Hans Peter Børresen

Hans Peter Boerresen (29 November 1825 – 23 September 1901) was a Danish missionary to India. He and Norwegian missionary Lars Olsen Skrefsrud were the founders of Northern Evangelical Lutheran Church—centered in North India - Bihar, Assam, and Bengal - extending into Nepal and Bhutan.[1][2]

Hans Peter Børresen

Missionary work
Commemorative plaque in Church of Our Saviour in Copenhagen

Hans Peter Boerresen was sent to India in 1864 by Berlin based Gossner Missionary Society to evangelizing North Indian aborigines. He was initially placed at station Purulia, now in West Bengal to work along with Lars Olsen Skrefsrud.[1][3]

In 1867, he and Lars Olsen Skrefsrud left the Gossner Mission along with Edward Colpys Johnson, from the Baptist Missionary Society. They founded Ebenezer Mission station at Benagaria in the Santal Parganas. They started the new mission station to work among aborigines (Santals, Bodos, Bengalis, and Bihari people) on their own. Boerresen became fundraiser for the mission, while Skrefsrud gave the mission its dynamic character and resolute sense of purpose. Skrefsrud learned the Santali language and published a Santali grammar in 1873, which was of higher quality than the prior work of Jeremiah Phillips which dated to 1852.[1][4]

In 1868, he and Skrefsrud settled in Assam where they founded Northern Evangelical Lutheran Church, which centered on North India, with members from among Santals (in majority), Bengali, and Boros. In 1877, Børresen returned to Copenhagen where he continued his work as a priest.[5][6]

See also

References
  1. Soren, Sagram Santosh Kumar.; Paul Olaf Bodding (1999). Santalia: Catalogue of Santali Manuscripts in Oslo. NIAS Press. p. 2. ISBN 8787062739. ISBN 9788787062732.
  2. Tormod Engelsviken: Hans Peter Børresen (Store norske leksikon)
  3. Gossner Missionary Society (Christian Cyclopedia. Concordia Publishing House)
  4. "The Lutheran Churches of India". lutheranforum.org. Archived from the original on September 6, 2012. Retrieved April 17, 2012. two missionaries, the Norwegian Lars Olsen Skrefsrud (1840–1910) and the Danish Hans Peter Boerresen (1825–1901) started evangelizing the Santals. Both Skrefsrud and Boerresen had been working with the German Gossner Missionary Society.
  5. "PARTNER ORGANIZATIONS - Northern Evangelical Lutheran Church, India". lutheranpartners.org. Retrieved April 16, 2012. The Church was founded in 1868 by Hans Peter Boerresen, a Dane, and Lars Olsen Skrefsrud, a Norwegian.
  6. "Who is the Northern Evangelical Lutheran Church and what are its ministries?". elca.org. Retrieved April 16, 2012. The Santals, one of India's tribal peoples, form the majority. The Boros—originally a Mongolian tribe but long in Assam — and the Bengali comprise the rest of the membership.
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