan Francis Quiñones permission and faculties to go as a missionary to the New World together with Juan Clapión
1522 - Portuguese missionaries establish presence on coast of Sri Lanka and begin moving inland with Portuguese military units
1523 - Martin Luther writes a missionary hymn based on Psalm 67. Titled "May God Bestow on Us His Grace", it has been called "the first missionary hymn of Protestantism."
1524 - Martin de Valencia goes to New Spain with 12 Franciscan friars
1525 - Italian Franciscan missionary Giulio Zarco is sent to Michoacán on the western coast of Mexico where he will become very proficient in some of the indigeneous languages
1526 - Franciscans enter Florida (Kane, 68); Twelve Dominican friars arrive in the Mexican capital
1527 - Martyrs' Synod — organized by Anabaptists, it is the first Protestant missionary conference
1528 - Franciscan missionary Juan de Padilla arrives in Mexico. He will accompany Coronado's expedition searching for the Seven Cities and eventually settle among the Quivira (now called the Wichita)
1529 - Franciscan Peter of Ghent writes from Latin America that he and a colleague had baptized 14,000 people on one day.
1530 - In his On Translating: An Open Letter, Martin Luther lays out some principles of correct Bible translating
1531 - Franciscan Juan de Padilla begins a series of missionary tours among Indian tribes southeast of Mexico City.
1532 - Evangelization of Peru begins when missionaries arrive with Francisco Pizzaro's military expedition
1533 - The Pechenga Monastery is founded in the Extreme North of Russia to preach Gospel to the Sami people; Augustinian order arrives in Mexico; First Christian misssionaries arrive in Tonkin, Vietnam
1534 - The entire caste of Paravas on the Coromandel Coast are baptized -- perhaps 10,000 people in all
1535 - German Franciscan missionary Maximilian Uhland (also called Bernardino de San Jose) speaks before the Sacred Congregation of the Propagation of the Faith about the wretched condition of Indigenous peoples of America in the New World
1536 - Northern Italian Anabaptist missionary Hans Oberecker (also spelled Overacker and Overakker) is burned at the stake in Vienna, Austria
1537 - Pope Paul III orders that the Indigenous peoples of the Americas of the New World be brought to Christ "by the preaching of the divine word, and with the example of the good life." (akne, 57)
1538 - Franciscans enter Paraguay
1539 - The Pueblos of what is now the U.S. Southwest are encountered by Spanish Franciscan missionary Marcos de Niza
1540 - Franciscans arrive in Trinidad and are killed by cannibals
1541 - Franciscans begin establishing missions in California
1542 - Francis Xavier goes to Portuguese colony of Goa in West India (Neill, 127); Franciscans reach what is now New Mexico (Tucker, 63)
1543 - Anabaptist Menno Simons goes as a missionary from the Netherlands to Germany
1544 - Franciscan Andrés de Olmos, a veteran missionary in Mexico, struck northward into the Texas wilderness. After gathering a group of Indian converts, he will lead them back into Tamaulipas
1545 - Testifying to the power that letters back home from missionaries have had, Antonio Araoz writes about Francis Xavier: "No less fruit has been obtained in Spain and Portugal through his letters than has been obtained in the Indies through his teaching.”
1546 - Francis Xavier travels to the Indonesian islands of Morotai, Ambon, and Ternate
1547 - Wealthy Spaniard Juan Fernandez becomes a Jesuit. He will wind up in Japan as a missionary.
1548 - Francis Xavier founds the College of the Holy Name of God in Baçaim on the northwest coast of India
1549 - Dominican Luis Cancer, who had worked among the Mayans of Guatemala and Mexico, lands at Tampa Bay, Florida with two companions. They are immediately killed by the Calusa within sight of the ship from which they had disembarked.
1550 - Printed Bibles are available in 28 languages
1551 Augustinian order enters Peru
1551 - Dominican Jerome de Loaysa founds the National University of San Marcos in Lima (Peru) as well as a hospital for indigeneous peoples
1552 - Jesuit missionary Francis Xavier dies awaiting admission to China
1553 - Portuguese missionaries build a church in Malacca Town, Malaysia
1554 - 1,500 converts to Christianity are reported in Siam (now called Thailand)
1555 - John Calvin sends Huguenots to Brazil (Kane, 76)
1556 - Dominican Gaspar da Cruz arrives in Guangzhou, China
1557 - Jesuits arrive in Ethiopia
1558 - The Kabardian duke Saltan Idarov converts to Orthodox Christianity
1559 - Missionary Vilela settles in Kyoto, Japan
1560 - Goncalo da Silveira, a Portuguese Jesuit missionary, visited the Munhumutapa Empire, where he rapidly made converts
1562 - Diego de Landa burns the libraries of the Maya civilization
1563 - Jesuit missionary Luis Frois, who will later write a history of Jesuit activity in Japan, arrives in that country; Omura Sumitada becomes the first daimyo (feudal landholder) to convert to Christianity
1564 - Legaspi begins Augustinian work in Philippine Islands (Kane, 62, 130)
1565 - Jesuits arrive in Macau.
1566 - The first Jesuit to enter what is now the United States, Pedro Martinez, is clubbed to death by fearful Indians on the sands of Fort George Island, Florida
1567 - Missionaries Jeronimo da Cruz and Sebastiao da Canto, both Dominicans, arrive at Ayutthaya, Thailand
1568 - In the Philippines, Diego de Herrera baptizes Chieftain Tupas of Cebu and his son
1569 - Jeronimo da Cruz is murdered along with two newly-arrived missionaries
1570 - Ignacio Azevedo and 39 other Jesuit missionaries are killed by pirates near Palma, one of the Canary Islands, while on their way to Brazil
1571 - Capuchin friars of the 'Strict Observance' arrive on the island of Trinidad with conquistador Don Juan Ponce of Seville.
1572 - Jesuits arrive in Mexico
1573 - Large-scale evangelization of the Florida Indian nations and tribes begins with the arrival of Franciscan friars; Augustinian order enters Ecuador
1574 - Augustinian Guillermo de Santa Maria writes a treatise on the illegitimacy of the war the Spanish government was waging against the Chichimeca in the Mexican state of Michoacán
1575 - Church building constructed in Kyoto. Built in Japanese architectural style, it was popularly called the "temple of the South Barbarians."
1575 Augustinian order enters Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Panama and Venezuela.
1577 - Dominicans enter Mozambique and penetrate inland, burning Muslim mosques as they go (Kane, 71)
1578 - King of Spain orders the bishop of Lima not to confer Holy Orders on mestizos
1579 - Jesuit Alessandro Valignano arrives in Japan where, as "Visitor of Missions", he formulates a basic strategy for Catholic proselytism in that country. Valignano's adaptationism attempted to avoid cultural frictions by covering the gap between certain Japanese customs and Roman Catholic values. (Neill, 134)
1580 - Japanese Daimyo (feudal landholder) Arima Harunobu becomes Christian and takes the name Protasio
1581 - Luis de Valdivia becomes a Jesuit. After finishing his studies, he will be sent to Peru
1582 - Jesuits begin mission work in China, introduce Western science, mathematics, astronomy
1583 - Five Jesuit missionaries -- Rudolph Acquaviva, Peter Berno, Francis Aranha, Alphonsus Pacheco and Anthony Francisco -- are murdered near Goa (India)
1584 - Matteo Ricci and a Chinese scholar translate a catechism into Chinese under the title T'ien-chu sheng-chiao shih-lu (A True Account of God and the Sacred Religion)
1585 - Carmelite leader Jerome Gracian meets with Martin Ignatius de Loyola, a Franciscan missionary from China. The two sign a vinculo de hermandad misionera -- a bond of missionary brotherhood -- by which the two orders would collaborate in missionary work in Ethiopia, China, the Philippines, and the East and West Indies.
1586 - Portuguese missionary Joao dos Santos reports that locals kill elephants to protect their crops in Sofala, Mozambique.
1587 - All foreigners ordered out of Japan; Manteo becomes the first American Indian to be baptized by the Church of England
1588 - A Dominican missionary arrives in the Philippines
1589 - Francis Solano goes to Peru as a missionary
1590 - A book by Belgian pastor Hadrian Saravia has a chapter arguing that the Great Commission is still binding on the church today because the Apostles did not fulfill it completely
1591 - First Roman Catholic church built in Trinidad; First Chinese admitted as members of the Jesuit order
1593 - The Franciscans arrive in Japan and establish St. Anna's hospital in Kyoto
1594 - First Jesuit missionaries arrive in Pakistan
1595 - Dutch East India Company chaplains expand their ministry beyond the European expatriates (Olson, 114)
1596 - Jesuit missionaries travel across the island of Samar in the Philippines to establish mission centers on the eastern side
1597 - Twenty-six Japanese Christians are crucified for their faith by General Toyotomi Hideyoshi in Nagasaki, Japan. By 1640, thousands of Japanese Christians will have been martyred.
1598 - Spanish missionaries push north from Mexico into what is now the state of New Mexico
1599 - Jesuit Francisco Fernandez goes to what is now the Jessore District of Bangladesh and, with the permission of King Pratapaditya, builds a church there

1600 to 1699

1600 - French missionaries arrive in the area of what is now Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan
1601 - Matteo Ricci goes to China (Tucker, 69); 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 (Kane, 64)
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
1610 - Chinese mathematician and astronomer Li Zhizao is baptized
1611 - Two Jesuits begin work among Mi'kmaq Indians of Nova Scotia (Kane, 68)
1612 - Jesuits found a mission for the Abenakis in Maine (Kane, 68)
1613 - Missionary Alvarus de Semedo goes to China
1614 - Anti-Christian edicts issued in Japan
1615 - French missionaries in