American board of commissioners for foreign missions (ABCFM) and "Nominal Christians": Elias Riggs (1810-1901) and American missionary activities in the Ottoman Empire

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Publication Type dissertation
School or College College of Humanities
Department World Languages & Cultures
Author Dogan, Mehmet Ali
Title American board of commissioners for foreign missions (ABCFM) and "Nominal Christians": Elias Riggs (1810-1901) and American missionary activities in the Ottoman Empire
Date 2013-05
Description In this dissertation, I investigate the missionary activities of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) in the Ottoman Empire. I am particularly interested in exploring the impact of the activities of one of the most important missionaries, Elias Riggs, on the minorities in the Ottoman Empire throughout the nineteenth century. By analyzing the significance of his missionary work and the fruits of his intellectual and linguistic ability, we can better understand the efforts of the ABCFM missionaries to seek converts to the Protestant faith in the Ottoman Empire. I focus mainly on the period that began with Riggs' sailing from Boston to Athens in 1832 as a missionary of the ABCFM until his death in Istanbul on January 17, 1901. Elias Riggs was one of the most influential missionaries in the Ottoman Empire throughout the nineteenth century, and his life was associated with a period of significant change in the Ottoman Empire and the modern history of missionaries in the Middle East. He was instrumental in the ABCFM's decision to develop a Protestant publishing enterprise for the peoples in the region. In addition to his editorship of religious periodicals, he published a variety of books for the mission. He was a member of the translation committee for the Turkish Bible and he worked several years on translating the Bible into Armenian and Bulgarian. He had an exceptionally long career and worked in many parts of the region.
Type Text
Publisher University of Utah
Subject ABCFM; American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions; American Missionaries; Elias Riggs; nominal Christians; Ottoman Empire
Dissertation Institution University of Utah
Dissertation Name Doctor of Philosophy
Language eng
Rights Management Copyright © Mehmet Ali Dogan 2013
Format Medium application/pdf
Format Extent 3,710,955 bytes
ARK ark:/87278/s6668v35
Setname ir_etd
ID 196003
Reference URL https://collections.lib.utah.edu/ark:/87278/s6668v35