FranciscanFriars

….. the  Bible in Chinese

Friar Gabriel Allegra OFM was born in 1907 in Sicily, Italy. He entered the Franciscan minor seminary in 1918 at the age of eleven years, the novitiate in 1923 and studied at the Franciscan International College of St Anthony in Rome in 1926. In 1928 he attended the celebrations of the sixth centenary of John of Montecorvino. Discovering that the Bible had not yet been translated into Chinese, he resolved to do so, a task which was to take the next forty years of his life.

Friar Gabriel Allegra, OFM was ordained a priest in 1930 and soon thereafter sailed for Mainland China determined to dedicate himself to learning the language, culture and traditions of the Chinese people and complete the Bible translation.

He arrived at the mission in Hunan, southern China in July 1931. With the help of his Chinese teacher, he prepared a first draft of the translation of the Bible around 1937. Fatigued from the translation effort, he returned to Italy for three years where he continued his studies in biblical languages and biblical archaeology.

In 1940 he left Italy again and sailed from San Francisco for Japan on his way to China. He attempted to return to Hunan again, but the Second Sino-Japanese War had already started and he was forced to go further north to Beijing instead.

Friar Gabriel Allegra, OFM organised a team of Chinese Franciscan priests to work with him on the translation of the Bible and inaugurated the Studium Biblicum Franciscanum in Beijing in 1945. But as the Chinese Civil War ended, the  Communist Party took over China and Friar Gabriel Allegra, OFM and his team had to leave for Hong Kong.

In 1948 the first three volumes of the Old Testament were published and over the next twelve years eight more volumes with explanatory notes were produced by the team, including the New Testament. Friar Gabriel Allegra, OFM also translated Chinese classics into Latin, opening up Chinese literature to Western academic consciousness.

In the 1950s, Friar Gabriel Allegra, OFM initiated the setting up of a Sociological Institute in Singapore to translate the social teachings of the Catholic Church into Chinese and this work challenged the communist propaganda that was running rampant.

In 1965, Friar Gabriel Allegra, OFM organised the first Ecumenical Bible Exhibition in Hong Kong. On Christmas Day in 1968, he saw the culmination of his forty year effort with the first publication of the one volume Chinese Bible. In 1975 the Chinese Bible Dictionary was published.

Friar Gabriel Allegra, OFM died in Hong Kong in 1976 while working on his memoirs. He was declared venerable by the Holy See in 1994 and his decree of beatification was promulgated in 2002.