DRAUGAS NEWS Lithuanian World Wide News in English
by Milliades Varvounis
There were only four Jesuit missionaries from the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth preaching the Word of God in the Heart of Asia in the 17th-18th centuries! Despite their small number, they left their mark on the history of the religious, scientific, and even political relations between Europe and Asia. Among these priests was Andrius Rudamina (Andrzej Rudomina), the first Lithuanian to set foot in India and behind the Great Wall of China, around 400 years ago!
From Vilnius To Rome
Andrius Rudamina was born into an old and distinguished Lithuanian noble family in the village of Rudamina in 1596, which is 6 miles from Lithuania’s capital, Vilnius. He spent his youth in Daugeliškis, located in eastern Lithuania. He continued his elementary education at home and then continued his studies at the Academia et Universitas Vilnensis Societatis Iesu (Jesuit Academy in Vilnius). There he excelled in the study of logic. After his studies in Vilnius, Rudamina furthered his education at Louvain in present-day Belgium, at that time a popular place among Lithuanian students due to the presence of a famous bishop of Vilnius, Eustachy Wołłowicz (Eustachijus Wołłowicz), and the children of Leonas Sapeiga (Lew Sapieha), a renowned Lithuanian military commander. He stayed there until January 1617, studying civil law according to the wishes of his father. In parallel to his law studies, he also demonstrated a keen interest in mathematics, physics, astronomy and geography. While Rudamina was in Louvain, he read Thesaurus politicorum aphorismorum, written by the chancellor of the diocese of Liege, Canon de Chocquier, and published in Rome in 1611. This book influenced him so much that he decided to translate it into Polish. Back in Lithuania his father died and Rudamina inherited the family estate. Despite considerable opposition from his relatives, on May 31, 1618, Rudamina decided to join the Jesuit Order. Subsequently, he handed over the family estate to the Jesuit novitiate in Vilnius.
Two years after joining the Order, on June 1, 1620, he took his first religious vows. In 1622, Rudamina, together with a small number of other young talented Jesuits from Vilnius, including celebrated poet Maciej Kazimierz Sarbiewski, were sent to Rome to continue their theological studies at the notable Collegium Romanum (Roman College). Sarbiewski described the trip to Rome through Poznań, Leipzig, Bamberg, and Ingolstadt in his poetry.
On June 3, 1623, Rudamina was ordained as a priest. Next year, he finally graduated from the Roman College. While studying in Rome Rudamina had a strange dream in which he saw the Earth and especially the part of the Far East, being carried by Jesuits. In that dream, an angel asked him for help, because those waste lands were drowning in darkness – lands without any hope of salvation. In his dream, Rudamina agreed to join the angel in this difficult mission and understood that his destiny was to become a missionary in the heart of Asia.
At that time, the Superior General of the Society of Jesus was Mutio Vitelleschi, to whom Rudamina wrote two letters in 1623 asking to go to the missions in Asia. To be convincing, he stated that separation from his family, home, friends, and country would facilitate his total dedication to work for God. This isolation from distracting human affairs would give him a unique opportunity to focus on spiritual matters and a fully sacrifice his life for God, including even martyrdom. Moreover, a beautiful evangelical metaphor of Christ as the Lord of the harvest, and his priests as laborers with their harvest of newly converted believers, was quoted by Rudamina in his letters. He ended his argumentation with an image of wide fields, white with ripened grain, ready for harvest. The promise of crops produced by previously infertile lands was his best argument requesting being chosen as a candidate for this missionary work.
Thanks to these arguments, Rudamina received with excitement the consent of Mutio Vitelleschi, to go on a mission to the exotic lands of the Far East. On September 5, 1624, Rudamina left Rome for Lisbon, with no opportunity to return to Lithuania and say good bye to his family and friends.
India And China
In the 17th century, getting from Europe to Asia wasn’t easy. Embarking on such a journey required courage and determination since you had to endure the long journey by sea around Africa; barely half of all travelers survived the perils of that journey. At the beginning of March 1625, along with eleven Portuguese Jesuits, impatient Rudamina sailed to Goa in India, which he reached after an unforgettable five-month voyage. Immediately after his arrival, the Lithuanian missionary served in hospitals, monasteries and prisons. He was eager to work hard. His supervisors, noticing his enthusiasm, tried to slow him down, having anxiety about his health. Rudamina would respond that he was strong enough and that with God’s blessing he would accomplish all that there was to do. Each day he devoted himself to God and to the service of others. During his stay in India, he fell ill with malaria, and his superiors sent him to the Portuguese-held Chinese port of Macau where the climate would be better for his health. In all, Rudamina spent 2 years in India.
From Macau Rudamina traveled to Hangzhou in Zhejiang Province of Ming China. From Hangzhou he sent books and letters in Chinese to the Jesuit Lithuanian Province in summer of 1627. Although he recovered from his malaria, he became infected with a pulmonary disease during the trip. At that time, China was still isolated from the rest of the world behind the Great Wall, so Rudamina had to quickly learn Chinese and understand the local culture and customs. He soon began to maintain and preach there, visiting patients and the poor peasants. Thanks to his extensive education, he was able to make friends with educated and influential Chinese mandarins. The natives called him Fu-an-de (the Chinese name of Andrius Rudamina). He also participated in the Kating Conference (1627), at which was discussed if the Chinese word Tianzhǔ should further designate God. This word first appeared in Michele Ruggieri’s Chinese translation of the Decalogo (Ten Commandments) in the late 16th century. Finally, the term Tianzhǔ was officially adopted by the Pope in 1715. Fr. Nicolas Trigault, a contemporary Jesuit, also reported about Rudamina’s arrival to China.
Rudamina’s superiors sent him at the end of 1628 to Fujian Province, where several hundred Christians lived in order to help Father Julius Aleni, who was known as ‘the Confucius of the West’, working together, Rudamina and Aleni published an important book, Kouduo Richao (A Diary of Oral Admonitions), in Chinese. This was an eight-volume work with some parts written entirely by Rudamina. In addition, Rudamina also wrote two manuscripts in Chinese: Shih-fu pa hsin t’u (Eighteen Illustrations of virtues and vices) and Shih fu ch’in t’ai t’u (Ten pictures of man both industrious and lazy).
The tireless Jesuit from Lithuania usually worked in the pastoral field, receiving guests, explaining the teachings of Jesus Christ and mysteries of the Christian faith, visiting and comforting the sick, as well as preaching and hearing confessions. He was particularly devoted to the sacrament of reconciliation as a confessor. Once Rudamina demonstrated a telescope and during several other discussions with the locals he talked about the basics of astronomy. His generosity became known far and wide wherever he went. It is no small wonder that the Chinese people loved him so much, thus they were convinced of his holiness and honesty.
Unfortunately, over time his health became worse and he died at the age of 35 of tuberculosis in the town of Fuzhou on September 5, 1631. Rudamina was buried in the place where Fr. Aleni would be buried later, in 1649. His tomb soon became a place of pilgrimage. His missionary work in China and his last days were described by Benedictus de Matos, the Jesuit Provincial Superior of the Fuzhou Province of China, in the manuscript Vita et mors P. Andreae Rudomina ex litteris p. Benedicti de Matos socii eiusdem in missione sinensi. A Polish missionary, Father Jan Ignacy Lewicki, wrote in a letter to the Jesuits in Lithuania: “Fr. Andrius Rudomina of happy memory is considered a confessor and spiritual father by the Chinese, who still visit his grave, seeking his intercession in their troubles and dangers, and find great comfort there.”
The Lithuanian Marco Polo
Andrius Rudamina can be considered as the Lithuanian Marco Polo, the first Lithuanian to visit India and China. In late 19th century, American Lithuanians wrote to Pope Leon XIII to ask for the canonisation of Father Andrius Rudamina. Long before the Second World War, Father Benediktas Andruška, provincial of the Jesuit Lithuanian Province, tried to start the beatification process, but it was stopped after the war with Father Andruška’s arrest and tragic death in a Soviet prison camp in the 1950s. During the celebration in 1987 of the 600th Jubilee of the Christianization of Lithuania, Lithuanian bishops and priests wrote a letter to Pope John Paul II asking him to launch the process of Rudamina’s beatification.
Rudamina fulfilled his call to be a Lithuanian missionary and a man committed to cultural dialogue. Building on the thoughts of Confucius, he broadened on the one hand the horizons of Chinese philosophical thinking by enriching it with Christian philosophy and theology, and, on the other hand, he also enriched the European Christian perspective, being one of the first Jesuit sinologists. He was an ambassador of truth, faith and love, and he searched for harmony between the ancient civilization of China and the novelty brought by Christianity. Not only the Lithuanians but all Catholics have a right to be proud of Rudamina, who rendered the name of Lithuania famous in India and in China.
A few years ago, a memorial stone dedicated to Andrius Rudamina, the first Lithuanian who landed in India in 1625, was unveiled in Old Goa by Archbishop Filipe Neri Ferrão of Goa and Daman, with the participation of Lithuanian Ambassador to India Laimonas Talat-Kelpša as honored guest. In 2025, Lithuania will commemorate the 400 year anniversary of Rudamina’s travels to India.