J. C. F. Heyer
John Christian Frederick Heyer; Missionary to India, 1873
(From: Festivals and Commemorations by Philip H. Pfatteicher)
J. C. F. Heyer was the first missionary sent out by American Lutherans. He was born in Helmstedt, Germany on July 10, 1793, but because Napoleon’s troops were quartered in the city and the concern of turmoil, his parents sent him to live with his uncle in America when he was thirteen.
Heyer was active in Zion Church, Philadelphia and decided to enter the ministry at the age of seventeen. On Trinity Sunday in 1813, he preached his first sermon as a layman. After studying theology for two years under the direction of two pastors in Philadelphia, he returned to Germany to continue his education at the University of Göttingen in 1814. He returned to America and was licensed as a home missionary and began preaching the gospel in Pennsylvania and the neighboring states as far west as Missouri. He was married in 1819 and ordained by the Ministerium of Pennsylvania in 1820.
For more than 20 years Pastor Heyer travelled as a preacher and as a worker in Christian education. He was active in establishing Sunday schools in Lutheran parishes and in the work of Gettysburg College and Seminary.
After his wife died in 1839 and twenty-four years of pastoral experience in six congregations, Heyer began a new phase of his life. He acquired the fundamentals of Sanskrit and a rudimentary knowledge of medicine and was commissioned a foreign missionary on October 5, 1841. He then sailed from Boston to India and visited the mission fields of Lutherans in Tinnevelly, Tranquebar, and Madras. On July 31, 1842 he began the mission work in the Telegu-speaking region of Andhra which was to be his life’s work. On a furlough1846-1848, he established a church in Baltimore and received his M.D. degree from the University of Maryland (later Johns Hopkins).
In 1857 he returned to America as his health was nearly ruined by his strenuous life in the extreme climate of Andhra and other missionaries had come to carry on the work. Once back in the United States, however, his health revived and the indefatigable planter of churches spent twelve years of active evangelism and reorganization of parishes and schools in Minnesota and neighboring states, culminating in the formation of the Synod of Minnesota in 1860.
In August 1869 Father Heyer, as he was now affectionately called, dramatically volunteered to return to Andhra where the mission work was in a period of crisis. He stayed two years and by his selfless devotion and ascetic life he infused new spirit in the mission.
He returned to Philadelphia and served as chaplain and housefather at the new Lutheran seminary. He died during the night of November 5, 1873 in his eighty-first year and was buried in Somerset, Pennsylvania parish beside his wife. He is remembered as a pastor, teacher, missionary, and leader of the church.
Let us pray….Most holy and gracious God, we thank you for your servants who answered the call to proclaim the gospel in other lands, especially John Frederick Christian Heyer. Continue to strengthen your church everywhere around the world; continue to raise up preachers and teachers who sow the seeds of your saving love and amazing grace; continue to inspire all Christians to bear witness to you and all that you have done, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.