Hindiyya al-'Ujaimi

Hindiyya (born Hannah al-‘Ujaimi; 1720-1798), (other spellings: Anna 'Adjaymi, or Ajjeymi, Ajami, also known as the Hindiyé, or Hendiye, i.e. the Indian) was a Maronite mystic nun which claimed to have many visions of Jesus and Mary. She was a central figure in the history of the Maronite Church in the 18th century. Hindiyya founded in 1750 the controversial religious order of the Sacred Heart of Jesus,[1] which was dissolved by order of pope Pius VI in 1779.

Life

Hindiyya was born on August 6, 1720 in Aleppo[2][3] to Shukrallah Ujaimi and mother Helene Hawwa both devout Maronite Christians. Similar to other Maronite Christians of the time the Ujaimi’s were merchants who were getting increasingly wealthy due to commercial treaties signed between European powers and the Ottoman’s during 1675. Hindiyya had a brother named Nicholas and sisters although the exact number of siblings is unclear.

Hindiyya studied under the Jesuits which encouraged her in developing her spirituality and supported her by sharing stories of other young women who had chosen a religious life over the secular path. Hindiyya in turn embraced many Roman Catholic devotions, as the frequent auricular Confession.[4] The support from the Jesuits lasted until 1748.

She moved from Aleppo to Berke, Lebanon, where on March 25, 1750 she founded her own religious order entitled to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, a Western devotion she imported among the Maronites and that made forthwith success. She claimed to have visions of Christ, to make miracles, to speak with Christ in mystical unions[4] and to be united with the Trinity in a unique way.[5] She soon became considered as a living saint and almost an object of veneration.[4]

The majority of the Maronte clergy, as well as the Patriarch Simon Awad, and later the following patriarchs Tobias El Khazen and Joseph Estephan firmly supported Hindiyya, while on the contrary the Jesuits, as well as some Maronites, became more and more mistrustful of her doctrine and personal cult. In 1752 Pope Benedict XIV ordered the first inspection, carried out by a Franciscan, Desiderio da Casabasciana, who, initially hostile, became himself a supporter of Hindiyya.

The case of Hindiyya made a comeback under the patriarchate of Joseph Estephan, also because the Patriarch was so fond of the devotion imported by Hindiyya that he made the Sacred Heart a holy day of obligation for the Maronites. New inspections were carried out, by Valeriano di Prato, Custodian of the Holy Land, in 1773 and finally by Pietro Craveri of Moretta in 1775 who took a stand against the doctrines of Hindiyya. The affair of Hindiyya combined with the opposition to Joseph Estephan by the Khazen Sheikhes and by the bishops Michael El Khazen and Michael Fadel.[1] Finally in 1779 Pope Pius VI issued a decree stating that Hindiyya is deluded and her revelations and doctrines false. Moreover, the Pope abolished her Order of Sacred Heart and he suspended the Patriarch Joseph Estephan from all functions appointing Michael El Khazen as Vicar.

Patriarch Joseph Estephan was restored in power only in 1784, while Hindiyya lived the rest of her life as a confined nun in various convents and her works were proscribed. She died on February 13, 1798 in the convent of Our Lady of the Fields.[2]

Personality

Hindiyya was different from young women her age and was often ridiculed for her decision to abstain from acts she deemed “materialistic” but were considered social norms. She believed she was created to dedicate her life to Christ and spoke to religious figures of visions she had of Christ in which he instructed her to establish a confraternity: “at the age of four or five I would feel in the heart a clear voice telling me that I will establish a confraternity of men and women and that I will be its president, that is its founder…”. As a young woman Hindiyya was sought out by young men and women who admired her devotion, this turned into ridicule once she became of marriageable age and refused to marry. Her decision to remain single and devout her life to Christ was an explicit rejection of social boundaries adhered to by young women her age and displayed how dedicated she was to her goals.[6]

Role of Women

The measures she took in an effort to worship Christ and strengthen her relationship were often ridiculed by her mother, siblings, and neighbors who felt she was depriving herself. Her behavior was antisocial and viewed as extreme, she refrained from speaking to her father on a particular instance claiming, “Our Lord Jesus Christ said that whosoever does not leave his father and mother…will not deserve my love ”. Her decision to avoid socializing and participating in social rituals expected of young women her age was seen as rebellious and she was the victim of tremendous ridicule. She was determined to act on the visions she had as a young girl, she sought to establish a confraternity and was determined to surpass the gender roles assigned to women by religious figures.

Doctrine

During the inspections to her Congregation held in the 1770s, Hindiyya was charged of many heterodox doctrines in comparison with the Maronite historical doctrine, for example her claims that she was united with Christ in a hypostatic, real and not accidental union, that her knowledge is more perfect than that of the angels, that it is by her that Jesus judges the souls of deaths, that she is infallible, that many verses of the Bible refer to her, that she is greater than Mary, that because of her union with Christ she is to be whorshipped. Hindiyya was charged also of many illicit liturgical behaviors, as to take the Communion when she wants, not to fast, to claim spiritual jurisdictional and even to confess.[3]

Influence

Hindiyya's figure and spirituality had a large influence on a similar sect, the Worshippers of the Sacred Heart, based in Aleppo and developed a few years later, which was founded by Margaret Baptist and supported by a French priest, Nicholas Gaudez. This sect was opposed by the Melkite Patriarch Maximos III Mazloum and it was censored by Propaganda Fide in 1838 and definitely suppressed in 1849.[3]

Notes

  1. 1 2 Leeuwen, Richard (1994). Notables and Clergy in Mount Lebanon: the Khazin Sheiks and the Maronite Church. Boston: Brill Academic Publishers. pp. 135–138. ISBN 90-04-09978-6.
  2. 1 2 J.M. Fiey (1993). "Hindyé". Dictionnaire d'histoire et de géographie ecclésiastiques 24. Paris: Letouzey et Ané. pp. 603–604.
  3. 1 2 3 Charon (Korolevsky), Cyril (1999) [1902]. History of the Melkite Patriarchates 2. Eastern Christian Publications. pp. 360–389. ISBN 1-892278-02-2.
  4. 1 2 3 Makdisi, Ussama (2009). Artillery of Heaven: American Missionaries and the Failed Conversion of the Middle East. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. pp. 77–78. ISBN 978-0-8014-7575-7.
  5. ↑ Frazee, Charles A. (2006). Catholics and Sultans: The Church and the Ottoman Empire 1453-1923. Cambridge University Press. pp. 195–198. ISBN 978-0-521-02700-7.
  6. ↑ Akram Khater (2005). "A Deluded Woman: Hindiyya al-'Ujaimi and the Politics of Gender and Religion in Eighteenth-Century Bilad al-Sham". Archaeology and History in the Lebanon (The lebanese British Friends of the National Museum) (22): 6–21.
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