John of Montecorvino

John of Montecorvino, OFM (Italian: Giovanni da Montecorvino; 1247–1328) was an Italian Franciscan missionary, traveller and statesman, founder of the earliest Latin Catholic missions in India and China, and Archbishop of Peking. He was a contemporary of Marco Polo.

He is venerated as a Servant of God in the Catholic Church.

Biography John was born at Montecorvino Rovella, in what is now Campania, Italy.

After civil and military service, he entered the Franciscan Order of Friars Minor and in 1280.

As a member of a Latin Catholic religious order which at that time was chiefly concerned with the conversion of non-Catholics, who were commissioned to consecrate John of Montecorvino archbishop of Peking and summus archiepiscopus 'chief archbishop' of all those countries; they were themselves to be his suffragan bishops. Only three of these envoys arrived safely: Gerardus, Peregrinus and Andrew of Perugia (1308). They consecrated John in 1308 and succeeded each other in the episcopal see of Zaiton (Quanzhou), which John had established. In 1312 three more Franciscans were sent out from Rome to act as suffragans, of whom at least one (Bishop Pietro da Firenze) reached East Asia. Even after his death, the mission in China endured for the next 40 years.

Legacy Toghun Temür, the last Mongol (Yuan dynasty) emperor of China, sent an embassy to the French Pope Benedict XII in Avignon, in 1336. The embassy was led by a Genoese in the service of the Mongol emperor, Andrea di Nascio, and accompanied by another Genoese, Andalò di Savignone. These letters from the Mongol ruler represented that they had been eight years (since Montecorvino's death) without a spiritual guide, and earnestly desired one. The Pope replied to the letters, and appointed four ecclesiastics as his legates to the Khan's court. In 1338, a total of 50 ecclesiastics were sent by the Pope to Peking, among them John of Marignolli. In 1353 John returned to Avignon, and delivered a letter from the great Khan to Pope Innocent VI. Soon, the Chinese rose up and drove the Mongols from China, thereby establishing the Ming Dynasty (1368). By 1369, all Christians, whether Latin Catholic or Syro-Oriental, were expelled by the Ming rulers.

Six centuries later, Montecorvino acted as the inspiration for another Franciscan, the Blessed Gabriele Allegra to go to China and complete the first translation of the Catholic Bible into Chinese in 1968.