Theodor August Christian Sørensen (25 May 1873 – 2 September 1959) was a Norwegian missionary known for his work in Tibet.

Biography

He was born in Kristiansand as the son of a carpenter. He experienced a religious revival in 1891, and joined the

Salvation Army Salvation (from Latin: ''salvatio'', from ''salva'', 'safe, saved') is the state of being saved or protected from harm or a dire situation. In religion and theology, ''salvation'' generally refers to the deliverance of the soul from sin and its c ...

. From 1892 to 1894 he attended a bible school in the United Kingdom. He then went to British India with the Tibetan Pioneer Mission, settled near the Tibetan border and undertook studies of its language and religions together with

Edvard Amundsen Edvard Amundsen (January 27, 1873 – December 21, 1928) was a Norwegian Lutheran missionary in China and India near the borders of Tibet. He is also remembered as an explorer and Tibetan specialist. Biography Amundsen was born in Lille Kir ...

.Kaul, H. K., & Hari Krishen Kaul. 1997. ''Travellers' India: An Anthology''. Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. lx. He wanted to travel within Tibet, but as this was rejected by the British colonial power, he moved to

Chengtu Chengdu (, ; simplified Chinese: 成都; pinyin: ''Chéngdū''; Sichuanese pronunciation: , Standard Chinese pronunciation: ), alternatively romanized as Chengtu, is a sub-provincial city which serves as the capital of the Chinese province ...

Chinese Empire The earliest known written records of the history of China date from as early as 1250 BC, from the Shang dynasty (c. 1600–1046 BC), during the reign of king Wu Ding. Ancient historical texts such as the ''Book of Documents'' (early chapter ...

in 1896. Here he studied the Chinese language, and proclaimed that learning Chinese was a "delight" compared to Tibetan. From 1899 to 1923 he lived and worked for the

China Inland Mission OMF International (formerly Overseas Missionary Fellowship and before 1964 the China Inland Mission) is an international and interdenominational Evangelical Christian missionary society with an international centre in Singapore. It was founded i ...

in Tatsienlu,

Szechwan Sichuan (; zh, c=, labels=no, ; zh, p=Sìchuān; alternatively romanized as Szechuan or Szechwan; formerly also referred to as "West China" or "Western China" by Protestant missions) is a province in Southwest China occupying most of the ...

. He did not particularly succeed as a missionary, but conducted several longer travels in

Eastern Tibet Kham (; ) is one of the three traditional Tibetan regions, the others being Amdo in the northeast, and Ü-Tsang in central Tibet. The original residents of Kham are called Khampas (), and were governed locally by chieftains and monasteries. Kham ...

and became known for collecting Tibetan scripture. Among others, he found a series of written sheets in the ruins of a monastery. Upon returning to Norway in 1923, he donated a 314-volume collection of Tibetan Buddhist canon to the University of Christiania. The texts particularly pertained to

Bön ''Bon'', also spelled Bön () and also known as Yungdrung Bon (, "eternal Bon"), is a Tibetan culture, Tibetan religious tradition with many similarities to Tibetan Buddhism and also many unique features.Samuel 2012, pp. 220-221. Bon initiall ...

and Nyingma schools of Tibetan Buddhism. For his contribution, Sørensen was declared a Fellow of the

Royal Anthropological Institute The Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland (RAI) is a long-established anthropological organisation, and Learned Society, with a global membership. Its remit includes all the component fields of anthropology, such as biolo ...

in 1922 and the

Royal Geographical Society The Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers), often shortened to RGS, is a learned society and professional body for geography based in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1830 for the advancement of geographical scien ...

in 1923. In 1953 he was proclaimed Knight, First Class of the Royal Norwegian Order of St. Olav. He lived the rest of his life in Norway, except for the years 1925 to 1936 which he spent in Peking. He had married fellow missionary Cecilie "Cissi" Rasmussen (1870–1955) in March 1904 in

Kiating Leshan, formerly known as Jiading or Jiazhou, is a prefecture-level city located at the confluence of the Dadu and Min rivers in Sichuan Province, China. Leshan is located on the southwestern fringe of the Sichuan Basin in southern Sichuan, abou ...

. Also, he rejoined the

Church of Norway The Church of Norway ( nb, Den norske kirke, nn, Den norske kyrkja, se, Norgga girku, sma, Nöörjen gærhkoe) is an evangelical Lutheran denomination of Protestant Christianity and by far the largest Christian church in Norway. The church b ...

in 1924. He died in September 1959 in Kristiansand. In 2009, his grandniece donated another set of scriptures to the University of Oslo.

Publications

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Soerensen, Theo 1873 births 1959 deaths Norwegian Methodist missionaries Methodist missionaries in China Tibetologists People from Kristiansand Norwegian expatriates in India Norwegian expatriates in China Protestant missionaries in Tibet Protestant missionaries in Sichuan Fellows of the Royal Geographical Society Norwegian Salvationists Norwegian Lutherans

Biography

Publications

See also

References