Jonas King

Jonas King(born July 29, 1792,Hawley, Massachusetts- May 22, 1869,Athens,Greece) was aCongregationalclergyman from theUnited Stateswho worked as a missionary, mainly inGreece.His activities in Greece were interrupted by a spell ofreligious persecutionwhich was finally resolved through diplomatic negotiations between the United States and Greek governments.

Biography

He graduated fromWilliams Collegein 1816, and fromAndover Theological Seminaryin 1819, and was ordained to the ministry of the Congregational Church inCharleston, South Carolina,on December 17, 1819. He then pursued missionary work inSouth Carolinafor six months and returned to Andover for a year of graduate work.

WhenAmherst Collegewas founded in 1821, he was appointed professor of the oriental languages and literature, and held the chair until 1828, although he spent the years from 1823-25 working for thePalestinemission of theAmerican Board of Commissioners for Foreign MissionsinSyriadistributingBiblesand preaching. To prepare himself for his missionary duties outside the United States, he had gone toParisand studiedArabicunderDe Sacy.

After a brief stay in the United States in 1827/28, he was invited to accompany one of the vessels sent with supplies to the Greeks. King married Anna Aspasia Mengous on the island ofTinos.She was the sister of prominent Greek-American author and educator Petros Mengous. Anna Mengous was the head of the Ladies School at Tinos for Ancient Greek. King established the school.

He continued his connection with the American Board in December of that year, and in 1831 moved to Athens, where he spent the rest of his life as a missionary. In 1832, he had established five schools, and in 1835 began to instruct a class in theology. In 1839, a schoolhouse was finished. King's teachings soon attracted the attention of the authorities of theGreek Orthodox Church,and in 1845 he was excommunicated by the synod of Athens. In 1846, and again in 1847, he was cited to appear before a criminal court. In 1847, a series of articles entitled "The Orgies of King" appeared in an Athens newspaper purporting to describe shameful ceremonies that had been enacted at the missionary's house. In consequence of a popular clamor, King fled toItaly,but in 1848 a friendly ministry came into power, and he returned to Athens.

In 1851, he was appointed U. S. consular agent in Athens, and, on March 23, 1851, some Greeks, who had come to one of his services at his house for the purpose of making a disturbance, were dispersed only by his display of the American flag. After this a new prosecution was begun against him, and, in March 1852, he was condemned to fifteen days' imprisonment and to exile. He had been accused of "reviling the God of the universe and the Greek religion," though he had done no more than preach the ordinaryCalvinisticdoctrines, and though Greece enjoyed nominal religious freedom.

King appealed from his prison to theAreopagus,which refused to reverse the decision of the lower court, and he then formally protested against his sentence in the name of the U.S. government. King was then temporarily released, and in the following summerGeorge P. Marsh,thenminister to Turkey,was charged by the U. S. government with the special investigation of his case, and also to look into King'stitleto a lot of land, the use of which he had been deprived of by the Greek government for 20 years with no compensation.

The diplomatic correspondence, which fills 200 printed pages of executive documents, resulted in the issue of an order by theking of Greecein 1854, freeing him from the penalty that had been imposed. The action of the U. S. government in this case was of great service to the cause of religious liberty in Greece.

Albert Haven Slocomb, well known for his letter to John Hay questioning the American citizenship ofIon Hanford Perdicaris,traveled to Athens and stayed in King's household between November 1861 and May 1862.

In 1865, King was elected a member of theAmerican Antiquarian Society.After this, King remained in Athens until his death. A GreekProtestantchurch was erected in Athens in 1874 as the fruit of his labors. Princeton gave him the degree ofD.D.in 1832.

Writings

He revised and translated into modern Greek sixteen volumes, among which wereBaxter'sSaints' RestandLyman Beecher'sSermons on Intemperance.He published a "Farewell Letter" inArabicto his friends in Syria (1825), which was translated into various European languages, put on theIndex ExpurgatoriusatRome,and produced a great effect in the Eastern Churches.

Other works include:

• The Defence of Jonas King,in Greek (Athens, 1845)
• Speech before the Areopagus,in Greek (New York, 1847)
• Exposition of an Apostolic Church,in Greek (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1851; French and Italian translations at Malta)
• Religious Rites of an Apostolical Church,in Greek (Athens, 1851)
• Hermeneutics of the Sacred Scriptures,in Greek (1857)
• Sermons,in Greek (2 vols., 1859)
• Synoptical View of Palestine and Syria,in French (Greek translation, Athens, 1859)
• Miscellaneous Works,in Greek, with the documents relating to his various trials (Athens, 1859-1860)
• The Oriental Church and the Latin,in English (1865)

References

• This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain:Wilson, J. G.;Fiske, J.,eds. (1892)."King, Jonas".Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography.New York: D. Appleton.This work in turn cites
  • Life of Jonas Kingby F. E. H. H. (New York, 1879).

External links

• "King, Jonas".Encyclopedia Americana.1920.