Fighting enemies and finding friends: the cosmopolitan pragmatism of Jesuit residences in the Ottoman Levant

Abstract

AbstractAfter several decades of intermittent missionary work, the Society of Jesus decided to establish a permanent residence in Jerusalem. However, the competition for control of religious sites compelled the Jesuits’ Franciscan rivals to undermine their efforts. Whereas religious tensions in Jerusalem thwarted a Jesuit residence in the city, Jesuit travel writers such as Giulio Mancinelli and Diego de Salazar lauded Ottoman entrepôts for their tranquility and cosmopolitan nature and appreciated how European merchants and local Christians were amenable to the Jesuits and welcomed them into their homes. These travelogues suggest that these types of cities, not pilgrimage centres like Jerusalem, provided the Jesuits with the types of structures necessary for founding residences. In turn, Jesuit leaders abandoned Jerusalem and opted to establish themselves in the more cosmopolitan and economically vibrant Aleppo. When juxtaposed with their failure in Jerusalem, Jesuit travelogues that promoted the idea of residences in centres like Aleppo illuminate how the successes and failures of Catholic missionaries often depended on a wide array of factors, ranging from levels of intra‐Catholic cooperation to the Jesuits’ abilities to recognize and navigate the Levant's complex political, commercial, and diplomatic webs that facilitated their desire to missionize in the Christian Orient.