page_title: Telugu Christians
section_title: Lutheran Missions
hierarchical_section_title: Telugu Christians / History and spread / Northern Circars and Coastal Belt Regions / Lutheran Missions
caption_attribution_description: Heyer,_John_Christian_Frederick,_Rev.,_M.D._(1793-1873
context_page_description: Telugu Christians or Telugu Kraistava are an ethno-religious community who form the second-largest religious minority in the Indian states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. According to the Census of India, there are over a million Christians in Andhra Pradesh constituting 1.5% of the state's population, although a decrease from the 1971 census figure which was 4.2%, as a result of low birth rates and emigration. However Christians from Dalit communities in Andhra Pradesh, who form the majority of the Christian population, are forced to declare their census religion as Hindus in order to obtain reservation benefits, a population estimated as 12-13% of the state.
  Most Telugu Christians are Protestant belonging to major Indian Protestant denominations such as the predominant Anglican Church of South India, the Andhra Evangelical Lutheran Church, the Samavesam of Telugu Baptist Churches Bible Mission the Salvation Army and several others. There also is a significant number of Roman Catholics and Evangelicals.
context_section_description: The first Lutheran missionary in Andhra was John Christian Frederick Heyer who arrived in the year 1842 AD. His wife and children remained in Friedens, Somerset County, Pennsylvania where Mrs. Mary Heyer died in 1839. The following year, Heyer was asked to enter the foreign missions. He studied Sanskrit and medicine in Baltimore, and set sail for India from Boston in 1841 with three other missionary couples on the ship Brenda. Returning to the United States in 1845, he continued his missionary work and established St. John’s Church in Baltimore. At the same time, he studied medicine, and obtained his M.D. from the University of Maryland School of Medicine in 1847.
  He travelled to India a second time in 1847, spending a decade, mainly in the Guntur district of Andhra Pradesh state, in southern India, where he ministered and performed yeoman service to the people there. Supported initially by the Pennsylvania Ministerium, and later by the Foreign Mission Board of the General Synod, Heyer was also encouraged and assisted by British government officials. He established a number of hospitals and a network of schools throughout the Guntur region. The two prominent Lutheran missions in Coastal Andhra were the Guntur Mission pioneered by John Christian Frederick Heyer of the Pennsylvania Synod Society and the Rajahmundry Mission established by Rev. Luis P. Manno Valett of North German Missionary Society in July 1845. In 1927 the Andhra Evangelical Lutheran Church was constituted with the merger of both these missions.
  The history of the South Andhra Lutheran Church can be dated back to the year 1865 when Rev. August Mylius of the Hermaunsburg Evangelical Lutheran Mission (HELM), Germany began his evangelistic work in the southern part of Andhra i.e. the present districts of Nellore, Prakasham and Chittoor. World War I forced the German missionaries to leave India in 1915. In 1920, after a period of five years, the American missionaries from Ohio Lutheran Evangelical Mission (OLEM) took charge of the abruptly ended work of the German missionaries. Later in 1929 the church governance was taken over by the American Lutheran Church. The year of Indian Independence (1947) was also the birth year of the South Andhra Lutheran Church.
  The famous British officer Arthur Cotton worked alongside missionaries like Rev. Henry Fox of the Church Mission Society, Mr. Bowden (SPG) of the Godavari Delta Mission, the Lutherans and Baptists. On Sundays the labour camps where Arthur Cotton supervised resounded with the singing of Christian Hymns, songs in various languages such as Telugu, Tamil, and Tribal dialects etc. Major Cotton himself spoke in many such meetings. He and his staff worked to set a personal example of service and Christian living to the new converts. Therefore, the spread of Christianity in the coastal Andhra area could be attributed to the efforts of Arthur Cotton.
caption: John Christian Frederick Heyer, the first Lutheran missionary to Andhra Pradesh in 1842
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