Cyprien Liausu

Cyprien Liausu, SS.CC., (born Antoine Liausu; 20 May 1802 – 29 May 1856) was a French Catholic priest of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary, a religious institute of the Roman Catholic Church. He headed the Roman Catholic mission in the Gambier Islands from 1835 to 1855.

Education Liausu was born Antoine Liausu on 20 May 1802 in Vaylats, near the town of Cahors in the Lot department in south-western France. Liausu joined the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary on 7 June 1822 in Paris and served for a period of time as a professor in Poitiers in 1822; Paris in 1825; Rennes in 1828; in 1830. In 1834, he returned to study medicine under noted French physician Joseph Récamier. He was a cousin of Chrysostome Liausu, who was part of the first group of Picpus missionary in the Gambier Islands.

Career

On 9 May 1835, Cyprien Liausu and Bishop Étienne Jérôme Rouchouze, along with two other priests Louis Désiré Maigret, Frédéric Pages and two catechist brothers: Gilbert Soulié and Fabien Costes and one lay brother Urbain Flerot arrived in the Gambier Islands to assist the Catholic mission initiated by Fathers François Caret and Honoré Laval and their assistant Brother Columba Murphy the previous year. The Picpusien missionaries were successful in converting many of the islanders despite initial hostility from the local rulers. Bishop Rouchouze baptized the native king Maputeoa and his family on 25 August 1836. Maputeoa took the name Gregorio in honor of Pope Gregory XVI who had deputed the missionaries to eastern Oceania.

From 1835 to 1855, Liausu was stationed in Rikitea on the main island of Mangareva and the residence and seat of Maputeoa. He befriended the newly converted ruler and was a co-signer of a request sent by Maputeoa in 1844 requesting that France placed the kingdom under French protectorate. Liausu served as a physician on the island and set up a hospital to treat the sick during a sudden epidemic in Rikitea. Liausu was the first to cultivate sugar cane and giraumont squash on Mangareva and planted coconut trees on the reef of Tekau.