John of Montecorvino
Franciscan who left Persia in 1291, reached China by way of India and built churches in Khanbaliq, the Mongol capital. His letters of 1305 and 1306 report thousands of baptisms. Bishops sent by the pope consecrated him archbishop there.
John writes that he left Tabriz in Persia in 1291, stayed thirteen months in India, where his Dominican companion died, and went on to Cathay, where he gave the great khan a letter from the pope and invited him to become a Catholic. The khan, he says, “had grown too old in idolatry” but was kind to the Christians. For eleven years he worked alone. He built a church in Khanbaliq, baptised by his own estimate some six thousand people, and trained a choir of boys (John of Montecorvino, first letter, in Yule, vol. 3, pp. 45–51).
In his second letter he styles himself legate and nuncio of the Apostolic See and describes a second church close to the khan’s palace (John of Montecorvino, second letter, in Yule, vol. 3, pp. 52–58). Andrew of Perugia, one of the bishops sent to him, says that John was consecrated archbishop after they arrived and that he later made a church at Zayton a cathedral (Andrew of Perugia, letter of 1326, Yule, vol. 3, pp. 71–72). See Franciscan Envoys to the Mongols and the Church of Khanbaliq.
In the timeline
- 1245 to 1307, firm dateFranciscan Envoys to the Mongols and the Church of Khanbaliq
Innocent IV sends Franciscans to the Mongol khan in 1245 and is told in reply to come and submit. William of Rubruck debates before the khan’s umpires at the Mongol court in 1254. By 1305 John of Montecorvino has a church and a choir in Khanbaliq.